Page 97 of A Love Most Fatal

“Load him into the back of the car,” I say. “What do you do if you see someone?”

Nate’s mouth flounders open and closed.

“Nate.”

“I shoot,” he says.

“You shoot,” I agree. I lean in for one hard kiss against his lips.

“These guys are tough,” Raf says. “And they’re pouring shit all over the building. Gas.”

I nod at Rafael then give Nate as long a look as I can spare before taking off for the stairwell.

34

NATE

I sawthrough the ropes binding his hands and feet quickly enough, but he groans when I accidentally brush his injured ankle.

“Fuckers shot me,” he says, and I am really glad it’s not lighter out, because as it is already, I can almost convince myself that the pool and smear of blood is in fact just dirty motor oil. Doesn’t do much to abate my queasiness though. The smell makes it worse. He smells like urine, yes, but the gasoline smell in the air is going straight to my brain and making me woozy.

The rope tied to his middle is the hardest to cut, but I saw at it until it breaks and whatever was pulling it down tugs the remaining rope swiftly over the ledge towards the ground.

There are two tense and quiet seconds before it hits the ground with the loudest metal clang and we both wince.

I can be grateful now for the heavy training I’ve had to do in the last couple of months, because it would have been a huge task to get Rafael off the ground without my added strength. Once he’s up and steady on his one good foot and using me as a crutch, we start limping towards the stairs.

We are most of the way there when what sounds like a bomb goes off outside. It’s disorienting, and shakes the buildingbeneath our feet, but I keep moving. The sooner we get out of here the better. Car alarms are going off, and it’s only a matter of time before sirens join their call.

One arm around Rafael and the other still holding the loaded gun, we start making our way down the flights of stairs towards the entrance.

It’s dark and quiet in the stairwells, but I don’t have another hand to hold a flashlight, so we keep on, mostly blind into the pit of darkness below, until finally, we near the first floor.

“You Nate?” Rafael asks as I help him down the last set of stairs.

“Yes,” I say.

“My brother was Tony,” Rafael says, and my heart lurches. I haven’t thought about Tony in weeks, the man who died trying to protect me. “He said he liked you.”

“I liked him, too,” I say, not a lie.

When I push open the door on the first floor, we are met with dense smoke and smoldering flames. Rafael is spouting out all forms of profanities, muttering about how monumentally screwed we are; I don’t disagree, but still, I push us forward toward an exterior wall. None of the windows are in place, so I figure that if we hold to the wall long enough, it will spit us out outside.

Breathing is increasingly difficult, but I was right, and we do find a large hole in the wall where a floor to ceiling window will one day be placed. Or would have been placed. I can’t say with certainty that this will ever happen now.

Breathing is easier once we’re outside, but not by much until we reach the far gate. It’s hard work lugging Rafael, he hops along on with me. He’s at least five inches shorter than me, and my muscles are burning on the left side of my back from leaning over as I am.

When we’re far enough away that I can see through some of the smoke, I notice flames licking out of the first three floors of the building, climbing their way up to the fourth and fifth. I don’t know where Vanessa is, and I want to find her, or scream for her, but that would mean leaving Rafael to fend for himself, which would mean he would probably die of smoke inhalation.

“Take me to my car,” he says. “I have the keys.”

We limp along, a bit faster now toward the front of the building where we see that the start of the inferno was the Corolla parked there, now a blistering shell.

I do my best to block out his cries at the sight of his car, his “baby” in flames as we keep to the gate and limp towards the exit.

“I’m gonna kill him,” Rafael says.

“Sure buddy, okay watch for the curb, yep big jump, okay.”