Page 94 of Tasting Fire
No, he was desperate, and the gap between buildings wasn’t that wide.
“I’m coming with you,” Donaldson said.
Cash didn’t waste a second to confirm he was following. He just strode over to the building next door and pulled the ladder on its fire escape. He and Donaldson pounded up the rickety rungs and onto the gravel-strewn roof. Cash backed up to the far side and took a deep breath that did nothing to calm his heart. Stupid thing had turned into some kind of deadly ninja in his chest.
Then he ran the length of the roof. At the edge, he gave it everything inside him, jumping up and out, free falling for a heartbeat and a half. The Murchison rooftop seemed to come up and meet him with a violent impact as he landed with bent knees.
Donaldson made it across and pitched forward onto his palms.
“You okay?” Cash asked into his radio mic.
“Nothing broken.”
“Then let’s go.”
They hacked their way through the roof and lowered themselves into a sort of attic crawl space over what should be Emmy’s bedroom. Cash used his ax to cut a hole in the ceiling. But when he pulled back a piece of drywall and spotted Emmy’s bed, it was an empty tangle of sheets.
Fuck. Where was she?
He finished cutting through the ceiling and the drywall hit Emmy’s bed in a cloud of dust. Then he dropped down with a bounce that broke the board in half. He moved to make room for Donaldson.
Inside the bedroom, thick smoke filled the space. Even through his mask, Cash thought he could taste the acrid flavor. He shined his light in all the corners, but no Emmy.
Maybe she wasn’t even here. Maybe she’d gone to her mom’s… Or maybe she was lying dead on the floor by her front door. Maybe she’d tried to escape and…
Shut that shit up.
“We need to move on and check the living room,” he told Donaldson. The smoke was thicker there with flames licking around the jamb of the one exit from the apartment.
“Over here,” Donaldson yelled into his radio mic.
Sweet Jesus.
Two women were sprawled unconscious on the couch and one more was on the floor. Kris, Emmy’s mom, and… Riley?
What was his baby sister doing here, and why was Emmy’s house filled with women?
Doesn’t matter. Just get them out and find Emmy.
“We’re missing one,” he told Donaldson calmly even though his stomach was turning inside out.
“We need to get these three out pronto.”
With clumsy movements that made sweat run down his body like the Nantahala River during spring release, Cash waved his arms to stop Jackson’s assault on the living room window and wrestled it open. He spoke into his mic to his lieutenant. “LT, we have three unconscious up here and one unaccounted for. ETA on the ladder truck?”
“ETA now,” his LT said. And sure enough, the ladder truck pulled up and maneuvered into place. The job was made harder because people were starting to congregate on Main Street, staring up at what had to look like the mouth of hell from the outside.
Itfeltlike the mouth of hell from the inside.
“We need to get them out,” he told Donaldson in a voice that didn’t hint at the panic filling his gut. “Grab her”—he pointed to Emmy’s mom—“and get the fuck out of here.” Although not by much, Jennifer McKay was probably the heaviest.
One by one, Cash dragged Kris and Riley toward the open window. “Wake up,” he chanted at them. But being the stubborn women they were, neither of them listened.
Donaldson reappeared at the outside of the window, and Cash passed him Kris.
“Riley,” he tapped his sister’s face and shouted at her, “wake up!”
For once in her life, she listened. Her eyes were slow and heavy, but they opened. “What—”
