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“Come on, Kyla,” Mag urges. “We can’t go that way.”
I turn, finding a Jacob I don’t recognize. It looks like he’s been in a warzone. He’s coated in gray and white dust. So much so that I can’t even see the color of his hair or beard poking through ash.
I take one look over my shoulder to search for them again, but find my legs working to keep up with Magnum as he pulls me toward the exit. It’s terrible knowing you can’t do anything to help the ones you love. I don’t know if they’re okay. I don’t know if they got burned. I don’t know if they fell through the floor when it opened up. An ache starts in my chest and spreads.
I can only hope they’re doing the same thing we are right now: Running for their lives.
My chest twinges with the shitty air in my lungs and the fear of not knowing who’s where.
Again.
It’s like the story of my life.
Through the floating ash, the red Exit sign barely filters through in front of us. Magnum and I hit the floor and crawl toward it. He checks the door before swinging it open into a hallway that’s been untouched. It’s as pristine as it was when they remade the building into The Ring.
A policeman darts down the hallway. “Cotton. Fuck.”
I cough, my lungs protesting the clean air. It kills my throat. The sound is hoarse, echoing through the vacuous space.
“Downstairs,” he tells us, waving toward the area he came from. “We have a triage area set up.”
The policeman claps his back, leaving it there, and among every other thing that’s just happened, I fixate on that. This policeman’s hand on Magnum’s shoulder.
I walk out into the night air ahead of them. A paramedic waits for me just outside the door. He pulls me toward an ambulance, the crisp night air creating havoc on my lungs, and I cough again. They put an oxygen mask over my face, and I dart my gaze around as I’m being led down the block, away from the building, away from the fire. I look for familiar faces, but I just see curious people lining the streets as policemen try pushing them back, telling them they’re unsure if there will be any more explosions, so they need to move away from the building. Roadblocks are set up just beyond the ambulances, and the further we get away from the building, the clearer the air gets.
The paramedic leads me to a triage area at the back bumper of an ambulance. Magnum walks toward me. Another paramedic asks questions at his side, but Mag waves him away, and the uniformed rescue personnel finally leaves, recognizing Magnum isn’t going to give him anything or even let him help.
Jacob reaches out his hand, threading his fingers through mine. Just as I’m about to remark that it’s always just the two of us after shit goes down, a chorus of yelling erupts behind him. Both of us turn to find several emergency personnel surrounding a stretcher.
I jump to my feet, tear the oxygen mask off, and push through the crowd as I make my way to the still form. There’s so many people it could be lying there. A spectator. One of the shooters. Or it could be someone I would give anything to see right now.
The guy on the stretcher pushes away one of the EMT’s hands. A gasp sticks in my throat. Tribal tattoos. A hand scattered with familiar black markings. “Brawler!”
He turns his head toward us, Mag’s hands feathering at my waist as we finally get to the stretcher.
“We need to get him to an ambulance,” one of the paramedics scolds.
A cop gets in our way, reaching his hands out at his sides to hold us back.
“I’m his girlfriend!” I say, pushing back.
Behind the cop, Brawler struggles to his feet at the protests of all the emergency personnel. He ignores them, coming up behind the cop and nudging him out of the way. I throw my arms around his waist, resting my head on his soot-stained chest. Just feeling him breathe beneath my skin is a relief. He got out. He—
I pull away, all breath escaping my chest. “B-Brawler…where’s Johnny?”
He grits his teeth and looks away.
No. No, no.I pull away from him, searching in the direction where I first saw Brawler on the stretcher. Johnny has to be somewhere. He has to be.
Brawler grabs my shoulders and makes me look into his swirling blue gaze. “They took him, Kyla.” He swallows. “I don’t know who it was. I tried to fight them, but they knocked me out.” He peeks up at the growing bump on his forehead that he definitely didn’t get from the fights. “He’s gone.”
I stumble back, and if it weren’t for Magnum steadying us both, Brawler and I would’ve gone down in a tangle of limbs and broken hearts.
I curl my fingers into Brawler’s skin, close my eyes, and make a promise just as powerful as the one I made my parents when I said I’d get revenge for their deaths.I will find Johnny Marx…alive, even if it’s the last thing I do.