“You need to take it first.” He spoke loudly so that she could hear him through his mask. “Otherwise you’ll be dead weight and none of us will get out of here alive.”

She grabbed the mask from him, then, and clamped it against her face. Her eyes widened as she took her first breath and he knew to pull it back so that she could cough a few times before putting it back on, holding it gently in place as she took what she needed so badly.

When she shook her head and glanced wildly at her daughter, he reluctantly removed the mask and put it over her daughter’s mouth and nose. The girl stirred slightly, coughed, then seemed to settle.

They were all flat on the floor to avoid the heat and he was about to tell Megan the next steps in their escape plan when the motion detection alarm on his belt went off. It was second nature for him to reset it before anyone on the crew could be alarmed that he was down. It was dangerous as hell up in the third floor apartment and he didn’t want anyone else on his crew up there unless there was no other option.

With visibility almost completely gone, he yelled, “We’re going to crawl against the wall edge to stay low out of the smoke and heat until we find the doorway.”

Slowly, they made their way along the molding at the bottom of the wall to the doorway. Gabe carried Summer under his left arm, and kept frequent checks on Megan as they continued into the living room, which was worlds hotter than the bathroom had been. He prayed the heat wouldn’t have her passing out. Just in case, he helped her along every few seconds by wrapping his free arm around her waist and pulling her forward. She wasn’t limp in his arms, which was a very good thing, but he could feel how weak she was, that she was fighting to stay conscious with everything she had.

Finally, they made it to the tip of the hose. “You’re doing great,” he called out to her. “All we need to do is grab the hose and follow it back down.”

He took her hand in his and placed it over the rigid pressurized hose. When he was confident that she had it, he moved behind her to help push her along, lifting her when her legs collapsed on her every few feet or when she was coughing too much to move on her own.

It was damn hard going through the heat and smoke, even in his turnouts with his air pack, and he admired the hell out of her. He should have been carrying two dead weights out of the apartment building, not just one little girl. Megan holding it together like this was going to be the difference between life and death.

“Turn around,” he yelled to her when they reached the landing at the top of the stairs. “We’re going to go down backward. And we’re going to keep moving, no matter what.”

He moved behind her again, going lower on the stairs to catch her in case she fell. Her little girl was stirring in his arms and he prayed she wouldn’t wake up in the middle of this fiery hell.

A loud booming noise sounded and he looked up to see part of the wall beside the front door that he’d kicked in falling down in sheets.

Grabbing Megan, he moved with her and his daughter as quickly as he could down several steps. She had her head lowered and her arms over her hair to protect herself from falling sheetrock.

“Keep moving!” he yelled.

Every second that ticked by as they made it down one more step, and then another, was long and fraught with peril. He could feel how thin the well-worn steps were and knew they could crumble at any point.

By the time he could hear his crew yelling over the sound of the mini-explosions that kept going off all around them, he decided it was time for speed. He went to his feet to get down to the bottom as quickly as he could with one person under each arm.

Almost at the bottom of the stairs, he could finally see what had stopped his partner from coming back upstairs to assist with more hose. A huge ceiling beam had fallen down over the rail and it had sent the whole area around it up in massive flames. Judging from the water and smoke pouring off of it, he guessed Eric had been focused on putting that fire out before it took out the entire staircase and stranded Gabe and his victims upstairs.

Somehow he needed to get around the beam, but it was still too big and too hot for him to pass without putting Megan down. Damn it, he didn’t want to leave her there alone where anything could happen to her while he took Summer outside.

Thank God, just then, through the smoke he heard a voice yelling, “Give them to us,” and a moment later Eric and Todd were pulling both mother and daughter from his arms and taking them to safety.

Amazingly, it wasn’t until that moment that Megan lost consciousness, her strong fingers that had been gripping at his arm going limp as Eric took her from Gabe.

As he yelled, “The mother just passed out,” to Eric, Gabe’s attention was so focused on her that he waited a moment too long to hurdle the smoking beam.

He heard the loud crack a split second before a chunk of ceiling came flying down straight onto his forehead. He hit the ground as hard as the beam had hit him. Darkness swam before his eyes.

The last thing he heard was the motion alarm on his belt going off.

Chapter Two

Megan Harris woke up with her daughter in her arms. They often snuggled at night after a late movie or if Summer had a bad dream, but something felt different. Not just the bed, but the itchy spot on the inside of Megan’s elbow and the way her throat felt raw and abused.

She smelled smoke in her hair, in Summer’s hair, and she scrunched her nose up at the dark scent of fire that felt like it was seeping from their pores.

She woke fully with a gasp, her eyes flying open in the hospital room. There were two narrow beds pushed together side by side, but Summer’s was empty, her daughter obviously choosing to climb in with her at some point during the night.

The fire.

Oh God, the fire.

She’d almost lost—

No. Summer was right here, in her arms.

Megan pulled her daughter closer and Summer shifted to look up at her.

“Mommy?”

“Hey there, baby.” The words came out rough and ragged. As if she’d swallowed fire. Which she pretty much had. Megan kissed her little girl on the forehead and each cheek, following those kisses up with a puckery smooch on her soft little lips. “How are you feeling?”

Summer gave a little wiggle. “Okay, but I want them to take this itchy tube out of my arm.” She lifted up her left arm and looked at Megan’s. “We match.”

Smiling through the tears that insisted on falling, she agreed, “We do,” then held up four fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”