Page 68 of Killer Kiss

Outside, sirens wailed, but they weren’t here. They weren’t going to get here in time to help me. Or to help Luna.

Ash and debris fell around us, and Luna trembled violently in my arms.

The flames were too hot. Too close.

I couldn’t fucking breathe.

Every lungful I sucked in was full of more and more smoke, my muscles shaking with the lack of oxygen and my brain fogging over, making it harder to move.

I was too slow.

I slumped against a wall, fighting the urge to lie down and sleep.

Luna lifted her head to look at me.

She didn’t say a word.

She didn’t need to.

The hopelessness was there in her big brown eyes.

Even at three, she knew.

We weren’t getting out of here.

Fuck. That.

I didn’t give a shit if I died. This world would be a better place without me in it.

But this tiny girl hadn’t even had a chance to live.

Losing her would kill my brother and his family.

I wasn’t doing that to them. I was already the cause of too much of their heartbreak. I wasn’t taking their daughter to Hell with me.

I shoved myself off the wall and stumbled down the last few steps, dodging my way around flames and a fallen beam, straining for the open door and the two women I could see just beyond it.

Lia, her arms around Willa, trying to comfort her while she screamed at the burning house.

My gaze locked with Lia’s, and she let out a shout, leaving Willa and rushing to the doorway. “Augie!”

She gripped my arm and guided me out, sweet, fresh night air filling my lungs, which burned like they’d erupted in a fire of their own. I didn’t care. All I cared about was the little girl in my arms.

“Let me take her,” Lia gasped. “You can barely stand up.”

I tried to pass Luna over, but she clung to me like a koala, screaming when Lia put her hands on her.

I coughed and spluttered, staggering out onto the lawn while two fire trucks and an ambulance parked on the road.

Like seeing them gave me permission to stop, my knees hit the dirt, but I kept my grip on Luna, refusing to fall on her.

The paramedics rushed across the grass, but Ophelia took charge.

“The woman over there is severely burned. Please. Help her. I can’t see any burns on these two, but they have smoke inhalation.”

The paramedics assessed the scene in seconds and clearly decided Ophelia was right, one of them speaking into a communication device attached to his shoulder and ordering a second ambulance to be dispatched. The firefighters rushed in, hauling hoses and other equipment I didn’t have names for, all while Luna clutched me tight, her coughs as terrifying to me as her screams.

Ophelia helped me shift to one side of the yard so we wouldn’t be trampled by firefighters, and then she left, a moment later coming back with a portable oxygen tank and a mask. She tried to put it over my face, but I pushed it to Luna.

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