AVA TRIES TO run across the basement, but stumbles into a table. Her throat burns. Her lungs ache. She gags, and tentacles of white phlegm dangle from her mouth.
She pushes on, her head spinning.
She looks toward the kitchen and spots a corridor. At the end is the dull glow from another light. She shines her light and locates more stairs—and a person lying motionless on the steps. She staggers forward, finding Rory unconscious, his flashlight discarded on a step beside him.
She doesn’t bother to shake him. Instead, she goes straight for the door, positioning the blades of the bolt cutters around the link of the chain. She presses the handles together, but she doesn’t seem to have the strength to cut through the metal.
She feels unconsciousness threatening and thinks what a cruel joke it would be if she passed out now.
She heaves with all the strength she has left. The handles snap together and the chain falls away.
She pushes the double doors open to the blue morning light, getting a whiff of the most beautiful clean air she’s ever smelled.
“Wake up, Rory,” she chokes, trying to rouse him.
She hears a noise—like a jet engine starting up behind her. When she turns to look, warm wind blows against her face. The corridor blazes with a reddish-orange light.
Ava grabs Rory under the armpits and, with a strength she didn’t know she had, drags him up the stairs and out into the morning air. She jumps on top of him just as a cyclone of fire explodes out of the doorway like the breath of a dragon. A thunderous BOOM fills the air. The boards over the windows on the first floor explode outward, followed by glass shards and spouts of flame.
Ava, keeping her body pinned atop Rory, has never felt such heat. Tendrils of fire thrash above her, and then the dragon’s breath retreats into the basement door.
Black smoke billows out.
Ava quickly checks to make sure neither of them is on fire, then she grabs Rory and drags him to the chain-link fence. It’s a safe enough distance—for now. Behind them, fire crawls from the windows up the side of the building, like reverse waterfalls of red and yellow flame.
Ava shakes Rory. Tears stream down her soot-covered cheeks as she yells, “Wake up! Rory! Wake up!”
His eyes flicker.
“Don’t you die on me, Ranger!” she screams.
He lets out a soft cough, and that seems to open the floodgates of his lungs. He hacks violently, rolling onto his side, each cough seeming to rip him apart.
“It’s okay,” she says, patting his back. “Get that shit out of your lungs.”
He sits up, taking big wheezing breaths. He blinks and looks around, seeming to understand most of what happened while he was out.
“Where’s Carlos?” he croaks, barely able to speak.
“Still inside,” Ava says, and they both turn to look at the community center and the columns of flame swelling from its windows and growing by the second.