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I WOKE TO FIND THE bed empty and smoke seeping into the room from underneath the door. Years of training kicked in, and my rational mind told me not to try to escape that way. I should go for the window and climb out to safety, but Clark’s absence stayed my plan.
“Clark?!” I shouted, pushing the covers around as if I was a magician who could force her to appear in a dramatic reveal. It didn’t work.
Ignoring everything the agency taught me about fire, I went to the door. I put my hand against it to see if there were flames out in the hallway. Though the smoke was gathering, thick and gray, there was relatively little heat to my touch. I tested the doorknob and found it cool as well.
Pulling the door open, I coughed as more smoke rolled in. “Clark?!” I shouted, pushing my way out of the bedroom.
I could see the devilish glow of fire flickering up from the first floor and knew that we were all in trouble. Lukas stumbled out of a room across the hall, swearing loudly. I heard a crash and felt panic begin to set in. There was no way of knowing where Clark was or if she was in trouble.
I didn’t care about myself or Lukas or Z, wherever she was. My singular focus was finding Clark and dragging her to safety, if she needed me. Beyond that, there was nothing in my mind, including the threat of death.
Just as we were about to convene at the top of the stairs, there was an explosion from one of the bedchambers. I couldn’t have determined whether it was a bomb or some unlucky cache of flammable material that happened to go off at that moment. It mattered because the truth might have given me an insight into our attackers. Yet I couldn’t even be sure there were attackers. Maybe the fire was organic, the result of an overactive stove or an untended fire in the fireplace. But above the damage, the smoke smelled rancid. I was ninety-nine percent sure it was arson, and that meant Abernathy’s mansion had been compromised.
I ducked my head, turning away from the force of the blast. I lost sight of Lukas, but I heard him scream. Pressing my eyes shut, I stumbled back toward the master bedroom where the smoke was thinner.
I could hear little bits of flotsam sizzling in the air, possibly burned towels or bed sheets coming apart and fluttering to the ground. The smoke intensified. Every time I tried to open my eyes, they burned. I covered my face with my forearm, venturing out again to find my brother-in-arms.
I stumbled over his body lying halfway out of a bedroom. He moaned, letting me know that he was still alive. I crouched and helped him to his feet, still blind for all intents and purposes.
We heard a scream from upstairs, and my smoke-addled brain identified it as female. I couldn’t be sure, but I suspected that it was Z and not Clark. I still hadn’t heard anything that would indicate that my lover was safe or not. With every fiber of my being, I hoped that she’d managed to make it out of the house. Though knowing her, she wouldn’t leave without me. That meant I had to find her fast, or we were both going to burn alive.
“That’s Z!” Lukas shouted, leaning on me for support.
“You go,” I said, pushing him toward the stairs.
“You have to help her!” Lukas pleaded, limping toward the stairs.
“Go!” I repeated myself. “I’ll find her. You find Clark.”
Lukas didn’t bother to respond verbally. I knew he heard me, so I had to trust that we had a deal. I watched him stumble his way down past the landing, barely upright as he lurched toward the first floor.
I pushed my way past him, to the stairway that led to the third floor. Thank goodness I knew the layout of the house from spending so much time searching for files. There was a servants’ staircase at the far end of the hallway. By the time I pushed through, I could taste the relatively fresh air coming from the upper levels. The smoke hadn’t reached up there yet, but I could still hear the crackling of the flames and feel the heat. There wasn’t much time.
I tried to focus and block out the fact that I was possibly going in the opposite direction of my love. But it was also possible that Clark was upstairs with Z, maybe in danger and needing assistance. I hoped Lukas had made it out alive, but I couldn’t dwell on that at the moment. My first task was to find Z, and my next was to find Clark. Everything else was just noise.
Breaking out onto the third floor, I scanned the hallway for clues. “Z!” I shouted, hoping that she was alert enough to give me some direction.
“Theo!” she shouted, alerting me to the fact that she was buried all the way in the back.
I could feel heat rising from the floor, not a good sign. In one part of the hallway, I thought I saw the telltale orange glow that foretold disaster. The fire was eating its way through the second level on its way to the third. If I didn’t hurry, we would be trapped, and my chances of finding the girls would narrow to nothing.
I set my intention and pushed ahead. We weren’t going to die tonight. I wouldn’t let it happen. Running past the gathering flames, I hurled myself at the door that stood between me and Z’s voice. Hoping desperately to find Clark within Z’s bedchamber, I was disappointed when Z was the only occupant.
“The door was locked,” she said.
I didn’t have time to ponder the meaning of that statement. It was obvious by now that there was a human instigator to the fire. The chemical smoke and the explosion on the second floor proved that we were dealing with a coordinated attack. I kicked myself mentally for sleeping through it. The thought of multiple actors sneaking around, locking doors and planting bombs was outrageous. How could a house full of spies have missed all the signs?
But that kind of regret wasn’t going to save our bacon. We needed to get out and fast. With Z at my heels, we rushed back to the stairwell, only to find it on fire. Beneath our feet, the floorboards began to sag, threatening to give way as the flames leapt higher.
“This way!” Z shouted, tugging me into another bedroom.
She went straight to the window, diving onto her knees to pull up a section of the floor. Underneath, she found nothing but an empty compartment that might have once stored a rifle or some other important tool. I shook my head, wondering why Z was going for a gun.
“There should be a rope,” she said desperately, pawing around in the empty space as if she could find something that wasn’t there.
“What?” I asked, distracted by the smoke seeping up through the very walls surrounding us.
“There should be a fire escape,” Z explained. “A rope. It was right here. Every room had them.”
“Well, it’s not there anymore,” I pointed out, grabbing her by the arm and hauling her to her feet.
We turned back to the door but felt the floor buckle beneath us. I skidded across the room, running straight into the far wall. A roiling chasm opened up between us. Fire licked at our shins like a doorway to hell, threatening to devour us if we didn’t act fast.
“The window!” I said, pointing.
Z turned, leaving me to fend for myself. I watched her throw one leg out and then the other. She didn’t pause before leaping out, tumbling three floors down to the ground below. It was my turn.
I inched around the hole, hugging the wall. The plaster behind me was scorching to the touch, the fire licking at my feet the whole way. I climbed up over the bed, reaching the window just as the cot tumbled over into the void.
I didn’t have time to consider my landing or whether Clark was trapped inside the burning building. My only chance at survival was to jump ship fast. I leapt from the window, pushing away from the inferno as I fell. My feet hit the ground a moment later, and I rolled, absorbing some of the shock. Though my shins ached and my throat burned, I came to a stop in the grass, blissfully alive. But what about Clark? Where was she in all this? Had she managed to escape, or was she still somewhere inside, fighting for her life against the roaring flames?
