Page 31 of Resisting His Target
Get down here.
I need you safe.
Even from a distance she could tell when he was looking at her, the primal physical pull that joined them like an invisible chain. For the first time, she let herself hope he wasn’t just a passing presence in her life, let herself imagine he might stay.
But he disappeared from view.
A penetrating cry of horror rose from her lungs, unrecognizable and deep. “Ian!” She ran toward the structure, the flaming skeleton of her refuge now destined to be his grave. The roar had been the sound of the second floor collapsing onto the first, taking him with it. She was aware of Selena’s questions, the urgency in her daughter’s voice, but Jackie was focused on the fire that burned below the bathroom—a spot that had once been her den.
She got as close as she dared, falling to her knees on the concrete and wailing, the brightness of the fire lighting up her closed eyelids. Selena cried, too, the girl’s questions now answered, her grieving voice mingling with her mother’s.
Ian was gone.
“No, no, no!” she screamed, the word repeating over and over in her head. The fire crackled and hissed, a malicious animal after the kill. She held her daughter tightly, time bowing to emotion.
Someone yelled, “There he is!”
Her eyes popped open. The silhouette of a man was clear in the shattered den window. Several HERO Force men ran past them to the building, pulling Ian through the opening and carrying him between their bodies like an injured athlete, his head hanging down.
Jackie ran behind them, Selena’s hand fisted tightly in hers. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t supporting himself in any way, and she told herself he was dead even as she desperately wished he was not.
The men put him down in the bed of her pickup truck.
“The keys were in the house,” she called, even as one of the men slipped into the driver’s seat. The truck was running by the time she got to it. “How did you do that?”
“I hotwired it,” said the man in the driver’s seat. Razorback’s chest was bare, a blackness covering his skin like paint, his pants singed and smoking in spots, and she covered them with her hands to put them out completely. A flash of metal glinted in the hand of the youngest man, who used a knife to cut the pants off Razorback’s legs.
The man looked at her, a baby face like she’d rarely seen belying the commanding tone of his voice. “Get in. We have to get him to the chopper.” She did as she was told, never once letting go of Selena.
The truck bounced over ruts in the road, fresh air streaming around her body and the burningPedazo de Cielogetting smaller in the distance. Her refuge was gone, her house of safety aflame. There was no turning back now from whatever lay ahead.
Jackie realized it was raining—thunder and lightning, too—and wondered if it had been doing that the whole time they’d been inside, battling the flames. The man hovered over Razorback with a stethoscope and a face full of concern.
“He’s burned,” she said dumbly.
“That’s soot. He has some second-degree burns, nothing too bad that I can see. It’s the smoke inhalation I’m worried about.”
“Are you a doctor?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I’m Logan O’Malley.”
She mumbled a greeting and swallowed hard. “Is he going to be okay?”
“I’m not sure. Oxygen saturation is low. His heart’s working hard to compensate.”
“Please don’t let him die.”
Logan met her stare, far more alert and competent than she. “I’ll do everything I can for him, ma’am.”
17
The machine behind Razorback’s head beeped rhythmically, and he hoped it wasn’t representative of his heartbeat, the sound far too fast and irregular to be the pulse of a healthy human being. But the doctor had already been in to see him, and despite some minor burns, it seemed he was going to be okay.
As long as my heart keeps beating.
That was the trickier part, excessive smoke inhalation placing great strain on respiration and hence his heart. But he’d already made it this far, so he chose to believe he would come back from this, colors flying.
The moment the bathroom floor collapsed beneath his feet, his greatest fears had been realized. It was fire that had taken away his life as he knew it, and fire he was sure had the power to do it again. What he discovered was an inner strength and determination to fight back against the flames for the parts of his life that had become good again.
