Black Oil, Red Blood

Chapter 38



Fitz’s gaze hardened when he saw Nash. Then he lasered in on me.

“What are you doing with this man?”

“Uh, bringing him to you,” I said.

“I ordered no such thing,” Fitz said.

“I asked,” Nash covered. “I thought we could make a deal.”

A deal? What kind of deal, I wondered. Did Nash even know?

“I haven’t got time for deal making right now,” Fitz said. “As you well know, I’m kind of busy. And on top of all the trouble you caused, the catalytic converter is about to blow.”

Fitz was looking me up and down. “Who are you?” he barked. “Where’s your ID?”

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

Fitz shot a hand out and pulled the mask down from my face. “You gotta be kidding me,” he said.

I pulled my gun on him.

Fitz, in turn, pulled his gun on me.

We were in a standoff.

“Wait a minute,” Nash said. “Let’s talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Fitz said. “You make one fast move, and she’s dead.”

“Not if I shoot you first,” I said.

Fitz leaned slightly forward. “If you shoot me, it won’t go well for you. You’re on my territory. I can claim self-defense. What can you claim? The police are already out looking for you.”

He had a point. Hmmm. My life or my freedom? Life or freedom?

I wasn’t sure. I glanced at Nash from the corner of my eye. His gaze was trained on Fitz. Nash was clearly gauging whether or not to make a move.

“Let her go,” Nash said. “She’s not a threat.”

Fitz laughed—a harsh, mirthless noise. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“It’s Gilbert you want,” Nash said. “If you let her go, I’ll take you to him. He’s the one with all the data. He’s the one who’s the threat. Chloe hasn’t got anything on you. Cameron has the tapes. He has the hack into your network. You already burned all of Schaeffer’s files, and her boss is dead. She can’t afford to finance any more cases against you herself. Her job in this town is finished.”

I watched Fitz ponder this possibility, praying that he would buy it and that Nash had some more tricks up his sleeve that might allow him to engineer another getaway. Fitz didn’t look like he was going to take the bait.

“You’ll never find him without me,” Nash pressed. “I suspect that’s why I’m still alive.”

Fitz still didn’t say anything. He considered his options.

“Let her go,” Nash coaxed. “I’ll take you to Gilbert. Look at me. I’m not a threat to you. I’ve got a bad foot. I can barely walk.”

“What happened to your foot, anyway?” Fitz asked.

“Lewis shot it,” Nash said.

“I guess that means you shot him back. Thanks for saving me the trouble.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” Nash said. “Let Chloe go. I’ll take you to Cameron, I swear.”

Fitz took a few more moments to consider this offer before he countered.

“I tell you what,” Fitz said. “I’ll let you both go if you go in my office right now and issue a retraction to the press. Tell the press you made up the whole story about the market manipulation in order to gain leverage on your law suits. Tell them you fabricated the tapes and manufactured the written evidence. Then you walk out of here, I leave you alone, and you can both go on with your merry lives.”

My hands tensed on the trigger on my gun.

“The alternative,” Fitz said, “is that I shoot you both right here and you die with a bad reputation anyway. The public already thinks you’re murderers. Mayor Fillion is delivering a press conference right now. He’s telling everyone you’re a couple of crazed Yankee environmentalists who launched an armed assault on me in my office in an effort to make a statement. And even if you somehow manage to get the better of me and walk out of here, you still can’t win. There will be no rest for you without my cooperation. With the dollars I have to throw at the media and the government, you can’t possibly hope to compete with my message. For every statement you make, I’ll make three and follow it up with goodwill advertising and a massive PR campaign. I’ll launch a four million dollar investment fund into clean energy research and tout it to the press. I’ll come out looking like the good guy, and you’ll be the crooks.”

“Four million dollars,” I spat. “That’s nothing. Your company makes profits higher than that in two and a half hours.”

“That’s why launching the campaign will be so easy,” Fitz said. “Make the statement. It’s your only hope of living the rest of your life in peace.”

