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“Charlee!”

Nathan. Somewhere ahead. She tried to respond, but her voice choked. She clung to Jay’s hand and waved the other in front of her. She cracked an eye and regretted it instantly. Tears flooded down her face in a hot surge.

“The smoke doesn’t smell right.” Nathan’s rasp was muffled and too far away. Where was everyone else? No other voices hopefully meant they’d fled the bus.

Jay stumbled, kicked something out of the way. The clutter made their progress painfully slow, and the smoke weakened her lungs and weighted her movements.

“Almost there.” Jay squeezed her hand, slick with sweat.

Her boot caught the edge of a large open case. It flipped into her leg and knocked her off balance. She tottered, lurched, and a sharp prick seared through her bicep. Ouch. What the hell was that?

Jay’s hand tightened in hers as he turned. “Charlee?”

His voice echoed in her head. Numbness chilled her limbs and spread through her core. The cabin fell quiet, the smoke grew thinner, and something wrapped around her throat, pulled from behind. “There’s something…” Her voice slurred. Wheezing. Dizzy. There was something back there. Something there. Then, there was nothing.

90

Charlee’s hand ripped from Jay’s grasp, and the panic he’d tried so hard to stifle tore from his throat. “Charlee!” He gulped, toxic air scorching his insides. “Charlee!”

No answer. Christ, did she fall? Hit her head? He fell upon his knees and shoved aside guitar cases and electronics. “Charlee? Charlee, where are you?” He raced over the floor on hands and knees, sweeping the couches, under the dining table, the seats around it.

The heat smothered him. The smoke…so much smoke. His body locked up, and the walls closed in. The oven. Oh God, he was too big. He curled into himself, didn’t want to touch the scorching walls.

His lungs burned, his eyes scratched and watered, and he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face through all the goddamned smoke. No. Not the oven. He was on a bus…a bus…a bus. With Charlee. He shot to his feet and stretched his arms. Fuck. “Charlee, please. Answer me.”

“Jay?” A deep baritone.

“Colson?” He spun toward the voice.

“Yes, sir. You need to get off the bus. It’s going to blow.”

Blow? His heart rate spiked, and his shoulders stiffened. “I can’t find Charlee. She was right here. She must’ve tripped. I don’t know. I can’t fucking find her.” His hands swung over the floor, slamming into furniture and bouncing off the luggage and can goods strewn over the aisle.

“Okay,” Colson said from behind him. “I’ll search the front. You take the back.”

She couldn’t be anywhere but right fucking there. Tears mixed with smoke and poured down his face. His lungs wheezed and labored. He crawled over the floor, dread rising with every lift of his legs. “Charlee! Charlee!” His voice shredded his raw throat. Fuck, where was she?

“I’ve got her. I’ve got her,” Colson shouted from the front of the cabin. “I’m getting her off the bus. Hurry.”

“You have Charlee? You’ve got her?” Jay scrambled to his feet and plowed through the shit in his way.

“Yes, sir. I’m taking her to safety.” Colson’s voice floated in from outside the door.

His blood pumped faster with the urgency of his strides. He crashed into the front dash and stumbled down the stairs. The billow of smoke followed him as he pitched across the asphalt, staggering to stay upright, coughing and blinking through stinging eyes. “Charlee? Colson?”

He swung around, the landscape obscured by the pitch-black sky. No streetlights. No headlights. The road appeared deserted except for their motorcade. The Suburbans and buses angled haphazardly around him, submersed in plumes of smoke and swarmed by the silhouettes of his protective team. Charlee was nowhere amongst the mayhem.

The door behind him swooshed closed, and the engine turned over.

Blood drained from his face. No, no, no, no. He spun, drew his gun from his waistband. The bus rolled forward, accelerated.

He ran, raised the gun, fired at the door. The glass cracked. Just the surface. Fucking bulletproof. His heart thrashed in his chest, and his legs burned from the exertion of his sprint. Pain exploded through his jaw from the force of his clench.

The smokescreen within held its thickness. How the fuck could the driver see?

The bus picked up speed, moving faster than Jay could run. He shot a tire. Another and another. They continued to spin. Too many tires. Too far away. The gun clicked. Out of ammo.

Nausea tore through his stomach and boiled through his chest. He didn’t slow his strides. He couldn’t. Couldn’t let the taillights out of his sight. “Tony! Nathan!”