Page 128 of Ink and Ashes
He coughs as my ears begin to ring. “Caldwell, help me,” he rasps over the roar of the flames. “Please.”
Everything around me freezes as I process his words. Thisbastardis the very reason for this fire, yet he has the nerve to ask me for help. As if he thinks for a second that I’d ever choose saving him over saving Holland.
I don’t know what the hell he’s still doing here. But I do know that so long as I have a say in it, he won’t be making it out.
“Caldwell,” Whitlock pleads again over another cough, the flames closing in on us.
I’ve never been the kind of person to leave someone behind in a fire. But after the hell Pierce Whitlock—or should I say Joseph Welland—has put us through over the past few months, this feels like a full-circle moment. His family died in a fire, then he started setting them, and now he’ll die in one too.
There’s a reason he didn’t make it out before the house went up in flames, and I’m not going to interfere with the powers that be.
Which is why I don’t think twice as I stand from where I’m crouched beside him, leaving him lying on the floor.
“Go to hell, Welland,” I say, then turn and walk out of the room. I tune out the sound of him calling out for me, shutting the door behind me.
I exhale deeply as I continue my search for Holland. I refuse to let Joseph take her down with him. If he’s still here, that means she has to be too.
She has to be.
Some of the crew calls out from behind me, looking for both me and Holland, but I still don’t stop. I won’t stop until I’ve found her.
“Holland!” I continue calling as I walk through what was once the kitchen, and that’s when I see the doorway.
There’s a basement.
I take a deep breath through my mask, then over my radio, I say, “Upstairs is clear. Come to the back of the house. I’m heading to the basement.”
Not thirty seconds later, Beau and Dom flank either side of me. The stairs haven’t yet fallen from the fire, but they hook me up to the ropes anyway in case they do. I grab my Halligan, then with a swift nod from each of them and a, “Be quick,” from Beau, I make my way down the stairs.
They’re nowhere near safe, so I proceed with caution as I head down. A few are broken or missing entirely, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’ll fall soon. When my feet hit the floor a moment later, I blow out a breath.
The flames aren’t as bad down here yet, but candles are burning in every corner, and I can smell the gasoline. I don’t have much time before this whole house goes up, and if I’m not quick, it’ll take both me and her with it when it does.
I crouch low to feel for her as I continue calling out her name, tears stinging the backs of my eyes.
“Come on, baby. Where are you?”
I search the perimeter of the room and shove open every door, hoping for any sign of her. But when I find nothing, I start to wonder if I was wrong. If starting this fire was another decoy to draw all our attention here.
“Caldwell, anything?” a voice calls through the radio, but I don’t bother with a response.
Shehasto be here.
I head down the furthest hallway and push open the last door, prepared to come up empty there too. Except it doesn’t budge. There’s something blocking the door.
Holland is blocking the door.
I use my Halligan bar to force it open, and that’s when I see her. Curled up on the unfinished bathroom floor with duct tape over her mouth, her arms shackled to an open pipe.
“Holland!” I rush over to her, peeling the tape off her mouth and wrists. She’s unconscious, so I lift her carefully, carrying her back out to the stairs. “Come on, baby. Stay with me.”
“He’s got her!” Dom calls the moment he spots us. The flames have spread more, and the stairs are nearly fully engulfed by now. Dom uses an extinguisher to slow them a bit, and without another moment’s hesitation, I rush through them, holding onto Holland as if my life depends on it.
Because it does.
No fire I’ve ever fought has burned me quite like Holland Rhodes. But she’s become a blaze I want to face every day for the rest of my life. She’s the one I want to wake up to in the morning and lay my head next to at night. I want all her smiles and all her tears and every moment in between.
I want it all. And I want it with Holland.
