Page 62 of Chasing Lynda

“How—” Dodge springs immediately into action, getting out of bed and putting on his discarded underwear and his jeans. “Let’s go! Lynda, we need to go!”

I’m frozen in my spot. My eyes search frantically for my dress. Where the fuck did I throw it?

Dodge realizes why I’m hesitating and throws his shirt at me. “Put this on, Lynda, we must go.”

I do as I’m told. Bennett helps me out of bed and I hold the shirt closed with my hands, too stunned to even try to fasten the buttons. There’s a lot of noise around us, aside from the guys’ agitated voices.

I realize they’re sirens. Probably fire trucks, maybe police cars.

We scurry out of the bedroom and into the penthouse main living area.

“Where’s Carter?” Dodge asks.

Zane answers him as he opens a small door that leads into a service entrance and a few flights of stairs. “We can’t take the elevator,” he explains, gesturing toward the private elevator doors that open directly into the penthouse; there’s smoke coming out of the gap in them. “Come on, we must leave!”

We run down the stairs, Bennett’s hand is closed around mine and he’s half guiding me, half pulling me.

Two floors down, I see smoke and fire raging behind the glass panes of the fire door that isolates the floor from the stairs.

I realize that’s the floor where my room is. Or was. I stop, thinking that all my meager belongings are in that room and by the look of it, they’ve gone up in flames.

Bennett follows my gaze, pausing for one second. “There might be people trapped on that floor and the floor below. The fire department is trying to get in from the front windows but there’s fire everywhere.” His voice is full of foreboding dread. “Come on, Lynda. We need to get out of here.”

I follow him and the others for what could be two or two-hundred flights of stairs, we don’t stop until Zane opens the safety exit door on the ground floor and we spill out onto the fire assembly point; I shiver the in the chilly air of this late spring night, but I can finally fill my lungs, taking big gulps of air.

The scene that awaits us outside is utter chaos. There are several police and fire department vehicles. Ladders are propped against the ten story building that was the Pleasure Beach Hotel.

It must be pretty late, judging by the fact that a lot of people escaped from their room still in their sleeping clothes. There are a few people that were obviously still at the club; thankfully, I don’t see the guy who got into the fight with Dodge.

There are hotel staff distributing blankets and coffee to the people who didn’t have time to get dressed.

Dodge makes a beeline for the spot where Carter is standing next to a fire fighter and a policeman, after nodding his head toward Bennett, who turns to look at me.

“Are you ok, Lynda?” he asks prying my fingers open and releasing the fabric of Dodge’s shirt from my death grip. “Let me help you.”

He begins fastening the buttons, his ice blue eyes fixed onto mine. “Here. This should do at least until we can find you something else to wear.”

I nod, relieved that the shirt is long enough on me that it reaches my knees. Dodge and his friends all tower over me by at least one foot, so his shirt on my 5’3” frame is more like a dress.

I shiver when a gust of sea scented breeze caresses my legs and naked buttocks, insinuating itself under the shirt.

“You’re cold. Come here.” Bennett wraps one arm around me, as we both observe the conversation between Dodge, Carter and the first responders in charge.

***

Carter

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FUCK.

I feel fucking responsible for what’s happening. I’m in charge of safety and while I wasn’t directly involved in making sure that the fire inspections happened as scheduled, I shouldn’t have trusted Monroe.

I observe the fire brigade trying to enter the two floors that seem to be affected by the worst of the fire. The hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach worsens tenfold when they conclude that the fire is such, that those two floors aren’t accessible from the inside or from the outside.

The police ask us for a place where we can gather all the hotel guests and do a headcount, but we can’t access the hotel building that’s now being doused with their hoses in an attempt to extinguish the flames.

We gather everyone inside the buffet restaurant close to the main pool, it’s far enough from the main building to be safe and I ask the chef on duty with the twenty-four hour room service to make some later night, or very early morning breakfast for everyone.

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