Sophie Alexander was going to die alone.
While she had long ago made the choice to live by herself, to be independent and self-sufficient in every way, dying alone was different. Creepy. Unnerving.
Okay, terrifying.
She was in her office — she knew that much. But everything else was confusing, including the layout, which she’d thought she knew back and forth and upside down. She should, as much time as she spent here. But the heat and the thick, lung-scorching smoke had sent her internal GPS powers to hell. Plus, the throbbing, swelling knot on the side of her head hurt so badly she couldn’t think straight.
Ironic that her life’s mission was to make the world greener, safer, and she was going to be asphyxiated by vile, poisonous gases in a fire.
Irony could suck it.
Her mind was scrambled like an egg, like the frog her satan-spawn brother had run through their mother’s good blender when he was thirteen. No. She was not going to waste a single thought on him, especially if these were among her last.
And she was definitely not going to just lie here and give up. Giving up went against everything inside of her. She’d never been a quitter, and lying in a stifling, smoke-filled sweatbox, coughing her brains out, was not going to change that.
She didn’t want to die. She had too much to live for. She had a company to run, buildings to improve, personal goals to kick ass at, literally and figuratively. Lying here and giving up was not an option.
Sophie pulled her smoke-saturated shirt over her mouth and nose, as if that would help much, and fought hard to stop coughing with every inhale. She hoisted her concrete-heavy body up on all fours as best she could and crawled a few feet, unsure of the direction she moved in but thinking if she kept going, she’d eventually run in to something. Preferably an exit.
* * *
Heavy, blinding smoke was a bitch. One of the worst parts of being a firefighter, in Nate Rottinghaus’s opinion. Masks were a pain in the ass, but he couldn’t imagine doing the job without one, the way they had just a couple decades ago. He adjusted his again, praying his supply would last.
He was deep inside the second level of the two-story office building, crawling as low to the floor as he could get. Visibility: zero. Status quo. He continued to navigate by touch, blindly searching every inch in front of him with his gloved hands. Hoping.
One of the tenants from the first floor of the building, who hadn’t been present when the fire had broken out, reported that the tenant in the upstairs office on the north end — this one — might be inside. A thirty-something female who practically lived in her office. Her Lexus SUV was in the lot, and the downstairs tenant had heard her footsteps above his office just a couple of hours ago. No one had seen her leave.
Nate was all business when he was working a fire. Couldn’t afford not to be. Two years ago, he’d learned the up-close-and-personal way that lives could be altered in a millisecond in the heart of a blaze. Thank God for Faith Mendoza, his former colleague and now the chief’s wife, who’d saved his sorry ass.
Nate was still waiting for his opportunity to pay it forward.
As the minutes ticked by, his adrenaline pumped even harder. She had to be in here somewhere. His optimism had soared when he’d located a couch, thinking maybe she’d fallen asleep there, but there was no one on it or near it, and now time was running out. His air supply must be close to empty — he expected to get the five-minute warning vibration any second. But he couldn’t quit until he ran into Evan Drake, his colleague who’d gone left when Nate had gone right, in the middle. Until they found the woman or verified there was nobody inside.
Keep it together, he told himself. Gotta be getting close.
A few seconds later, his left hand ran into something soft, pliable. A foot?
Pulling himself along by the elbows, he scooted closer and took his left glove off with his teeth. A leg, he verified as he groped his way over a muscled calf, a knee, a thigh. A short leg. Feminine. He thought he heard a moan, but it was hard to tell, between all his gear and the sounds of the others actively fighting the blaze about twenty feet to the south. Too damn close.
He eased himself alongside her and fumbled around for his flashlight, breaking out in a sudden sweat that had nothing to do with the hundred-plus-degree heat in here.
People depended on him to be a professional and to keep his shit together, in every way, when he was inside a burning building. Doubly so when there was a life at stake. Normally, he was cool under pressure. Able to think straight about whatever situation was at hand. Systematic. Practical. Experienced.
So when he shined his light into this woman’s face, it defied all logic and acceptability that the first thing that went through his mind was that she had the most compelling brown eyes he’d ever seen.
The second was that those eyes were staring back at him with a certain measure of awareness. Relief. She was conscious, if disoriented. Scared as hell, understandably. The urge erupted in him to assuage that fear, to put his arms around her and reassure her — on a personal level. And that was messed up.
