Page 49 of Inferno

“Quiet,” he snaps. “I’m trying to find one.” He turns around several times, and then water begins flying from his hands.

“I’ll douse the flames as much as I can while you go in,” he says. “I know you can’t control the fire, but at least it can’t hurt you.”

“It can kill Emmy, though,” I snap before jumping up to grab the windowsill.

I pull myself through the opening, and push past the wall of fire. I can feel the heat, and it’s not pleasant, but Viking’s right… it can’t actually hurt me.

It’s an odd feeling, walking through what only firefighters with gear on walk through. It’s different from the last time, the first and only time. I was terrified then, but more for me. Now, I’m terrified for Emmy.

And my fear of losing her fuels me in a way I never thought possible.

Seeing through the flames and smoke is impossible, so I feel my way through the house. I trip over the bottom step but manage to right myself and crawl up them. Somehow, that staircase hasn’t collapsed.

“Emmy!” I shout, the smoke making me cough, although I think it’s more from muscle memory since I don’t actually breathe.

Unlike when she was a mere child, I don’t get a response.

C’mon, man, you have to find her.

“Emmy!”

I clear the first room, then the second, and then the third. I’m about to give up when my hand falls against a fourth door.

“Please, Odin, let her be in here,” I mumble under my breath.

I straighten to my full height and lift my leg to kick the door in.

“Emmy, are you in here?”

No response. I move forward cautiously. One step, then two, then three, four, five. Midway through step six, the toe of my boot connects with something.

I reach out, and my hands are met with skin. Hot, puckered skin.

No!

Certain that it’s Emmy, I lift the body into my arms and race back downstairs. Beams fall all around us, but I dodge each one, intent on making it outside with my soulmate.

The room I entered through is smoldering, Viking’s water having doused most of the fire in that area. I hand her through the window to my president, and he backs away from the structure several hundred feet before lowering her to the ground.

I jump down and run to join them, dropping to my knees in the grass beside Emmy’s lifeless body.

“C’mon, love, stay with me,” I beg as I lean over to listen for breath sounds. Nothing. “No. You don’t get to die on me. Not today.”

I start CPR, solely focused on saving her. I could be selfish and let her pass away so I can be with her for eternity, but I only want that if it’s what she wants.

And we haven’t exactly discussed the particulars of how our relationship would work out.

“Inferno.” Viking’s hand settles on my shoulder. “Inferno, stop.”

I glance over my shoulder at him. “No fucking way.”

“She’s gone, brother,” he says, trying to pull me away from her.

“She’s not gone. She can’t be gone.”

Even as I say the words, I know them to be false. Emmy hasn’t taken a single breath since I found her. She has no pulse, no heartbeat. Shit, she’s barely recognizable.

But I recognize her. My soul recognizes her.

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