Page 110 of Crash and Burn

“I’m not leaving you!” she screams, her words weak and hoarse. “If I go out the window, you die.”

“If I open this door,youdie!” I slam my fist to the wood in warning. “I’m suited up, so I have more time than you. Go, baby. You first, then leave the window open for me.”

The floor shifts beneath my feet and sends bolts of adrenaline zinging through my veins.

“Go, Hannah!”

“Axel!” she cries out in despair. “I’m not leaving you here.”

“Move your ass!” I grab my radio again. “Dawson, you’re gonna have to breach. Open the window and take her. She’s not moving on her own.”

“Vic’s unconscious?” Nix demands. “What’s her status?”

“Stubborn,” I report back. “Floor’s about to drop out, so you need to move your team now. Get her, then clear the way and I’ll follow. But if you don’t move now, we’re both dead.”

“Breaching now.” Dawson’s no-bullshit tone sends a shot of electricity through my veins.

Hannah’s tears on the other side of the door hurt my heart, but her scream of terror when the glass shatters makes it worse.

“No!” She rattles the doorknob again, so I feel it move in my hand. “I’m not coming with you until you get Ax—”

“Let’s go, lady.”

Hannah

SACRIFICES MUST BE MADE

Iscream against my captor’s hold. I scratch and kick and bend his fingers when he wraps his arm around my stomach. But this firefighter is legions stronger than Raul ever was. He grabs me with a steel-like grip that crushes my ribs and squishes my lungs.

He doesn’t care that I cry out for Axel.

He doesn’t care that I want to stay for as long as Axel does.

“Let me go!” Tears stream down my cheeks and settle on my lips so I taste the salt, mixed with soot. “You can’t leave him out there.”

“If we open that door, you’re both dead.” He swings me around, my legs flying through the air, and carries me toward the open window that now acts like a vacuum, sucking thicker, darker smoke through the gaps of the door Axel stands behind.

“My orders are to get you out, ma’am. Then I’ll come back for Feeney.”

“We had a huge fight.” Like a cat that doesn’t want to be bathed, I brace my arms and legs against the frame, and block the window with my body. “I was mean to him! I called him a liar.”

“Dawson!” Axel’s voice coming through my captor’s radio sends nerves racing along my throat. “You out?”

Dawsonreaches up and presses the button to respond. “Not yet, Axe. She’s stronger than a damn ox.”

“Sully!” Axel’s tone is cutting. Feral and mean. “Go out that fucking window!Now!”

“No!” My lips quiver with heartache. My legs shake and my arms grow weak, and when I glance over my shoulder, I whimper at the sight of another firefighter sprinting up the ladder. “Comewithme. We’ll work it out together.”

“He can’t open the door!” Dawson growls. Releasing his radio, he shoves my stomach, buckling my frame until I crash into a new set of arms. “He cannot open it while we’re standing here.”

“But that means he can’t open it at all!” I scream when new arms wrap around my stomach. “He won’t ever be able to open it. Which means he’s stuck!”

The house creaks on its foundations and begins tilting to the left. The roof, too heavy for the walls to hold up.

“Axel!” I scramble to break free of Sloane’s hold, but he drags me through the window and onto the end of a thick ladder. “Just open it now and run! We’ll catch you.”

“Time to go!” Ruiz operates the ladder using knobs and gauges back at the truck, and with a simple touch, has the three of us moving away from the window.

---