My trigger finger twitched. Not hard enough to fire the gun, but it was definitely feeling itchy.

On the one hand, shooting this loser seemed like the easiest thing to do. But we’d never get away with it. Knowing Nash and his by-the-book personality, all his guns were registered. As soon as they ran the ballistics report, he’d get arrested. I couldn’t let that happen.

On the other hand, if Nash and I made the statement, all our work and all the risks we took would be for nothing. And the rest of America would never realize the shadow of corruption they were living under.

Things would just continue on like normal, and PetroPlex would continue to lobby Congress and make hefty campaign contributions hoping to garner favors in return. Nobody would push for regulation, and the Big Oil machine would churn forward, unchecked.

I had absolutely no illusions that it would turn out any other way. It had been about a decade since the Enron fiasco, and after all this time, that little piece of legislation was still good law, and on the books.

To top that off, refineries all over the country would continue to churn out pollution, killing workers and poisoning entire communities. Nobody would care. That didn’t seem like a palatable option, either.

“I won’t do it,” I said.

Nash rolled his eyes. “I will,” he said.

My gaze snapped to Nash. “Nash, no! What’s wrong with you? You can’t do that! If you do that, PetroPlex wins!”

Nash glared at me hard. There was something in his eyes that said trust me. “Chloe, lower the gun,” he said.

My resolve wavered.

“Please,” Nash said. “Chloe, trust me. This is the right thing.”

I didn’t move.

“Tell her that if she lowers the gun, she can walk away,” Nash told Fitz.

Fitz sighed. “Fine,” he said. “Give me the gun and you walk.”

I still didn’t move.

“Move slow,” Fitz said.

“Go ahead, Chloe,” Nash said. “It’s the best thing. You heard Fitz. We’ll never be free any other way.”

Slowly, I lowered the gun, allowing the barrel to drop. With my thumb and forefinger, I pinched the end of the grip and handed it to Fitz.

I shot Nash a look that said you better know what you’re doing.

Fitz took my gun, but still didn’t lower his own. He kept it trained on me and then pointed the other one at Nash.

“Walk away,” Nash said.

I looked at Fitz for confirmation.

“Yeah, get out,” he said.

I slowly started backing away.

When I was a safe distance down the hall, Fitz turned his gun on Nash. “Walk,” he said.

Nash did.

As I watched him walk away, it started to dawn on me that maybe Nash didn’t have a plan. I knew that this time, he didn’t have a weapon hidden away somewhere. He couldn’t possibly get the jump on Fitz with his bad foot, and I didn’t really think he’d make a retraction statement to the press. So what was he doing?

Was he about to sacrifice himself for my sake?

For the second time in twenty minutes, my stomach settled around my ankles. I couldn’t let him do this. I couldn’t let this happen.

“Wait!” I yelled.

Nash and Fitz stopped.

“Take me instead,” I said. “I’ll make the statement.”

“Chloe, what are you doing?” Nash said.

“It will make much more sense coming from me,” I said. “After all, I’m the attorney here. I’m the one who makes a living suing your company in the first place, not Nash. I’m the one who had the evidence. Schaeffer was my expert witness. I’m the one who worked with Cameron to release it. Not Nash. Nash’s connection to all of this is too tenuous. He’s just a cop who got on the wrong side of the establishment.”

“Detective,” Nash said through clenched teeth. “Chloe, shut up.”

“Take me,” I insisted.

I could see Fitz’s wheels turning. He knew I had a point. “Walk slowly towards me,” he said. He was still double-fisting his guns, one pointed at me, and the other at Nash.

I began the slow motion walk back towards Fitz.

“Chloe, no,” Nash said.

I kept walking.

“Chloe,” Nash said. “I can’t let you do this.”

“I have nothing left,” I said. “You do. Go back to your life.”

“You have me,” Nash said.

“Not if Fitz shoots you.”

“Whoever makes the statement is not going to get shot,” Fitz said.

