Page 190 of Phantom Mine

And as deeply instilled as my pyrophobia is, it’s nothing compared to my love for her.

The chaos outside is deafening—alarms blare and firefighters shout and bystanders scream their distress—but, as I take a few steps forward, the fire immediately puts out those sounds and engulfs me in its own orchestra of terror.

Rocco always tortured me using small sources of flame, so I never thought about how loud a fire could be.

There’s the popping sound of burning furniture as it meets the crackle of flames. Wooden beams stretch and groan. The drapes hiss as they get consumed. Glasses at the bar shatter. Sconces and chandeliers explode, sending deadly shards crashing noisily to the floor.

It’s as if the club itself is screaming in pain.

If terror was ever defined using a sound, it would be this one.

Wind howls in through the broken windows and collides with the flames. It too is sucked of life, the oxygen stripped away and the remains turned into noxious fumes.

I go lightheaded thinking about Valentina trapped in this death house.

There was a thin trickle of blood coming out of a cut just beneath her eye in the picture.

I couldn’t tell if she was alive.

A bottomless abyss opens in my chest. I can’t bear to think it. A devastated cry erupts past my lips and I run for the stairs.

“I’m coming, Len!” I shout, hoping she’ll hear me over the swelling fire. “Don’t be scared, I’ll be right there, I fucking promise,cara.”

She’s alive.

She has to be.

Shehasto be.

My feet pound against the steps. I take them two at a time, for once propelled forward by my fear. I stay close to the railing, the fire having rejoined the bottom step and now working its way up the walls. Paintings fall off their hooks, the oil paint only adding more accelerant to the flames.

When I reach the top step, I pause and look back. The bottom half of the stairs are no more. The fire destroys everything in its path, stalking after me like a predator with its prey.

I have to fight against the panic rising in my chest.

Finding Valentina is the priority.

I’ll figure out how to get us out of here once she’s back in my arms. I’m not a religious man, and I’m an even less of a deserving one, but I find myself praying to God for a miracle.

Let me find Valentina alive and I promise I’ll never let her leave my sight again. I’ll tie her to me if I have to.

“Len—!”

A coughing fit keeps me from being able to finish her name. I’m choking on the smoke and suffocating from the inside out.

I take my t-shirt off and press it to my face.

My eyeballs are dry from the lack of humidity in the air. It’s completely dark on this floor except for the light the fire casts down the hallway.

I fan a hand at my forehead, tuck my chin against my chest and start down the hallway. My breaths are jerky and hollow but I try to control them as best I can.

Panicking will make my heart race and up my consumption of oxygen. It’s threadbare up here. Death by suffocation is themost lethal way fire kills, not the actual flames. I need to conserve energy.

The first door on the left is the men’s room. I try to open it, but the doorknob is jammed.

With a frustrated growl, I take a step back and throw my shoulder into the middle of the door. It shakes in its hinges but resists. I hurl myself into the door again.

And again.

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