Page 155 of Sweet Hate
“In here,” a shrill voice shouts from the last apartment on this floor.
“Max, got one!”
I smash open the door to the apartment, the heat and smoke so thick it’s becoming unbearable even with our fire gear. The boys outside work to vent the ceiling, but we need to get out of here fast. This isn’t a fire we want to be messing with.
And that’s when we spot an injured woman collapsed on the floor through the haze.
“My baby, my baby,” she wails over and over.
“Where’s your baby, ma’am?”
She points to a doorway blocked by fallen debris just as Cap’s voice sounds over the radio.
“Squad, pull out. This place is going down.”
Fuck.
I need to get this kid and get the hell outof here.
“Max, take her. I’ll get the kid.”
Ripping through the rubble, I make my way into the room where a toddler, no more than two or three lies silently in the crib.
No. No, no, no.
I take off my glove to check his pulse, my hand massive next to his tiny neck.
I find the beat, but it’s weak.
Too weak.
Grabbing the oxygen mask, I hold it over his little face as I search the surrounding area and work out our next move.
Making our way back out of the burning apartment block will take too long, and there’s a chance he won’t make it.
No way in hell I’m letting a kid die on my watch.
There’s a window, but it’s tiny. The one in the living room is a little bigger, and I can see the aerial ladder from there.
Closing the distance with his still body tucked in my arms, I shove open the window and call out to my crew.
Liam comes down the aerial, leaning toward me at a precarious angle, as far as his harness allows. Gently maneuvering the unconscious boy, I manage to hand him off.
“His pulse is weak. Get him to Beck now!”
Mask back on, I navigate back through the smoke-filled living room. Flames are licking through the ceiling above me now.
“Axel, get out of there.”
“Affirmative, Cap. On my way.”
Crouching, I hustle double time through the narrow hallway and down the staircase, a crack sounds above me and before I can react a beam comes crashing down, taking out the staircase and me with it.
Smashing straight through to the ground floor, pain radiates through my head and back from the impact.
Angry, orange flames engulf every inch of the roof overhead.Fire curls around the edge of the hole they’ve formed, relentlessly eating away at the structure, weakening it by the second.
So this is how I die.