“Hear that?” I asked Nash. “What about the person who doesn’t make the statement? What about that person?” I turned to Fitz. “If you let me go, are you just going to hunt me down later and force me to take you to Gilbert?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Fitz said, in a way that sounded like an obvious lie.

“Take me,” I said. “Look, I’m walking toward you.”

I raised my hands in the air and closed the distance between us in the corridor slowly. Carefully. Methodically. When I was about three yards away from him, I stopped.

“Lower the gun,” I said. “Let Nash go. I’m coming with you willingly.”

I slowly lowered my arms and extended my hands toward him, palms up.

The gesture distracted Fitz. It was long enough for Nash to bring his fists down on Fitz’s arms. His arms fell, and one of the guns went off. Fitz literally shot himself in the foot right in front of us.

“That’s fitting,” I said, jumping into action.

I helped Nash wrestle him to the ground and took the guns, his com device, and his cell phone. Pointing our guns at him, we backed away through some heavy metal double doors with small glass windows.

The doors closed on Fitz, who was swearing up a storm in front of us. Even though we weren’t out of harm’s way, I felt a sense of relief to have the heavy double doors creating a barrier between us and Fitz.

Fitz hobbled to his feet. We watched through the windows as he lowered a thick metal bar in front of the doors.

Nash and I exchanged glances. We were locked in. My previous feeling of relief evaporated.

We spun around to find ourselves in a chamber that was acres long and at least seven stories tall. Pipes twisted away in every direction, into the floor, through the walls, and high overhead. Giant steel drums loomed above us. The bottoms of them started at about the second story and stretched all the way to the roof.

“Is this the catalytic converter?” Nash asked.

“How should I know?” I said. “Theoretically I know how this all works, but I’ve never actually been inside here before. They don’t like to give tours to people who make a living suing them.”

My cell phone rang.

I picked it up. “Cameron!”

“You have to get out!” Cameron said. “While I was gone, Fitz started a chain reaction that’s going to make the whole place blow!”

“What? Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Cameron said. “This was nothing I did. I can only think he’s trying to destroy evidence. The failsafes aren’t working and the pressure is building across all refinery units. There’s about to be a massive explosion—one that will take the whole refinery down. They’re evacuating the area. Homes and everything.”

“Fix it!” I, said, my heart racing.

“I can’t!” Cameron said. “There are power outages all over the plant, and the server I hacked into went down right after I got back on!”

“Can’t you get another connection?”

“It’s not that easy,” Cameron said. “I created the security breach on this server before I quit the company. There’s not a lot I can do from the outside without that connection.”

“We don’t even know where we are!” I glanced around in desperation, trying to spot some exits. “Can you see us?”

“No!” Cameron said. “I told you, my connection’s down. You’re flying blind!”

I peered through the Plexiglass windows on the double doors we’d just backed through. There was a trail of blood leading down the hallway. Fitz was long gone.

I motioned for Nash to stand back and fired at the windows.

“Save your bullets,” Nash said. “That’s safety glass. You won’t be able to shoot it out.”

“Cameron,” I said. “I don’t know how we’re going to get out of here. You’ve got to think of something.”

“Okay, I’m thinking!” he said.

I waited a beat. “What have you got?”

“Nothing yet! Let me let you go and see what I can come up with. Try to get out!”

The line went dead.

I was sweating. I felt claustrophobic. I shoved my gun back in my belt and stripped off the yellow plastic suit, which helped to clear my head some.

I stretched my arm around Nash’s back, inviting him to lean on my shoulder for support. He did so.

“Forward, ho!” I said, trying to be brave.

We limped slowly but urgently forward, eyeing the pipes all around us. Some were skinny, some were thick. Some had bolts the size of tomatoes.

A nagging question tugged at the edges of my mind. Maybe it was inappropriate under the circumstances, but I wouldn’t be able to fully concentrate unless I got it out of my head.

“Did you mean it earlier when you said I had you?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said. “I meant it.”

“Okay, but what does that mean, exactly. Like I have you as a friend?”

