“What color are they?” Pipe asks.
“They look red but I can’t be sure,” she chokes. “The smoke is so thick over here. Are you guys close?”
“Oksana was wearing red shoes,” Pipe says to himself, raking his fingers through his thinning hair.
“Help me with this,” Stryker orders, walking over to the metal door lying haphazardly amongst the debris. He bends his knees and grabs one end while Pipe reaches for a corner and Anthony grunts through the pain to grab the other end. The three men quickly shuffle their feet toward the fire and throw the metal door over the flames. It takes a few minutes before some of the fire is contained but not all of it.
“I need to get to my sister,” I shriek, hope diminishing inside me as I watch the flames continue to dance, separating us from saving her and Mike. “Nikki,” I cry, my body writhing with sobs as I feel Anthony slide one arm around me, pulling my back toward his chest.
“I’m going in,” Stryker announces. Before any of us can say anything he pulls his leather over his face, bows his head and charges across the metal door into the flames.
It’s my breaking point and I crumble. The sound of my sister begging Mikey to open his eyes, the fire crackling around me as I watch Stryker disappear into the amber lights. He’s one man fighting flames trying to rescue three people trapped beneath destruction. Even if he’s able to get one of them free he won’t be able to carry them through the fire to safety.
Dread fills my soul.
Panic runs through my veins.
The stench of death is heavy in the air as we become helpless to those trapped amongst the devastation.
How do you choose who lives and who dies?
How do you save everyone?
How do you live with yourself if one can’t be saved?
“Adrianna,” Anthony shouts, shaking me as he turns my chin left of the flames. I narrow my eyes, push through the tears and watch as Stryker emerges stomping over a mountain of rubble carrying my sister.
“Mikey,” she screams over his shoulder, pounding her fists over and over against his shoulder. “Put me down! I told you to leave me if you couldn’t get him out.”
Stoically, he drops my sister in front of me and grabs a hold of Pipe. I bend, ignoring the aches shooting through my body and wrap my arms around my sister.
“Thank you,” I whisper to him. I’m not sure if he hears me because he grabs a hold of Pipe’s arm and turns his gaze to Anthony.
“I need help getting the bar off them.”
“Anthony, please, you have to save him. Please!” Nikki cries in my arms.
Another shrill voice screams, tearing my attention away from the three men staring back at me and my sister.
“Lacey,” Pipe screams, looking between the direction of Lacey’s voice and the other where his wife, Mikey and God knows who else is trapped.
Who do you save?
Who do you choose?
Chapter Forty-One
Wake up!
But this isn’t a nightmare and I’m already awake.
Creating deep scratches, I drag my nails back and forth across my arms and draw blood. Despite my hopes and prayers, the crimson stares back at me antagonizing me just like my mind is and confirms this is real.
Hysteria ripples through me as my eyes dart around searching through thick smoke and fire for the people I love.
Blackie.
Dad.
Reina.
I was standing right beside Reina when the man came into the clubhouse. Right beside her. She has to be somewhere close. And Dad, I remember him throwing himself over her before the blast. I remember that because when they went down I locked eyes with Blackie and saw the terror in his face, the unmistakable look of defeat.
“GET DOWN!”
There wasn’t enough time for him to get to me and the look in his eyes, accompanied by the pain in his voice, solidified my knight cloaked in leather wouldn’t be able to save me.
Not this time.
I fought my mind believing the destruction was all in my head but another glance at the track marks my nails are making on my arms and I know that this time it’s not the maker inside me wreaking havoc but one we don’t know.
“Blackie!” I scream, not sure my voice is even making a sound. There is something lodged in my throat suffocating me. I try to pull whatever it is out with my fingers but nothing is coming out. I swallow but it doesn’t help. I force myself to cough, hoping to hack whatever it is up but wind up spitting into my hand, covering my palm with my saliva and blood.
Wiping my hand down the front of my dress I hear people screaming and crying. My eyes widen with hope and my heart rate picks up. There are survivors out there in the fire, in the rubble there are people alive begging for help.
Not your people.
Listen closely, those aren’t the voices you want to hear.
Covering my ears, I press my palms down as hard as they can go, squeezing my maker out of my head as I crawl out from the corner I seem to have land in when the explosion occurred.
They didn’t survive.
Your father is dead.
Blackie is dead.