Not My Match (The Game Changers 2)

She nods, clutching Pookie, her eyes wide as she coughs. Fear rising, I dash past her as she walks outside to safety. Just as I reach his door, the tenant opens it, cat in his hand. Thank God. “Fire,” I breathe, and he gives me a jerky nod and heads to the exit at the front of the building. Smoke tumbles thick and dark, and my eyes water as they dart to the basement door, hearing crackling sounds but no visible flames.

“Where are you going?” the man yells as I turn back to the stairwell.

I bite my lip, eyeing the smoke level in the stairwell. It’s not bad there, not thick yet, just tangling around my knees. There’s an escape ladder outside my kitchen if things get hairy—but they won’t.

“My nana’s pearls.” His mouth drops, and before he can yell at me, I take off in a sprint, legs pumping.

Once inside my place, I slam the door shut and tear the place apart, counting the seconds in my head. I reasoned on the way up and gave myself forty seconds to search. Less than a minute but doable and safe.

Ten seconds . . . no pearls on the coffee table or under the cushions.

Twenty . . . not in the kitchen, where I opened the wine.

I skid around the corner to the bedroom, eyes bouncing over textbooks on my desk, clothes on the bed. Nothing. Frustration washes over me, mixed heavily with fear.

Thirty . . . smoke dances around me as I hit the bathroom, kicking open the door, fumbling through lotions, perfumes, and makeup. After jerking out a washcloth, I use it to cover my mouth. It’s fine, it’s fine. I have good lungs. I’m a runner. Just . . . Nana. She died after Dad, and nothing was ever the same. And she wore them every day. She loved them; she touched them. I wasn’t her favorite—Elena was—but she did love me.

Forty . . . I jerk back from the room and run to the door and stare at the smoke rushing in like a tidal wave from underneath. My eyes water as I cough. Can’t go that way now. Don’t know what’s waiting for me. Could be flames. Could be smoke gets me before I get down the stairs. Nausea sits in my stomach like a thick wad of concrete.

Backpack in hand, I stride to the bedroom; snatch my laptop, phone, and purse; and shove them inside and run back to the kitchen, my frantic hand already working the window latch next to the small table. Off in the distance, I hear the blare of fire trucks, see the flash of red and white lights.

Rain drenches me, a bolt of lightning crossing the sky as I swing my legs over the ledge to the barely there balcony and stare down at the concrete below. Perfect, let’s add electricity to the mix while I get on a metal ladder. I look over the edge. Forty-five feet, I estimate in my head quickly. “Not afraid,” I mutter.

Water pelts me from the sky as I sling the backpack on my shoulders, then unhook and push the metal ladder, listening to it clatter down, screeching and groaning. It’s rusty, but I know it works. A girl like me has a plan. The day I moved in, I was checking the exits.

Fear zips down my spine as I take the first wobbly steps, my grip tight as I concentrate on staring at each brick I pass.

Forty-five feet. I can do it.

Grip of death on the ladder. Move foot down. Repeat.

Wind buffets me, tugging at me, and the grasp of my right hand slips. My left pulls me back just as fast, but I take a minute to take deep gulps of air and get my heart under control. At least the air is fresh. I adjust the backpack and start again. Dimly, about halfway down, I’m aware of my name drifting up from the chaos, a roar of a sound layered in under the rain and sirens, but I don’t look, just keep going. I’m on the side of the building next to the street, so I can’t see who’s at the front, where firemen shout orders. Out of the corner of my eye, an ambulance flashes past. That’s normal, I tell myself. They always come when the fire truck is called.

I reach the top of the first floor and freeze at the huge floor-to-ceiling window that Myrtle loves, the antique glass old and wavy. Flames flicker and lick from the basement door just a few feet away, crackling and dancing. Smoke hovers thick and black, billowing like a monster down the hall. At the end is the stairwell, although I can’t see the door.

I drop down off the last rung and sprint down the alley and circle to the front.