“More than that,” he said. “When we get out of here, I’m going to take you out for a fajita dinner and some really big, really strong margaritas.”

“With Patron?” I asked.

“With Patron. And a sangria swirl. And this time, it really will be a date.”

I smiled. The only thing dampening my mood was the thought that getting out of here was a big, big If. With a capital I. And maybe even a capital F.

We had hobbled our way from one end of the chamber to another. We found another set of double doors and leaned against them, expecting them to budge.

They were locked.

“I think they’re sealing off the unit to try to control any potential explosion,” I said. “We can’t get out down here. The only way out is up.”

We headed toward a nearby spiral staircase. I prayed that it would be the right one—that it would actually lead us to a path that might go up and out, not to another dead end.

We began the long journey upward, with Nash practically hopping up each stair on one foot, leaning on me for support the whole time.

Above us, a bolt blew off a pipe and hot steam shot out into the space above us. The condensation dripped onto the stair railing.

“If that’s gasoline, we’re cooked.” Nash bent down and trailed his finger through some droplets, then brought it to his nose.

“Is this. . . water?” he touched his finger to his tongue gingerly, tasting the fluid. “I think it’s water!”

“It could be,” I said. “Refineries run on steam.”

“You’re joking.”

“Nope, I’m serious,” I said. “Big Oil uses steam to produce the fabulous toxic chemicals that power our world every day.”

“That is an unbelievable irony,” Nash said.

Above us, more steam jets popped one by one.

And then the flames roared to life with a deafening noise.

Nash jumped.

I peered high above us.

The flames were isolated and appeared to be controlled.

“I think it’s only the safety flares,” I said loudly so that Nash could hear me. I could barely hear my own voice over the roar in the room.

“What?”

“Flares!” I yelled. “These are miniature versions of the ones on the roof. When the pressure gets high and there’s danger of chemical leaks, they turn on the flares to burn the excess chemicals before they can reach the air.”

Nash held his nose. “It doesn’t smell like they’re burning them all!”

“The flares don’t get them all,” I said.

We were working our way steadily upwards.

Beside us, another pipe blew, sending a bolt the size of a quarter flying straight in my direction. It hit me in the back.

I doubled over in pain.

“Are you all right?”

I took a moment to catch my breath, which wasn’t easy, considering the extent to which this room stunk. I smelled gasoline. Tar. Smoke.

We had reached a platform about four stories up. At the end of it was a door.

“Look!” I said.

We limped towards the door. Below us, three more pipes split open, spewing steam upward. I felt the dewy moisture coat my face. Very steam bath-like, except for the smell. The roar of the safety flares was so loud I could barely hear myself think.

Nash leaned on the door and it opened into another chamber just as large as the first one.

Enormous towers connected by a maze of pipes stretched above, below, and ahead. The platform continued on to another staircase. We hobbled toward it as fast as we could.

In this room, large vapor clouds were forming over containment drums. I smelled a sickly sweet odor and felt a burning in my eyes. Benzene. Gasoline.

I hurriedly pulled my paper mask back over my face, realizing that would provide only minimal protection.

“Take off your shirt and tie it over your face!” I told Nash.

He did, and for a moment, I was momentarily distracted by his bare chest. It was so chiseled and perfect that it looked like he had stepped right out of a Renaissance painting. Hoo weee! I hated to think of all that hotness coming to a bad end.

“We can’t stay in here!” I squinted through the vapors, still scanning for possible exits.

“We can’t go back,” he said. “The only way out is forward.”

“Okay, but we have to hurry!”

I tried to take short breaths. The fumes were burning my eyes, and tears began streaming down my face.

Nash was making an effort to move faster, although he winced with every step.

I felt dizzy. Disoriented. Nauseated. My head was pounding, and for a moment, I forgot where I was.

Nash had stopped, seized by a coughing fit. I waited a moment for him. When it was over, he looked like he was about to pass out. “My head is killing me.”

“It’s the benzene,” I said. “This is high level exposure. Take short breaths and keep moving.”

