Page 48 of Venus
The beam shifts. Just an inch.
Trevor screams, and the sound cuts straight through me like a razor.
The roar of the smoke changes and we both look up. It’s thicker now. Darker. Hotter.
We both know what that means.
Flashover is coming, and we have seconds.
I look back towards the exit, and a very cowardly part of me weighs if I can make it in time. Instead, I pull out my radio.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday.Engine One interior. We are trapped. I repeat, we are trapped.”
I drop the radio, not really caring if anyone responds at all, as I go back to trying to lift the beam. I hear a snap and then a rush of heat at my back.
Then something hits me, hard. A falling beam, or maybe the entire second floor. I just know my mask is now pressed against the concrete and the wind is knocked out of my lungs from the impact.
My mask has a crack in it. My hip feels dislocated. I can’t breathe anymore. My mask begins to fog up and I’m practically blind.
I try to move, but I can’t.
“Carter!” Trevor yells, reaching for me. I reach back, and we take each other’s hands as our PASS devices start blaring an alarm, signaling to everyone else how absolutely fucked we are. “I told you to get out!”
The heat is impossible now, like being tossed into Hell itself.
I squeeze his hand even tighter, and I think we both realize at the same time that this really is it.
“I love you, brother,” I tell him. Not loud, not frantic. Just the truth. Something calm and steady in our last moments.
He nods, eyes wet, body trembling from adrenaline and pain. “Yeah, love you too.”
The air shifts, and everything around us stills for a brief second before the roar of the fire consumes us in flashover. The whole room bursts into impossibly hot flame.
I hear the both of us screaming through the agony and the terror, but I never let go of his hand, and he never lets go of mine.
Then, silence.
Heat gone.
Light gone.
Just…nothing.
Chapter 27 | Venus
I’m in the middle of a delivery when Callie sneaks into the room. I give her a smile, but she doesn’t even seem to register that I’m there. Instead, she goes straight for the attending and whispers in her ear. After a short conversation, my charge nurse approaches me and quietly says I need to head to the nurse’s station immediately for an emergency.
I give her a strange look. As if the baby currently crowning mid-push isn’t enough of an emergent situation. My hands freeze, just for a second, but then I do as I’m told. I peel my gloves off, toss them in the trash can, and give my hands and arms a good scrub before stepping out of the delivery room.
I walk to the station with half-haste and half-hesitation. I turn the corner, and everything just…stops.
Jackson is standing there in full gear, covered in soot. Helmet off, eyes red-rimmed and filled with pain. The kind of expression that you only give when there’s news no one wants to say out loud.
I rush to him. “Carter? Oh God, is he okay?”
He doesn’t answer. He grabs my wrist and firmly pulls me along with him. My heart is beating out of my ribs as I practically have to jog to keep his pace. “Jackson, please, what happened?”
He doesn’t look at me. “You need to see it for yourself.”
