Page 64 of Reclaimed (Hostage Rescue Team)

For one brief instant he glimpsed Summer’s panicked face as she stood there outlined by the rapidly spreading fire coming toward her. Then Adam lost sight of her behind a wall of smoke and flame.

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Summer shrieked again as the fire spread toward her and shrank back against the bars of her cage. In the darkness the fire blazed a bright orange and yellow, lighting everything up in front of her.

Even through the thick smoke she could see that Hadad was dead, lying a few yards away, right in the fire’s path. It raced over him, sending up more of that godawful stench of burned flesh. The man who’d killed him was somewhere in front of her but she’d lost sight of him a second after the fire had started.

Something must have sparked the gasoline soaked into the ground. It was racing toward her now, moving closer with every millisecond. The heat was already so intense she had to cover her face with her arms. She cowered in the corner of the cell, as far away from the accelerant on the ground as possible, coughing as the smoke rose in a suffocating cloud around her.

Her instinct was to drop to the ground, but she knew she couldn’t risk it. Not when more gasoline soaked areas of it.

“Help!” she screamed, hoping to get one of the rescuers to see her, even if she couldn’t see anything past the fire. More gunfire cracked in front of her, telling her the good guys were otherwise occupied and couldn’t help her.

Oh God, oh God…

With desperate hands she began tearing off her jumpsuit, afraid some of the accelerant had splashed on it without her noticing. Fumes could catch fire and she wanted the hideous thing off her before the flames got close enough to ignite them. Even a few seconds more time might mean the difference between life and death if it provided her rescuers with a long enough window to free her.

She stripped the garment down her legs, wrenched off the remaining sock and the shoes and hurriedly tossed everything through the back bars of the cage. The smoke was slowly choking her. Each time she drew a breath it filled her lungs.

“Someone, help!” she screamed, then choked. “Get me out of here!” She coughed again, covered her mouth and nose with a hand but it didn’t help. At this rate the smoke might kill her before the flames reached her if she didn’t escape the cage.

Naked except for her bra and underwear, she turned and grimly faced the lock, her frantic gaze automatically measuring the distance between her and the encroaching fire.

Less than ten feet. Only seconds before those hungry flames tore into her shrinking flesh.

A shudder ripped through her and tears burned the back of her throat along with the thickening smoke. She couldn’t die with help so close! It was too unfair, too horrible to contemplate.

With her heart thundering against her ribs, she backed up as far as she could into the corner, gathered her nerve and lashed a bare foot at the broken lock with all her might. A roar exploded out of her as she did it, borne of anger and despair.

Pain reverberated from the sole of her foot and up her leg, but she barely felt it, every part of her focused on breaking through that fucking lock and saving herself.

“Summer!”

Her name, that voice, momentarily startled her out of her panic. Hope and recognition swelled inside her ribcage. Adam?

She blinked fast, frantically trying to find him through the smoke and flame, but her eyes were watering too badly. “Adam! Help me!” She doubled over, hacking as her body fought the effects of the smoke.

“I’m coming!”

More male shouts came through the wall of fire trapping her from her would-be-rescuers and the roar and crackle of it grew louder.

She drew a deep breath, coughed twice. “Adam!” She screamed it, those two syllables tearing from her throat, forced out by all the terror and horror smothering her as surely as the smoke was.

“Hang on!”

She still couldn’t see him.I can’t, she wanted to cry out, but she was out of breath, the coughing and lack of air weakening her quivering muscles.I can’t!

The heat was too intense now, scorching her bare skin. She shrank back until the bars dug cruelly into her back, but there was no escape. All she could do was cower there, and shield her face as her flesh crawled with the knowledge that the flames would consume her at any second.

In that moment, everything went eerily silent. The only sound she was aware of was the roaring of blood in her ears. There was nothing but fear and horror and the terrible anticipation of the agony that awaited her.

Then, a miracle.

From out of nowhere a stream of foam sprayed through the bars of her cage. It splashed over her and the ground in wet, cooling rivulets, soaking her, dripping off her hair and skin. Automatically she shielded her face, turned her head to avoid the blast as someone aimed it at her.

“Summer!”

Adam. She couldn’t answer him, doubled over in the corner struggling to breathe, coughing and gasping for air. The foam prevented her from opening her eyes. But she heard the hissing sound of it as it sprayed over and around her, felt the heat of the fire recede as it smothered the voracious flames.

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