There was a door at the top of a staircase ahead. It was padlocked.

I pulled out my gun, tempted to shoot it off, but one spark could ignite the vapor clouds around us, and we’d be crispy toast in no time.

“Don’t even think about it,” Nash said.

“I’m not.”

Nash took the gun by the barrel and bashed the handle down on the lock, being very careful to hit it with the rubber gun grip instead of any of the steel parts.

I shut my eyes tight. One spark of metal-on-metal friction could ignite this whole place. I didn’t see how we had any other option, though.

Nothing happened.

He tried again, and this time the lock came loose.

He yanked the broken lock off and we hobbled through the door into a smaller room. Closing the door behind us, we took a few moments to breathe some relatively fresher air. This room was full of horizontal tanks and enough pipes to give a plumber nightmares. I estimated that the floor of this room started at about the third story and stretched to the sixth.

We spotted another staircase and headed towards it. Immediately below us, underneath the metal grate of the platform on which we were walking, the seal on a pipe broke and droplets of liquid spewed out.

We hurried forward. This time it wasn’t water. The smell gave it away. Gasoline.

“Chloe, you have to get out of here,” Nash said. “Leave me. Run.”

“No!” I said.

“This isn’t right. You have a chance to escape.”

Before I could respond, a steam pipe burst and a section of it went crashing down through the mesh of pipes below it. The metal on metal friction threw out a spark, and the gasoline ignited in a small explosion.

The force of it knocked me off my feet and I fell off the edge of the platform.

Nash’s reflexes were as quick as ever. His hand shot out and grabbed my arm.

I dangled over a mess of spewing pipes below. The heat from the flames scorched my feet.

“I’ve got you!” Nash yelled.

I twisted and dangled in the air, like a yo-yo on a dead string. He slowly pulled me upwards, struggling to get leverage with his bad foot. My stomach lurched, and I felt dizzy, but Nash had a strong grip on me.

I grabbed onto the railing when I was high enough to reach it and pulled myself up and back onto the platform.

“You all right?” Nash asked.

I nodded, pressing forward.

The heat was getting intense. The gasoline leak burned with a steady flame, but I didn’t know how long it would stay that way.

We were almost to the top of the room. I could see a door labeled ‘emergency Exit Only’ at the top of the next spiral staircase. I figured this qualified as an emergency. We were almost there. Just a few more yards, and we’d be out!

We hurried toward the staircase.

Another explosion rocked the room. It knocked out the supports for one end of our platform, and we plummeted. Nash grabbed the railing, and I grabbed Nash. I was holding onto him by the waistband of his pants.

The platform swung downwards like a pendulum, taking out pipes and crashing to a stop at a seventy degree angle. The bottom edge of the platform perched precariously on a thin pipe with a large, round valve wheel.

Steam jets buffeted us from both sides, and I cringed against the scalding heat.

The steam on the railing was making it hard for Nash to maintain a grip.

“I can’t hold on!” His hands slipped down, and down some more.

I desperately tried to gain some leverage with my feet, but the platform was slick with steam and the angle was too steep.

He slid ever further backwards, until my feet finally slipped off the platform and dangled over the flames below.

A few more inches, and he’d lose his grip on the railing altogether.

I eyed the Exit sign, which had once seemed so close, and now seemed so far away.

Our only hope now was to grab onto the jungle-gym of pipes and monkey our way up and out. But which ones were hot steam, and which ones were cold chemicals?

It would be a process of trial and error.

I felt Nash slip another inch. I had to get my body weight off him immediately.

I kept one hand on his pants and stretched the other one out, reaching for a nearby pipe, only to jerk it back again quickly. Too hot.

There wasn’t another one within reach.

Our combined body weight on the end of the platform was too much for the thin pipe holding it up. It gave way, and the platform crashed down. The screech of steel on steel nearly deafened me. I closed my eyes against the sparks, certain that any second they would ignite some unseen vapor cloud and toast us both to bits.

