Page 59 of Protecting Christina

I ran toward the front door, but one of the officers stopped me. “Whoa!”

“Let me go,” I shouted. “Someone I love is in there.”

“We don’t know for sure that the women are inside,” he said, and I let him pull me away.

Mainly because I wasn’t sure if my heart was hammering because he’d assumed correctly that I was referring to my sister or because an image of Will had popped into my head when I’d said it.

I ran my fingers through my hair and pulled at the roots. “Come on,” I cried. “What’s taking so long? They should have come out by now.”

Fire licked at the front blinds and tore through them. I dropped down to my haunches on the sidewalk and rested my chin on my clasped hands. “Come on, come on,” I whispered.

I’d closed my eyes for a few seconds when one of the officers yelled, “Someone’s coming out!”

Jake stepped out of the front door carrying a woman over his shoulder, followed by Christian and Jager, who steadied a woman with one arm over each of their shoulders. Her head was down, but she was keeping up with their pace.

I rushed over to them. Everyone was coughing, and soot covered their faces and clothes. I was thankful to see them all breathing. I looked over my shoulder, back up at the house. The doorway was dark and empty.

“Where’s Will and my sister?”

Jake’s brow furrowed. “They were right behind us.”

Without another word, Christian ran toward the house and I took off behind him.

But just as we approached the front porch, a beam of wood broke through the front window and Christian used his body to cover me from the shattered glass. “Stay back,” he shouted.

But I wouldn’t listen. My only thought was that Will and Donna were in trouble, and I needed to help them.

“I can’t help them if I’m worrying about you,” he yelled as I stepped onto the porch.

The heat from inside the house hit me as soon as I took the second step. How did they get through it? How would Will and Donna?

Sirens blasted behind me and I ignored them.

I was just about to get onto my hands and knees and crawl inside when a figure emerged from the smoke and shadows inside.

His face was covered by a cloth, exposing only his eyes, but I recognized him. “Will,” I breathed and my chest tightened. “Will!”

He carried a woman—it had to be my sister—in his arms. One arm underneath her neck, the other under her knees. Her face was pressed against his bare chest, but I recognized Donna’s hair. His biceps bulged and the tendons in his neck protruded as he held her.

Tears sprung to my eyes as joy brimmed at my lids.

Will’s eyes remained focused as he navigated through the smoke and fallen debris.

Firefighters rushed up the porch steps and one took Donna from Will’s arms and put her on a stretcher. I tried to move toward her, but two paramedics already surrounded her and I knew I would just be in their way.

I turned to Will, whose eyes blazed as hot as the fire behind him. “I told you to stay back.”

I blinked, trying to recall our conversation before he went into the house, and couldn’t remember anything except the vision of him rescuing my sister. He had looked like some hero out of an action movie. I’d never been attracted to those men before, thinking them unrealistic. As Will stood there, his chest heaving, heat emanating from his body, I knew he was very much real.

I threw myself into his arms, and he pulled me closer. An intense heat radiated through my body and I closed my eyes, not wanting to think about how I’d almost lost him and Donna.

Thank you, I wanted to whisper, but I scolded him instead. “You could have been killed in there.”

I hugged him tighter.

“I wasn’t going to leave without your sister,” he breathed into my neck and tears gathered in my eyes again.,

“Thank you,” I said, finally, and I pressed my lips together.

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