Those were some powerful eyes.
Nate grabbed his radio and reported in: “Female victim located. Conscious. Bringing her out.”
He propelled himself the last few inches until he was even with her head, taking a final deep pull on his air supply. “Everything’s gonna be okay,” he told the woman as he pulled his mask from his face and opened himself up to the chemical-laden smoky air. She responded only with a wicked cough. She’d no doubt taken in a shit-ton of the potentially deadly air. Nate eased the mask over her nose and mouth, standard operating procedures be damned, coaching her to get some of the purified air into her system, which he knew was easier said than done in her apparent condition. Time to get her the hell out of here stat.
“Can you walk with me?” he asked next to her ear.
The woman coughed repeatedly as she tried to inhale from the mask … but she nodded.
He frowned, not convinced. “Let’s give it a try. Stay low.”
They made it three steps before her coughing and wheezing overtook her.
“I’m going to help you,” he said, leaning close. He thought he saw a minute nod, but he didn’t spare the time to analyze.
He hoped like hell she didn’t have any unseen injuries as he hoisted her into his arms. She weighed next to nothing; if he hadn’t looked into her eyes, he’d think she was a child by her size.
The smoke was already burning the inside of his nose and all the way down his air passages into his lungs. Which meant the vic must be in a hell of a lot of pain.
Nate kept as low as possible, focused on finding the most direct way back out — not an easy task when he had crawled methodically back and forth over every inch of space looking for her, the smoke messing with his orientation, and couldn’t see two inches in front of his face. He suspected — hoped — the door was about fifteen feet ahead, on the other side of the couch.
The woman tightened her death squeeze on his neck with surprising strength, which was a good sign. Her will to survive was strong. She was likely going to need that in spades once he got her out of here into the paramedics’ hands.
As he made his way around another piece of furniture, something popped in front of his face and would’ve drawn a curse from him had he had oxygen to waste on it. A split second later, he realized it was his mask. She was offering him a fresh breath. His heart pounded in gratitude that was probably less than heroic, and he held it to his face, not stopping their slow progress as he sucked in one long breath of clean air. The very second his lungs were full, the low-air warning beep went off. Five minutes left on his supply. He paused long enough to make sure the mask was over the woman’s face again and then set off, knowing they had to be close to the place he’d entered, trusting his instincts, praying they were right and he wouldn’t let this woman down.
They made it out in less than four minutes — the most excruciating four minutes of Nate’s life. Rafe and Niko, two of the paramedics, were waiting with a stretcher a few feet from the building. Nate paused in front of it, looked down into those brown eyes that seemed to implore him not to desert her. For a crazy second, he didn’t want to let her go.
“Rottinghaus?” Rafe shouted loudly enough to be heard over the racket.
It was enough to snap him out of his stupor.
“These guys are the best medics you could have,” he told the woman. “They’ll take good care of you.”
He lowered her to the stretcher, and they rushed her off before he could say another word.
Paige Hegel, another of the EMS team, hurried over to Nate and tried to usher him toward another ambulance.
“I’m fine,” he said, fighting not to cough, knowing it wouldn’t take much to get sent off to the hospital. “Just need to catch my breath.”
Chief Joe Mendoza approached with concern and purpose blazing from his eyes. He gestured to Nate and then to the ambulance, yelling something Nate couldn’t hear over all the commotion.
“He said you need to be checked,” Paige shouted, even though she was right next to him, her arm looped around his.
Nate opened his mouth to tell her what he thought of that, and damn if he didn’t start coughing.
He spotted a group around the brown-eyed woman he’d carried out, next to the first ambulance in line, and decided allowing Paige to smack some O2 on him would give him the chance to see how she was faring, check to see if she was still conscious or if her condition had worsened. He only wanted to check because she was his first rescue ever. Professional concern.
As Paige sat him down, hooked him up with a mask, and checked his vitals, he helplessly watched the paramedics work on the nameless woman about twenty feet away. He could only see the top of her dark head. Couldn’t tell whether she was moving or not.
His heart hammered, and he tried to convince himself it was just the rescue and the adrenaline rush that went with it. But as they loaded her in the box, their frantic pace telling him that every second was crucial, all he could see in his mind were those beautiful, terrified, determined eyes.
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