Down and down we went, until finally the platform hit a ninety-degree angle and bashed into the wall. The impact was too much for Nash. His grip slipped off the railing and we fell.

My stomach did the upward flip associated with free-falling. Panicking, I kicked my feet beneath me, hoping they would catch something other than air before it was too late.

Abruptly, the falling motion stopped. Pain seared through my shoulder blades as I held on to Nash through the jolt. Nash had grabbed hold of a pipe on the way down and halted the fall. He was able to maintain a grip, so it must not have been a steam pipe.

I held onto his pants for dear life, praying they would stay on. They slipped some, revealing a peek of nicely toned cheeks underneath. That was all I wanted to see. For now.

“Can you hang on?” Nash called down to me.

“I think so!”

Nash started doing a hand-over-hand, inching us down the horizontal length of the pipe. If he could make it another fifty feet, he could get us to a vertical pipe that wasn’t slick with steam.

One hand in front of the other, Nash swung forward. I swayed over the fires beneath us precariously.

Five feet. Ten feet. I swung in small circles beneath him, the motion creating an additional drag on his grip.

Twenty feet.

Thirty.

Nash’s arms and back were slick with sweat, his muscles straining with every movement.

Forty feet.

My own strength was giving way. The muscles in my arms burned, and my shoulder sockets seared with pain.

Fifty feet. We made it.

Now began the climb.

“How are you doing?” I wrenched my chin upward, trying to get a look at his face and gauge his progress for myself.

“I’m fine! Can you climb a vertical pipe?”

“I don’t think so!” I said truthfully. I had never had a lot of upper body strength.

“It’s okay!” he said. “Hang on!”

Hand over hand, he pulled us slowly up.

I was dizzy with the possibility that neither of us might make it. I felt guilty for being nothing but a weight holding him back, dragging him down. If he wasn’t strong enough—if he couldn’t hold on—what would we do? He was right. I should have run on ahead. Now I was only holding him back, endangering both of us. As of right now, he would have had a better chance without me.

I worried about the amount of blood he’d lost this morning. I knew he was in pain, but if he felt weakened, he didn’t show it.

Up and up he went. High above his head—it seemed like miles—was a small platform with a ladder leading up to a hatch. If he could just make it to the ladder. . .

Smoke and fumes filled the chamber. It was as much of an effort to breathe as it was to hang on to the pipes. If anything else exploded—if there were any more fumes or smoke, I wasn’t certain we could remain conscious.

I started to cough as a giant smoke plume wafted upwards and enveloped us. Each expellation of breath racked my body, taxing my ability to hang on.

Nash was coughing too. He had to stop climbing every time he coughed just to hold on.

“Only a little farther!” I called.

He was under too much strain to reply.

We continued slowly upward.

I felt sleepy. All I wanted to do was close my eyes. To take a nap. To rest. To let go and feel a blissful nothingness. Waves of drowsiness swept over me, and it seemed like there was nothing. . . nothing. . . more important than just taking a little snooze right now. Just a little rest. Only for a second.

My eyes drooped and my fingers loosened their grip.

Feeling the change in me, Nash hollered down, “Chloe, no! Stay with me! Hang on! We’re almost there!”

His exhortations ended in a virtual symphony of coughing. The jerking motions of his body shook me back to a fully conscious state.

The platform was just above us. Maybe only four feet higher.

I willed myself to concentrate on the motion of his hands as one by one they released, gripped, and pulled. Release, grip, pull. Release. Grip. Pull. Only a few more times.

I was so sleepy. Just a little nap. That’s all I needed. Then I’d be refreshed and ready to resume our journey.

My eyes drooped again.

And the next thing I know, I must have actually fallen asleep, because I knew I was having a dream. It was one of those falling dreams—the kind that jerk you awake right after you’ve drifted off. There was a noise that accompanied this jerk. A big ka-boom!

I opened my eyes to see the exit sign getting smaller and smaller as Nash and I slid down and down. No. I thought. No, no no!

