Page 74 of Hard Ride

“Kyra!Are you okay?”

Nothing.

He grabbed her arm and dragged her to the vent.He was losing strength and consciousness.She sure as shit couldn’t crawl out of the chute in her current state.He didn’t have enough oxygen left to push her in front of him and Van couldn’t fit.So before he could think better of it, he unwound the strap from his waist, and tied it as tightly as he could around her instead.

“I love you too, Kyra.”He kissed her forehead.

Ollie fingered the leather cord lying on his chest.He lifted it from his neck and placed it over Kyra’s head.If nothing else, she’d have that one picture of him and his mami to remember him by.And hopefully she’d realize that this was how things had always been meant to be.

He’d escaped once, but he wouldn’t be so lucky again.

This time the right person was going to live.

For the first time, he understood how his mami had felt when she’d made this same choice.And he was proud to deserve what she’d done for him, because it had brought him here where he could pay it forward.Thiswas his purpose.

With the last shred of his strength and clean oxygen, Ollie placed Kyra in the mouth of the vent, then banged three times on the side of it before he collapsed.

“Ollie!Is that you?It’s getting too dangerous.I’m hauling you out,” Van bellowed from the other side of the wall.

Thank God.Ollie watched as Kyra’s limp form rose up toward the light.Van’s strong arms would be there to catch her.He smiled as he curled into a ball and waited for darkness to descend.

The firefighters who’d caught him that night so long ago had promised his mother hadn’t suffered, that the smoke had likely gotten her before the heat or flames.And that it wasn’t a terrible way to go.

They had lied a little.His chest felt like it was full of razor blades.

But not for long, because he quickly became unaware of his suffering when he passed out.

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