Page 94 of Marcus

It caught the netting.

The ribbons hanging down from the play equipment.

The flames licked up the side of the wall where her daughter was high in a tunnel. Or, that’s where she’d just been a couple of minutes ago.

“Tiffany! Tiffany!”

“Tiffany!”

Marcus rushed into the space, only managing to be barely one step ahead of Cella as he moved past the bit of netting that covered the majority of the play gym. Flames from the goddamn Molotov cocktails—bastards—climbed higher. As he ran for the equipment, scared to death for the little girl that was now screaming up above as she realized flames from netting were climbing to her, he cursed those fucks in every language he could speak.

“MA!”

“Come down the yellow slide!” Marcus shouted.

“But the fire—”

“Down the slide, Tiffany! Don’t look at the fire. We’re just going to come down the slide, okay? Come down the slide, dolcezza!”

Though his voice was raised, he still somehow managed to maintain some semblance of a calm demeanor. Although how, he had no fucking clue. Instinct, maybe, because the fear clawing at his throat was enough to damn near put him on his knees.

“Hurry,” he shouted, “jump right in the slide and I will catch you as you come down, sweetheart!”

“Marcus,” Cella whispered.

God.

She sounded in pain.

Like this hurt her.

He understood that all too well because at the moment, it felt like his fucking chest was going to explode from the pressure building inside him.

“We got her,” he assured—although it felt like he was promising too; he’d yet to break one of those for her, and he wouldn’t start now, either.

“Tiffany!”

Marcus swore he saw the heavens when Tiffany replied, “I’m coming down!”

He actually heard the sound of her thumping against the slide when she jumped into it. He cringed from knowing how hard she must have hit the thick plastic. Not that he had time to think on it for long because the black smoke from the burning netting was enough to make him choke when all he wanted to do was focus on the little girl flying down through the slide toward him.

“Catch her!” Cella cried.

He thought he might have to coach her out of the situation, but Tiffany proved to be smart and quick on her feet like every other Marcello he had ever met in his life. Including her goddamn mother.

Tiffany flew into his waiting arms first. He had already turned to run with her before he even had a proper grip on the girl.

“Just go out through the lobby,” he yelled at Cella’s back.

Like him, as soon as he had a hold of Tiffany, Cella turned to run. It was time to get the heck out of there.

“What happened?” Tiffany asked.

Had she not heard the bikes?

Well, she wouldn’t know what that meant, he supposed. Nor why the bottles with burning rags they tossed through the broken windows had the place lighting up in seconds.

“Stupid people happened,” Marcus muttered.