The pipe Nash had been climbing was now slicked with an oily substance that spewed from a nearby barrel. It might as well have been made of ice, it was so slippery.

I tightened my grip around Nash’s chest, hoping the slide would eventually stop.

To my horror, Nash actually let go of the pipe with both hands.

I screamed.

In one quick motion, Nash rubbed his hands on his jeans and then grabbed the pipe again. The oily substance hadn’t run down the pipe as fast as we were falling, and when his hands re-connected, he had a better grip.

We still slid downward, but the fall slowed a bit, and continued to slow the lower we fell. I shut my eyes tight, not wanting to see the ground racing up at me.

Slower and slower we slid, until finally we came to a stop.

“Let go of me,” Nash said.

Had I heard that right? He was abandoning me to die?

“Let go!” Nash said again, more urgently this time. “I can’t hold on much longer, and if we both fall together, I’ll hurt you!”

I hesitated.

“Chloe, look down!”

I did. We were a mere six or seven feet from the ground. All that work fighting to get to the top—and all for nothing. Now, we were surely dead. We didn’t have the time or energy to make another climb, and minor explosions continued to ignite above us.

Feeling defeated, I let go, hit the ground in a roll, and moved away quickly. Nash dropped down, landed on one foot, and rolled a few times to soften the blow. Even so, his bad foot must have impacted somewhere, because I heard him groan in pain.

The air was a bit more clear down here, since the smoke and vapors wafted upward away from us . . . and since there was a giant hole in the wall where one of the explosions had blown the doors right off their hinges, safety glass and all. I could feel a draft as fresh oxygen swept in through that door, fueling the fires above.

Nash and I saw the door at the same time. I rushed to help him up, and he leaned on me for support as we hobbled out.

We limped around corner after corner, looking for an exit.

Behind us, we heard another loud ka-BOOM and the shrieking of metal on metal as the refinery infrastructure began to buckle in on itself. We didn’t stop to look back.

Acrid smoke billowed into the hallway and a cloud enveloped us.

Nash and I held our breath as we turned the corner again and came upon a door blocked by a chair. A very familiar-looking door blocked by a chair.

I could barely see Nash through the smoke, but I knew we needed to get into the supply closet and get some respirators, pronto—never mind that Dorian was probably still in there and armed.

I moved the chair away from the door and tried to open it as Nash covered me. The door wouldn’t budge. The explosions and subsequent shaking of the building had warped the door frame and the thing was stuck.

In desperation, Nash handed the gun to me as he tugged on the door.

In one violent motion, the door wrenched free, and as expected, I found myself staring down the wrong end of the barrel of Dorian’s gun.

I aimed my own gun straight back at him. I didn’t even know how to use a gun before yesterday, and I certainly hadn’t become a crack shot overnight. What was I supposed to do? Duck? Shoot first? Run?

Nash and I edged into the supply room as Dorian inched backwards. We circled each other, Dorian making for the door, Nash and I making for the safety equipment.

I watched Dorian’s trigger finger tense as the smoky, toxic air around us seemed to grow even thicker. Walls shook and the floor rolled beneath me as another explosion thundered through the building. The PetroPlex flagship oil refinery was fast on its way to becoming nothing but a memory.

The doorframe buckled before my eyes—our only means of escape. Sharp orange tongues of flame lapped at me from above, sending down a rain of fiery particles as acoustic ceiling tiles disintegrated overhead.

That’s when I knew that gun or no gun, I was going to die.

I tossed my useless weapon on the floor. Dorian did the same.

Nash grabbed a couple of respirators from the floor, put one on himself, and tossed the other one to me. I put it on, not for one moment believing it could save me.

“Help me,” Nash said, motioning toward a freestanding metal shelf.

Dorian and I both understood. We rushed to the shelf and emptied it of its contents so that we could knock it over and use it as a battering ram.

The roar of the burning refinery around us was so loud we barely heard the crash of the shelf when it hit the floor.

