1
Brawler hasn’t let me go.
He thinks I’ll unravel, I bet. He thinks I’ll melt into the street at our feet. Just become one with the pavement. An inanimate object with no feelings. Especially not love or fear.
It’s always love or fear, isn’t it? The two types of emotions that have the strength to bring you to your knees. Right now, both of them rise inside me until each one wraps me up in a never-ending tornado of feelings. Dueling cyclones of worry turn me inside out until thinking clearly is like trying to look through distorted glass. Johnny’s gone, and Oscar?
Where the fuck is Oscar?
Brawler and Magnum talk beside me. They’ve scared the EMT’s away. Neither one of them will be going to the hospital via ambulance, and neither will I. There’s no reason for it. Our injuries are internal of the non-physical variety. It’s our hearts that hurt. Maybe I’ll rip mine out of my chest and put it on one of the stretchers. If the medical professionals are good at their jobs, they’ll know what to do. They’ll speed it to the nearest Emergency Room. Resuscitate it. Perform some sort of fancy, life-saving procedure and clap their colleagues’ backs at the end of the day for a job well done.
But no. Heights Crew shit can’t be fixed like that. That would be too damn easy.
Johnny is missing. Gone. Taken by another depraved group, much like the one I’ve tied myself to. I can’t go to the police. Or the firemen. Or anyone with morals. None of the so-called heroes I grew up believing would be the ones to save me if I was ever in danger can help me now. Call 9-1-1, right? That’s what we’re told?
I chuckle at the lies we’re handed down. At the complete farce I find myself in. Fear roots itself to my veins, tangling up in everything until I’m choking on it just like I was choking on the thick, black smoke that filled The Ring.
Brawler pulls me away at arm’s length, brows furrowing as he inspects the completely delirious gaze that must be showing on the outside just as much as I’m feeling it on the inside.
I’m going mad. That’s what this is. The Heights has finally taken my sanity from me. It was bound to happen sooner or later, if I’m honest. I should’ve prepared better for my inevitable stint in the psych ward.
“Kyla?” he murmurs, clearly worried.
I peer up at him. All six-foot sooty inches of broad shoulders and muscular planes. His chiseled chest plastered with ash as if that’s what he’s made of. Just skin and dying embers and turquoise eyes that desperately seek me in the hell I’m in.
Johnny and Oscar. Oscar and Johnny.
We know what happened to Johnny, so there’s nothing we can do about that right now. “Oscar,” I croak out, flicking my gaze between Mag and Brawler. “Did you guys see him when we were in there? Anywhere?” My mind catapults between different scenes. Mag pulling me away from the fight... The first gunshots... Hiding under the bleachers…
No Oscar.
Neither of them answer, and I should’ve known they wouldn’t. Brawler was fighting, and Magnum was watching over me.
Who watches over them though?
“We need to find him,” I say, my voice steeling inside me, hardening now that I have something to focus on other than the complete and utter despair that our enemy has Johnny and Oscar is God-knows-where.
I wiggle out of Brawler’s grip and head for the burning building. I don’t know where to start searching for him, but that seems like the most logical choice considering that’s where we saw him last.
“He was in the crowd,” Magnum says, coming up to walk beside me. “Right on the perimeter while you were fighting. When Jiko jumped into the ring, I pulled you out. I didn’t see him after that, but I wasn’t looking either.”
Brawler tries to hold back on my hand from behind, but I yank out of his grip. “Kyla, what are you doing?” he growls. “You can’t go in there.”
The steel door Magnum and I came out of looms just a little further ahead. No one has come out of it since we did. No one went back in either.
I ignore him and keep moving toward the door until he catches my wrist and turns me to face him. “He wouldn’t want you to go back in there. Come on.” He gestures toward the roof of the building where the flames leap out. The firemen point their hoses at the fire to try to wrangle it under control.
“I’d go back for any of you,” I say, voice eerily calm, a complete contradiction to the rapid beat of my heart. Oscar and Johnny’s faces filter through my brain. Half of me is missing. Literally half. I clamp down on my jaw and focus on what’s right in front of me. “I’m going in, Brawler.”
I turn away from him and walk right into a black-clad fireman. He tips his yellow hat up to gaze down at me past his blackened nose. “You can’t be this close. Get back. Let us do our jobs.”
“One of my friends is still in there,” I tell him, pointing back at the burning building, not even knowing if it’s true. If he’s not in there, where the hell is he? He would’ve been trying to find us already if he was okay.
The fireman takes my shoulders in a firm grip. “I’m sorry, Miss, but you have to get back. We’ll do our best to save anyone who’s still in there, but we can’t go in until the fire is under control.”
A groaning sound comes from the building. The fireman whirls around, hands spread out, blocking us as he simultaneously moves us back. The roof nearest to us collapses into itself. A volcano of ash and flames lick toward the sky until it rains down white, snow-like cinders.
“Oscar!” I scream, but the sound I make is only eaten up by the void. My heart squeezes painfully. The thought of Oscar inside, trapped under the burning roof almost brings me to my knees. The fireman runs forward, leaving us there and dodging people and police. He yells at everyone to “Get back!”
Brawler wraps his hands around me from behind, dragging me backward a few feet. “We just have to wait.”
“Fuck that,” I snarl. Desperation triggers my muscles to move. I push away from Brawler, heading in the opposite direction the fireman went. I scan the building, looking for another door, looking for Oscar, for anything. All the while, Johnny’s pained expression stays forefront in my mind. If there’s a chance we can save Oscar, I’m going to do it. Then, I’m going to kill whoever took Johnny, make them suffer like I know he’s suffering right now.
Magnum and Brawler flank me as we make our way around the side of the building. A cop stands in front of a barricade that leads down the alleyway between this building and the next. He straightens when he sees us moving toward him. We must look like a sight. Brawler and I in fight gear, but looking like we took a bath in char. Then, there’s Mag, the ever-steady sentinel whose usual calm demeanor is marred by the sweat and fallen embers that litter his clothes.
“You can’t go back there,” he says. “It’s been deemed unsafe.”
“We’re looking for our friend. He was in there,” I say again. Panic has taken control over my voice until I barely recognize it. It’s high and squeaky, riddled with heartache.
The cop’s lips thin. He gives me a pitying look that does nothing but anger me. “Listen, you’re better off heading back the way you came and then give his name to—”