Connor disappeared, lost to the smoke and the sound of my respirator. I was panting. Wasting oxygen.
Losing time.
The knife. I had to find it. But there was no way. I knew that, as a fireman. But as Tanya’s stepbrother, and as the man who wanted nothing more in all the world than to save her, I wanted to believe I could.
“The whore must die!”
I heard Connor’s footsteps approaching again, rushing toward me. I grabbed him around his waist, this time using his momentum to shove him away from me. He stumbled, but caught himself in time to keep his balance. He was thin and wiry, quick on his feet, which gave him a definite advantage. My gear might have been keeping me safe and alive, but up against a scrappy fuck like Connor, it was only weighing me down. Wearing me out.
“She’s not a whore, you crazy piece of shit!” I growled, spreading my feet wider apart as Connor ran at me once again. I feinted left, hoping to throw him off guard, but he ducked right, spinning like a damn ballerina as he threw out his foot right toward my face.
“Fuck!” I stumbled back as I felt my face starting to swell on my right side. The little shit hit harder than I’d expected, and if this kept up, I knew I’d tire out long before he did.
“Brute! You think you can stop me from slaying my demon? You’ll only burn along with her!” Connor chided, a peal of laughter bubbling up from his throat. “We’ll all burn!”
Connor looked over to the spreading flames as they worked their way across the stage, quickly catching the curtains. The orange light highlighted his gaunt features, making his twisted grin all the more horrifying to behold.
“Like hell we will,” I said, moving as quickly as I could while his gaze held steady on his beloved fire.
He noticed me coming for him, but it was far too late. I pulled back my fist and let it slam right into his cheekbone. I felt part of his face give under my punch, an inhuman wail erupting from his lips.
Connor channeled that pain into anger, swinging himself back around, his eyes wild, wide like an animal caught in a corner—the kind that are always the most dangerous.
“I’ll kill you!” he howled, launching himself at me full force before I could regain my balance after my last punch. His hands were around my throat before I could defend myself, forcing me to the ground as his grip began to tighten around my windpipe. “I’ll kill you both!”
I tried to move, but the weight of my gear and Connor pinning me beneath himself was too much. No matter how much I struggled, I couldn’t get him to loosen his grip.
Panic began to set in. Adrenaline pumped into my bloodstream, but it only served to use up what little of my breath I was already holding. If I couldn’t find a way to get free, then I was done for.
Tanya and I both were.
Everything started to go dark around the edges of my vision.
“You fucking worthless sack of shit,” a raspy voice said, though I could barely make it out above the sound of my pulse hammering in my ears.
Tanya was standing, clutching the chair she’d been tied to only moments before. With every choked breath, my sister flew into a coughing fit, one she only barely recovered from.
Don’t try to save me you, idiot, I thought, still fighting against Connor’s grasp. Dammit, Tanya. Breathe!
She sneered at Connor on top of me, inching closer. Her strength was flagging, but goddamn, she looked pissed. I wondered if that would be enough. “Who the fuck would ever want something as disgusting as you? You make me sick!”
I looked up at Connor, his eyes no longer fixed on me as I lay beneath him. Instead he stared fixedly at Tanya, his mouth open, eyes wide and full of madness.
“You,” he hissed, his lip curling up in a feral snarl, “I knew it was you! You couldn’t fool me, Mother. I could always see past your lies!”
Connor scrambled to his feet, releasing me from the stranglehold he’d had me in. I gasped for air, watching as he stumbled toward my sister.
This was going to be my only chance.
I pushed myself up, taking huge, greedy gulps of air—what little of it was still breathable. The fire had consumed the curtains completely, tongues of flame reaching up into the rafters and catwalks above.
I staggered forward, reaching out and grabbing a handful of Connor’s shirt in my hand. I pulled him hard, jerking him around to face me as I pulled my left arm back and let loose right underneath his jaw, sending him sprawling to the floor, unmoving.