All three of us hoisted it and aimed at a section of wall that wasn’t yet on fire.

“On the count of three, put all your weight into it, okay?” Nash yelled.

Dorian and I nodded.

Nash counted, and we rushed the wall.

The impact jarred me so hard I thought my joints might never be the same, but the shelf punctured a hole in the wall, and air rushed into the room.

Dorian was through the hole and gone before I could even regain my balance.

Nash and I moved more slowly, limping along at a wounded turtle’s pace. Nash never complained about his foot, but I could tell it pained him more after the drop to the ground from the slick pipe.

I could hear rafters falling and the building creaking all around us. Flames easily caught up with us, and even through the respirator, the scent of smoke and chemical waste scorched my nostrils.

Bits of flaming particles rained down on us, the deluge of the devil, and we dodged as best we could.

Another explosion. The building shuddered, and a flaming crossbeam crashed down behind us, missing by mere inches.

“You have to go,” Nash said. “If you wait for me, you’ll die.”

“I’m not leaving here without you.”

“Then I’m afraid you’re not leaving,” Nash said.

“We can make it! Come on. Just a little farther!

The building shuddered again, and this time an entire section of hallway collapsed. Nash heard the walls coming down and jerked me into an open doorway, hoping to gain what meager protection he could.

In the space of three seconds, debris crashed down, all aflame, blocking the pathway out completely.

“Look!” Nash said, pointing to a window in the office we’d just ducked into.

I nodded. We weren’t on the first floor, but there was a fire escape outside.

I picked up a desk chair and hurled it through the glass.

Then we both climbed through and surveyed the long distance down to the ground. We were six stories high. There would be no quick descent for Nash on his wounded foot.

We began the descent together, one painful step at a time.

Another explosion from somewhere inside shook the stairs. Again, I heard the shriek of metal on metal and knew the infrastructure was beginning to collapse.

I panicked, grabbed onto the railing, and stopped.

“Don’t stop!” Nash said. “Go! Go!”

I refused to budge without him.

“So help me God, Chloe, if you don’t go now, I will pick you up and throw you over the railing! Go! I’ll catch up with you!”

Still, I hesitated. I didn’t want to leave him to die, even if it meant saving my own life.

Nash hopped onto the stair railing and slid down. Before I knew it, he was beneath me.

“See?” he said. “Hurry up!”

Reassured, I pounded down the stairs as Nash continued to slide.

When my feet hit the ground, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Too soon.

The refinery grumbled and groaned in its death throes. High at the top of the building, the smoke stacks caved in. The structure swallowed itself and belched fire.

The loudest explosion of all shook the dirt beneath my feet, and I thought the very ground would open up and swallow the entire refinery, and us with it.

“Run, Chloe! Run!”

This time, I ran. I hadn’t intended to leave Nash, but sheer survival instinct propelled me forward. A thicket of trees lay ahead of me, and I ran deep into it, hoping its thick trunks and green canopy might provide some measure of protection if the refinery blew.

Nash ran behind me more slowly.

“Nash!” I called. “Nash, hurry up!”

“I’m coming!”

Please, Nash. Please. I mentally willed him to overcome the pain and keep up with me. Please.

I ran ever farther into the thicket, frantically kicking my way through brush and weeds until I was in so deep I could no longer see the refinery or Nash behind me.

Nash!” My lungs were on fire. I could barely get the word out.

There was no answer.

Nevertheless, I could not stop. I mechanically jerked one foot in front of the other, over and over, churning out as much distance as I could between me and an imminent catastrophic disaster.

When the final explosion came, my eardrums popped with its force, even though I was far into the woods. I felt the heat and the force of the blast propel me into the air, up, up, and forward. Trees flattened behind me. Splinters of wood and bark shot forward. Leaves burst into the air and caught flame, transforming into embers that floated softly to the ground.

My skin burned. My body ached. I flew forward, my body one with the motion of the forest around me. And then I slammed into the ground.

The last thoughts I had as the world went dark were of Nash and how I’d never see him again.