Page 11 of Deadly Rescue
“There,” she pointed, tugging on his hand. “An exit we can get to.”
The only problem? Heavy smoke blew over the sunken loading area, ready to cut them off from the door.
Cooper climbed into the loading well, turning to help her down beside him. He pushed her toward the ground, saying firmly, “Get low and start making your way to the door. I’ll be right behind you.”
Celina felt along the concrete ground as she went, her watery eyes barely able to make out a few feet in front of her at a time. The concrete should have been cold, but it wasn’t. Everything was hot, slimy, smoky. Under her suit, sweat ran in rivulets down her neck and spine. She raised a hand to wipe some of her forehead before it ended up in her eyes, but found her hand covered in ash and dirt.
Finally, they came to the other side, and her hand made contact with the solid door. She checked the handle to see how hot it was—warm, but not searing. She grasped it and turned, ready for the fresh air that awaited them on the other side, only the door wouldn’t budge.
No, she wanted to cry, her strength waning. They were so close.
“Let me try,” Cooper rasped, his smudged face appearing next to hers.
He propped himself up and hesitated for a second, then rammed his shoulder into the door.
No give. He swore, jiggled the handle, smacked the door with his shoulder again. “It’s warped from the explosion.”
Heat rose behind her, a sign the fire was spreading. Celina looked over her shoulder and her heart sank. Sure enough, the fire now stood between them and the other side of the loading docks. Their only way out was through this door, and if they couldn’t get it to open, they were done for. An image of Via rose sharply in her mind, pinching her heart and she suddenly feared she would never see her baby girl again.
Frustrated and scared, she shoved her shoulder into the door at the same time Cooper did, desperately pushing with all of her strength in a combined effort.
Come on you son of a bitch, open, she pleaded as the heat behind her grew worse. With a groan, the door gave way and flew open, and Cooper and Celina fell through the open doorway.
Thank God.
Smoke billowed out of the opening as Cooper scooped her up and carried her a safe distance away before he sank to his knees. His hands ran over her face, shoving the biohazard suit aside as he checked for injuries. “Are you okay? Did anything get hurt?”
With a small cry, Celina threw her arms around him and buried her face against his neck. They were alive. Her eyes still watered and her lungs burned from all the smoke, but thank God, they were alive.
“I’m fine,” she finally managed to get out shakily, leaning back to find his face. They were both coughing. “How about you?”
“Well, I think I now know what a three-pack-a-day-smoker’s lungs might feel like,” he joked lightly, grimacing with the movement. He coughed and spit, wiping at his face and the sweat coating it, and making the smudges worse.
It was then that Celina noticed the blood on his sleeve.
“You’re hurt.” She grabbed his arm, lifting the sleeve to take a look. It was a nasty gash, the blood mixing with his ash covered skin. “You need stitches.”
Cooper shrugged away and she noticed more blood on the back of his shirt. “I’m fine, we can worry about that later.”
“You’re bleeding here, too,” she said, trying to figure out where the blood around the back of the Kevlar vest was coming from. Some of the falling debris must have nailed him.
He took her hands and held them in his. “Right now we need to see if anyone else was able to get out.”
A sobering thought considering their friends were inside. She watched as Cooper dug out his cell to hit Nelson’s number, putting it on speaker. As the phone rang, she couldn’t seem to stop the million thoughts flying through her mind. What if they were hurt? What if they were all….dead?
“Please tell me what the fuck just happened,” Nelson said by way of a hello. She could tell that his teeth were clenched.
“All I know is the explosion was real and it was big,” Cooper ground out.
“What the ever-livin’ fuck?”
Cooper sighed like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “Yeah, looks like someone used our training session as a cover to engineer an actual terrorist event.”
“Boss, I hate to say this,”—his voice dropped low and was hesitant—"but Roman and I can’t find…Celina.”
Cooper gripped Celina’s hand as another coughing fit hit. She leaned toward the phone and relieved Nelson’s fears. “I’m okay. I’m with Cooper. We made it out—barely.”
“Thank God,” Nelson said.