If there was a choice to be made in that situation, I don’t think there was even an option of which I had to make. I turned away from Connor the moment I heard Tanya’s scream rise from her throat, the flames mirroring themselves in my visor. I didn’t deliberate, I didn’t second-guess myself—I just acted.
I leapt toward Tanya, my gear protecting me from the brunt of the heat as I took her into my arms. She felt just as light as she had the day I’d taken her from her apartment, saving just like I’d done before. I looked down into her eyes, half-open and red from the smoke, the eyes I never wanted to stop staring into.
A loud crack broke me from my reverie, pulling my gaze upward as a heavy beam from the ceiling above began to give way.
Shit, I thought, glancing down at Connor’s lifeless form. I had every mind to leave him there, to let him burn in his own damn mess—but something inside of me couldn’t do it.
“This is Gunner. I’m down at the stage. I’ve got two civilians in here that need immediate-evac and medical treatment.”
“Copy. Tim is heading your way. Grab whoever you can and we’ll meet you outside.”
I turned my gaze back to my stepsister, only to find her passed out in my arms. I frowned and started walking toward the back-stage door and out toward the front of the theatre, stepping over Connor’s body on the way.
“Get a cop ready to put the other civilian into custody—he’s the fucker who started this blaze. I’m bringing the victim out now.”
“Roger that, Gunner. EMTs are standing by.”
I carried Tanya out through the back stage exit, the double doors at the lobby streaming light like a gateway to heaven. I could practically hear a choir singing in the background.
“Gun,” Tanya whispered as we emerged out into the light of the afternoon sun. “This is the second time you’ve taken me out of a fire.”
“Yeah,” I whispered, as I carried her to a waiting stretched, a team of EMTs waiting to put an oxygen mask over her mouth. “Probably not a good idea to make this a habit. There are better ways to come see me when I’m at work.”
Tanya smiled as they fit the plastic mask over her face, breathing deep.
I breathed with her, exhaling a sigh of relief and turning around just in time to watch Tim hauling Connor’s limp body out of the theatre. I couldn’t help but smile as I watched an officer put cuffs on his wrist and attach the bastard to a stretcher just before rolling him into another ambulance.
I stripped off my gear, throwing it into the cabin of one of the fire engines before making a dash for Tanya’s ambulance before it managed to head off without me. I wasn’t about to let her wake up without anyone there—without me there.
Chapter 22
Tanya
Three months later...“All right, baby. Where to?”
I looked at the road map in my hands, frowning at all the lines and squiggles. I turned it over, scouring the back for a clue, but then Gunner turned it right-side-up for me and I sighed through my nose.
“Can’t we just use GPS like normal, civilized folk?”
My stepbrother grinned at me, the sunlight glinting off his shades. “We ain’t normal, baby. Never have been, never will be. Now, pick a place.”
I shoved the map back into the glove compartment and shook my head, looking over my shoulder and into the backseat of Gunner’s newly-repaired Mustang. “What do you think, Jax? Where should we go?”
Jax stared at me, jaws agape, his big, pink tongue lolling out and splattering drool everywhere. For a guy who loved t
o boast about the integrity of his classic car, Gunner sure didn’t seem to care a whole lot about dog slobber ruining the leather seats.
“He don’t know nothin’,” my stepbrother said, scratching Jax behind his ears before turning back to me. “But I’m serious, baby. I really wanna know.”
I put my bare feet up on Gunner’s dash and gave the question a moment of thought. We were leaving the city far behind us—at least, for a little while.
Gunner’s vacation time was long gone, but the Captain gave permission to take a leave of absence at the fire station. After what happened with my stalker, the shrink the department kept on hand thought it’d be a damn good idea. Broken firefighters were of no help to anybody. Often, they did more harm than good. You needed a certain kind of mettle to pull people out of burning buildings, and if that was compromised, you ran the risk of a fireman turning more dangerous than the flames themselves.
But when I looked at my stepbrother, I didn’t see dangerous or broken. Not in that way. I saw the man who’d saved my life—multiple times. The guy who’d rescued me in every sense of the word.