Page 32 of Brutal Unionn

My brows knit as I glance toward the window—blinds cracked just enough to see across the road, perched on the front stoop of the building opposite mine, a shadow standing still.

The phone is still to his ear. My stomach knots. “Sho?” I breathe.

He lifts a hand and waves—slow, taunting.

“Get your ass over here,” I command. “Time for--”

A white-hot blast tears through the house, fire clawing through walls like hands made of flame. The floor buckles. The windows shatter inward with a shriek of glass. I’m thrown backward off the couch, the force of it knocking the air from my lungs.

Pain slices through me. A scream dies in my throat.

Heat—everywhere.

My ears are ringing, bones rattling from the shock. Smoke pours in through every crack. Somewhere, the fire alarm screeches like a dying animal.

The last thing I see before everything blurs is a pair of heavy boots stepping through the haze. Fast. Precise.

Gloved hands grip me hard and drag me across the burning floor.

And then?—

Darkness.

9

SHO

“Nadia…”I groan, the sound dragging itself from somewhere raw and buried deep in my chest. My voice is hoarse—grated by smoke, by pain, by the scream I didn’t have time to release. I press the heel of my palm to my forehead, grinding it against the throb blooming sharp and white behind my eyes. It’s not just pain—it’s pressure, like something trying to crack my skull open from the inside.

The world wavers. Heat distorts the air. Everything around me is vibrating, trembling at the edge of collapse.

I pull my hand away and stare at it—blood. Beaming, bright red smeared across my palm, streaked with ash and shards of blackened debris. It’s sticky, warm, already drying at the edges, painting me with proof that I was too fucking late.

I feel it now—trickling down my temple, sliding into the corner of my jaw in a slow, lazy river. Thick as oil. Hot like breath. The scent is metallic and dense, already mingling with the stench of smoke and scorched fabric.

I try to sit up.

The world immediately tilts, hard and punishing, like a building just shifted beneath me. My stomach lurches, and I’m forced to brace myself with blood-slick fingers against the crumbling pavement. The sky swims above me in a haze of gray and orange, a canvas of chaos.

“Fuck,” I cough, and the act rips through my chest like broken glass. Smoke stings my throat, clinging to my tongue. The taste of ash is thick and heavy, like breathing in dirt and regret.

I blink hard, clearing my vision just enough to see?—

Flames.

Pouring from the windows in curling tendrils of gold and rage. Her balcony—our balcony—is gone. Devoured. Black smoke rolls over the ledge like a tidal wave, and I watch helplessly as glass shatters from the heat and falls in burning, glittering shards. Like stars breaking apart mid-air.

“Nadia!” Her name tears out of me like a command, like a prayer I don’t believe will be answered.

I force myself to my feet, every muscle screaming. My knees wobble, ribs grinding against each other, but I don’t stop. Can’t. Each step feels like dragging a corpse—the weight of failure hitching to every tendon.

But I keep moving.

Because the sirens are still too far.

Because the building is still collapsing.

Because no one will get to her faster than me.