Page 215 of Between Passion and Revenge: Part Two
The heat is nearly unbearable, but I thank the ancestors, God, Allah—everybody—that the stairs are still clear, though they won’t be for long. Fingers of flames reach out along the sheetrock, eating up the wood and any organic surface. Everystep feels like I’m being ripped open. My shirt sticks to the wound. I don’t know how I’m still standing.
I round the bottom stair, taking them two at a time, terror numbing the stab wound at my side. When I reach the top, glass shatters behind me, and the glass sculpture I made of me and Shae lies in shards on the floor, the wooden frame still burning bright.
“Tems! Rai!” I rush past my mother’s unfinished art when I spot the twins huddled in the corner. Raiden holds Tempest close to his chest as she wails.
“We heard the g-guns, and we ran to hide like you told us!” Raiden babbles, but I scoop them up, groaning at the pain but knowing there’s no time to talk.
“You both are so brave,” I say, moving us toward the stairs. I skid to a stop when a beam falls from one end of the garage to the other, blocking the path.
“Daddy!” Tempest screeches. I turn around, searching for another way out.
Another way. Another way.
My eyes flick like I’m trying to track a speeding object, and I keep coming back to one horrible choice.
The only option is the window, so out the window we go.
“I’m gonna put you both down, and I need you to be brave for a minute longer,” I say, crouching to look both of them in the eye. Tempest coughs, hacking as the smoke billows, and my eyes sear.
Break the window.
Spotting the ceramic pot that once held a Monstera, I chuck it at the glass with all my strength, and thankfully, it shatters.
Get us out.
The tarps I put on the ground the last time Shae and I were here seem to be divinely placed, and I make quick work of knotting them together to make a rope.
“Okay, Tems, you’re going to climb down,” I shout, and Tempest’s eyes widen.
“No, I can’t!” She latches on to me.
No time. There’s no time.
Another piece of wall falls.
“Raiden! Go down. Now!” My son doesn’t hesitate, going over the lip of the window and climbing down as I watch. Shae’s there to catch him.
“Storm, the fire’s growing!” Shae shouts, her panicked voice almost muted over the roar of the fire and the distance.
I pick up Tempest and look her in the eyes right as the stairs crack and fall, and one of the supports under the loft must give away, because the platform beneath my feet sags to the side.
“Daddy!” Tempest shrieks. “I’m so scared!”
The look of pure terror on my daughter’s face is enough to send me to a grave.
The floor lurches again, and I look out the window toward Shae on the ground.
“I’ll be right behind you,” I say, my voice practically gone now. “I love you, Tems.” I say, and another loudcrackcauses the flames to whip up as part of the roof gives away.
“I need you to climb down now. Be my brave little girl, okay?” Still sobbing, she searches my face, and something in my expression allows her to go.
“Okay, Daddy,” she says. “I’ll be b-brave.”
I wrap her hands around the rope, even as her body trembles.
“Just hold on. I’ve got you. Mommy’s right there.”
Her watery eyes meet mine, and in steady movements, she descends. In a few seconds, she’s on the ground, clutching Shae like a koala.
