Page 119 of Kings & Carnage

I thought about all the news reports I'd read of people being trampled in crowded clubs during fires. I'd never understood how it could happen, but now the possibility felt all too real, the press of bodies painful and powerful, forcing me along in a direction and at a speed over which I had no control.

It felt like an eternity before I spilled out the back door and into the freezing night air.

I staggered forward with the rest of the crowd, trying to blink the smoke from my eyes. It clouded my vision, made it hard to make out the features of the people milling around me in a panic, the fire alarm still shrieking.

I caught the sight of flames leaping out of the second-floor windows and a strangled scream rose from my throat as I thought of Neo and Rock.

No, I thought.No.

I rubbed my eyes, searching the crowd for their faces, for Oscar, for Mara and Claire, Quinn and Erin.

But I didn't see any them, and I stumbled around the side of the house toward a crowd gathering at the front, hoping they would be there.

I was almost to the front when someone grabbed me from behind.

For a split second I thought it was one of the Kings, but it was all wrong — not a relieved tug of my hand pulling me into strong arms, but someone pinning my arms to my side from behind, lifting me off the ground, pulling me away from the crowd.

"No! Put me down!" I was screaming, but the sound was barely a whisper from my throat, made raw from all the smoke.

The house and crowd were growing farther away as I was dragged backward, everyone too busy running for their lives to notice.

I couldn't see the face of the person who was taking me, but I thought of Emma, wondered if this was how she’d felt in the moments before she disappeared.

A moment later I was thrown into the back of a van. I scrambled for the door but it shut before I reached it. A black bag was pulled over my head and I felt the pierce of a needle in my neck.

And then, nothing.

Chapter57

Oscar

I'd been watching Laszlo, the disgusting bastard, while keeping an eye on Willa, clearly having an argument with Mara. I had no idea what Mara was doing in Blackwell Falls but I knew Willa had discouraged her from coming because of Roberto and the missing girls.

Now Mara was clearly hammered, stumbling and pointing at Willa. In all the years that they’d been best friends, I’d never seen them fight, and I wanted to give Willa time to calm Mara down and get her to leave St. Andrew’s, because while Ilya was a decent guy, there were plenty of not-decent guys on the premises and we didn't have time to babysit.

Then, the ringing of the smoke alarm, the confused expressions on the faces of everyone in the kitchen, most of them drunk on both alcohol and sex, not to mention the assortment of drugs that routinely circulated these kinds of events.

There was about five seconds when I thought maybe it was a false alarm, somebody breaking the rules and smoking inside.

But then smoke started to fill the room.

Fast.

And not a little smoke, like when Neo tried to cook something.

Thick, dark smoke, billowing into the kitchen all at once.

Panic descended like a shroud over the kitchen. Everyone shouted, rushing for the main hall all at once, but there was only one thought in my mind.

Willa.

The crowd had thickened between us, blocking my view of her and Mara.

I didn't even think about Laszlo Nagy. We obviously had bigger problems.

I tore off my mask and shoved through the crowd, working against the current of people shoving for the hall. It was like being carried down the Blackwell River and trying to swim upstream.

The smoke grew thicker, my eyes and throat burning. I coughed and kept shoving my way through, trying to calm my panic with the knowledge that Willa would have to come this way to get to the hall.

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