Mad Boys (Blue Ivy Prep, #2)(18)

“How many, Harley?” I asked as soon as I found the RA.

“Four…four are missing…”

Four. I twisted, scanning the quad. I’d just brought out three or four. Where…

Aubrey Miller was racing past me back to the building when I caught her arm. “No, stay out. It’s too dangerous in there.”

“KC didn’t make it out. She was right behind me then she wasn’t.”

Shit.

“Stay,” I ordered before running back into the building. The hot air billowing out was suffocating. “KC,” I yelled as I took the steps two at a time. “Kaitlin…”

My heart stopped on the second floor where I found my blue-haired menace struggling with a pair of large guitar cases.

“What the hell are you doing?” I tried to wrench one away from her and she held onto it.

“I can’t leave them,” she said in a voice so raw it hurt my soul to hear it. “I need them…”

“They aren’t worth your life.”

“Yes,” she countered. “They are.”

“Give me one,” I ordered. “Let’s go.”

“Don’t leave it?” The fact she sounded like she was begging in between coughs rankled me.

“I won’t,” I said. “I promise. Come on, let me get you and the guitars out of here.”

Finally, she relented and I took the larger of the two cases. Then she let me pull her to her feet. She staggered but managed to stay on them. We were descending the stairs together, and she coughed with every step. It was a violent struggle to breathe.

“C’mon,” I encouraged her, hating my own raw cough.

The smoke was thick, the visibility low, but I’d already done this route three times. I knew how to get us out of here. She stayed with me, her hand firmly clasped in mine as we made it to the doorway.

If not for how tight she dug her fingers into my hand, I would have missed her wavering and the sudden laxness as she passed out. Guitars, be damned. I turned and got her over my shoulder then seized the guitar to take with us.

Outside, I carried her, nearly dropping the guitar twice. She’d inhaled a lot of smoke; we both had.

“I have it,” Aubrey was saying as she pried the guitar from my hand. I kept going, racing KC over to where they had the triage set up.

“She needs oxygen.” I put her down, then went back for the second guitar. She’d thought they were worth her life, so I wasn’t leaving the damn thing.

When I got back, she had an oxygen mask on. The flashing lights of emergency vehicles strobed through the smoke and the darkness. The sounds of sobbing filled the air. KC still struggled to breathe, even with the mask on. She coughed and kept trying to remove it even if her eyes were closed.

“Don’t,” I snapped in a croaking voice. “You could suffocate without oxygen right now.” Her throat could have smoke damage. Worse, her lungs. I turned away to cough, my eyes were irritated and even my breathing had turned to wheezing.

“Good advice,” a paramedic said as he slid in next to me. “Let’s get you some oxygen, too.”

“She needs a hospital,” I said. KC’s eyes were red and irritated. Worse, there was a hint of blue around her lips and not just her hair.

“We’ve got her,” the paramedic assured me, before he handed me a mask to put on. The coughing hurt, but the oxygen helped. KC suddenly tried to sit up, her expression wild.

I yanked off my mask. “They’re right there,” I told her in a raw voice. “Your guitars are safe.”

She sagged like someone had cut her strings. The paramedic got the mask more firmly set on her face. He was checking her vitals and then shooting me a look when she grabbed at my hand.

I held my mask in place and let her grip my hand as I watched the fire department get the water hoses on. The building was a loss. Even if they hosed down all the flames, I doubted whatever was left would be remotely salvageable.

“You want to go to the hospital with her?” the paramedic asked. “We’re triaging right now. She’s breathing, we want to keep her on the oxygen and then we’re gonna transport. We have others with more serious wounds who are going first.”

“I’ll stay with her,” I said. “Then yes, I want to go to the hospital with her.”

I needed to know she was going to be all right, especially if she was going to make such crazy calls where her life was concerned.

Her eyes were closed again, as she dug her nails into my hand until it felt like she wanted to draw blood. I didn’t try to pull away. Instead, I just leaned toward her and said, “I'm here, Kaitlin. I got you. You're going to be okay."

Far too briefly, her eyes flickered open and she focused on me, then they closed again. I had to keep both her mask and mine in place. It wasn’t long before Aubrey joined us. She shot me a narrow-eyed look, but I wasn’t going anywhere. Neither was she.

When it was our turn to transport in the ambulance, she gripped the guitars then stared at me and the vehicle.

“I’ll stay with her,” I promised. “Look after those.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she said finally. “You better damn well take care of her.”

I didn’t offer any platitudes, but I wasn’t going anywhere until KC told me to fuck off herself. It wasn’t until I was sitting in the ambulance with a fresh oxygen mask that I caught sight of my brothers. The pair of them stared at me and then at her.