Page 32 of Brutal Union
I pull my hand away and stare at it—blood. Beaming, bright red smeared across my palm, streaked with ash and shards of blackened debris. It’s sticky, warm, already drying at the edges, painting me with proof that I was too fucking late.
I feel it now—trickling down my temple, sliding into the corner of my jaw in a slow, lazy river. Thick as oil. Hot like breath. The scent is metallic and dense, already mingling with the stench of smoke and scorched fabric.
I try to sit up.
The world immediately tilts, hard and punishing, like a building just shifted beneath me. My stomach lurches, and I’m forced to brace myself with blood-slick fingers against the crumbling pavement. The sky swims above me in a haze of gray and orange, a canvas of chaos.
“Fuck,” I cough, and the act rips through my chest like broken glass. Smoke stings my throat, clinging to my tongue. The taste of ash is thick and heavy, like breathing in dirt and regret.
I blink hard, clearing my vision just enough to see?—
Flames.
Pouring from the windows in curling tendrils of gold and rage. Her balcony—our balcony—is gone. Devoured. Black smoke rolls over the ledge like a tidal wave, and I watch helplessly as glass shatters from the heat and falls in burning, glittering shards. Like stars breaking apart mid-air.
“Nadia!” Her name tears out of me like a command, like a prayer I don’t believe will be answered.
I force myself to my feet, every muscle screaming. My knees wobble, ribs grinding against each other, but I don’t stop. Can’t. Each step feels like dragging a corpse—the weight of failure hitching to every tendon.
But I keep moving.
Because the sirens are still too far.
Because the building is still collapsing.
Because no one will get to her faster than me.
Because she’s mine.
I reach the blown-out entrance just as part of the second floor gives way, the floor above collapsing inward in a guttural moan. It hits the ground with a thunderous crack that reverberates through the soles of my boots. The shock rattles the bones in my legs, and for a split second, the whole fucking world seems to hold its breath.
Then the lobby coughs up smoke and fire and ruin, and I’m in it—throwing myself headfirst into the chaos.
My arm shields my face as the heat claws at me. My eyes sting, watering, but I force them open. The smoke burns. My lungs seize. But I charge through the mouth of the inferno like the devil’s on my heels—because she’s somewhere inside. Buried. Trapped.
“NADIA!” My voice shreds, but I scream anyway. If she can hear me, if she’s still alive, I need her to hold on. Just a little longer.
Flames bite up my calves, igniting the edges of my pants. I don’t care. I leap over a fallen beam, the charred wood snapping beneath me, and duck beneath the twisted remains of a support beam that groans with the weight of the floor above it.
Everything smells like death.
Burnt wood, melting wires, cooked leather. And blood.
I can smell her blood.
My hands are shredded, cut to hell as I dig through fallen beams, drywall, ash. My knuckles are raw, split open, and I don’t stop. The couch where she’d been lying—gone. Reduced to blackened steel and foam skeletons. Nothing is left. Not the velvet cushions. Not the silk throw she always refused to wash.
Nothing but ash.
And then I see her.
My heart punches through my chest as I spot the curve of her hip beneath a slab of splintered wall. She’s half-buried in wood, plaster, and rubble. Her body is slack. Blonde hair tangled and soaked with soot and blood. Her shirt is ripped down the middle, hanging in tatters, exposing pale skin marred with soot and grime. Cuts lace her torso, some shallow, others gaping. And that gash—above her eyebrow—bleeding slow, crimson tears down her cheek.
Time stops.
“Nadia…” I collapse to my knees beside her, breath catching as I reach for her. I’m trembling. I don’t even realize it until my hands are beneath her, lifting her gently, terrified she might break apart in my arms.
Her skin is ice. Her pulse is faint.
