Page 54 of Their Property
Prying and pulling at the bar did nothing. They had screwed this thing in in multiple places. Panic flooded me as I redrew my gun, but Dyno shoved my hands away. “You could hit someone if they’re all shoved up against it.”
He was right, but that gave me another idea.
I pointed at the mini molotovs on his belt, then cupped my hands around my mouth to mimic yelling, and then throwing the explosives. A slow smile came to his face as he understood my meaning, then he kissed me quickly.
“You’re a genius, you sexy fuck.”
He pressed his hands and forehead to the door, then proceeded to yell at the top of his lungs. “Hey! Can anyone hear me in there?”
The screams and pounding from the other side intensified, reaching a fever pitch. “Help us!” they cried. “Everything is burning, and we can’t get out!”
I tried to listen for Kyrie and T-Bone in the chaotic mass of voices but couldn’t pick them out.
“You all need to listen to me!” Dyno hollered through the wood. “Step as far away as you can from the door! I’m going to blow it up!”
“Everything’s on fire!” someone answered. “We’re trapped! We can’t go anywhere!”
“Get as far away from the door as you can!” Dyno pulled one of the small explosives from his belt. “I’m going to count to five, and you allneedto back away!”
“Help us! Let us out!”
The cries on the other side only seem to grow louder, more desperate and panicked, but Dyno stuffed the bottle with a fuse and then lit it, counting down loudly as he set the bomb in front of the door. As soon as it touched the ground we took off, hurrying away as Dyno screamed his last ferocious warning for everyone to back away. And it blew.
For the second time in five minutes, I was thrown off my feet by the blast. My hands, knees, and forearms were scraped raw, and now I couldn’t hear anything past the ringing in my ears. Dyno must have distilled his recipe even more, because I couldn’t remember those little bombs being that strong.
My mind immediately turned to Kyrie and I forced myself to move, rolling out of the path of stampeding people escaping the building. Once I righted myself, I searched desperately in the sea of faces rushing out.Where were they?
“Kyrie!” Dyno called, his voice growing hoarse from all the yelling he’d already done. “T-Bone! Are you here?” He stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly, our distress signal for each other. Some people turned their heads, curious at the sound, but none of the faces were familiar.
The smoke spilling out of the doorway was thick, stinging my eyes and throat. Dyno and I approached the doorway once the rush of people thinned out, and I grabbed the back of his cut to prevent him from rushing inside. He turned to look at me and I shook my head, then jerked my chin away. Kyrie and T-Bone weren’t with those people, and we’d suffocate or be burned alive if we went in that way.
“They were, uh, in a hallway before I came out.” He turned and coughed, the smoke already fucking up his lungs. “They must not have gone back to the ballroom.”
Another blast went off somewhere, shaking the walls of the building. I tugged him away from the door and we took off running again, following the long exterior wall.
“This way!” Dyno turned sharply, cutting across one of the smaller courtyards, and I followed him. After patrolling inside and outside the capitol for weeks, we knew the layout of the building well. I trusted he knew exactly where T-Bone and Kyrie had last been.
Fires were everywhere now, flickering in windows that I knew were offices and conference rooms. Across the street, a smaller building used as a smoking lounge by many in the governor’s cabinet was also ablaze. We’d heard rumors that officials bribed women from poorer families to come out there for better job opportunities or to pick up donated items, then they were actually solicited, and often coerced, for sex.
The rumors were never substantiated, and so we never brought it up to Kyrie, but I felt no small amount of pleasure at seeing the place burn. Not all violent conflicts came from wanting better, but this one probably was.
Kyrie had been trying to help these people the peaceful way, through her political channels, but she might as well have been screaming into a void. Sometimes the only way to implement change was to do it forcefully, and by setting fire to the ones who pushed your face into the mud.
“Kyrie!” Dyno yelled, his voice getting weaker from running and the smoke inhalation. “T-Bone!”
His footsteps slowed as we approached another entrance up ahead. The doors were open at this end of the building, but they weren’t without damage. The wood was buckled and splintered in some areas and hung crookedly on its hinges. Whoever had been trapped on the other side had managed to force their way out.
Clouds of smoke billowed out of windows and the gaps in the doors. Here there wasn’t much fire, as the floor and walls were made of some kind of stone tile. But we’d still get cooked alive if we tried to go in.
And anyone still inside probably already was.
“They were right here.” Dyno’s breaths were labored, ragged. His lungs seized up into a coughing fit before he could speak again. “In this hallway. The ballroom’s through there.” He pointed to the far end of the corridor where it connected to the main building. “She came down this hall. T-Bone went to go find her. Fuck! Where are they?”
His voice was full of frustration and worry. If I could speak, I would have sounded the same. I grabbed his shoulder and squeezed in an attempt to be comforting, but the clench of my grip only betrayed how worried I was.
“They had to have made it out, right?” Dyno said more to himself than me, his face pale. “The door wouldn’t be like that if they didn’t make it.”
I clenched my jaw, empathizing with his pain. Not knowing was the worst. They weren’t here now, and until the fire died back so we could investigate, we didn’t know if their bodies were in that corridor or not.
