Page 4 of Autumn L.A.W

Before she reached the caution tape, a fire chief intercepted them. “You two need to stay back. Civilians can’t get close to an active collapse!”

Lioness tried the honest route. “I can help.”

“No,” he said, firm and final. “Not happening.”

Sahara stepped forward, not lying, not bluffing—just debating, which was far more dangerous. “Chief, think this through. Your team is stretched thin, and you know someone’s alive down there.”

“We’re handling it,” he snapped.

“You will,” Sahara agreed calmly, “but right now what you’re doing is arguing with me instead of coordinating your crew, and that’s not helping the person trapped inside. We’re here to help. Maybe focus on that instead.” She produced a couple of fake IDs that said something vague, but believable.

“City engineers, eh?”

It was just distracting enough for Lioness to slip beneath the tape and into the rubble.

Inside, dust coated everything. The air tasted like chalk and metal. Lioness pressed a hand to the wall, letting the building’s shuddering pulse guide her. A ceiling panel groaned above her.

“Easy,” she murmured. “Just stay still. I’m not your problem.”

A faint cough drifted from below.

“There you are,” she whispered. She crawled down a partially collapsed stairwell, twisted sideways through a gap too small for anyone normal-sized. Fortunately, at five-foot-one—okay, if she were wearing stripper heels—she was so tiny that she almost felt like a ‘little person’ around her tall colleagues. She was able to follow the tiny flickers in her mind—glimpses of a flashlight, scraped fingers, the metallic bite of fear.

She found him slumped in the far corner of what had been a basement storage room. His embroidered shirt said, Lt. C. Monroe. Dust streaked his dark hair. His leg was pinned under a broken support beam. The fallen flashlight illuminated his strained face.

He blinked at her in disbelief. “You are definitely not on my crew.”

“Nope.” She grinned. “But I’m great at getting into stupid places. And getting people out of them.”

He almost laughed—almost.

Lioness crouched beside him, “I’m Lioness Graves.” She would have offered to shake his hand, but both of her hands were busy hovering over the beam without touching.

“Lieutenant Cal Monroe. I’d say, ‘at your service,’ but you seem to be at mine.”

“Okay,” she said softly. “Bad news: you’re stuck. Good news: I know which beams your team needs to move to get you out safely.”

Cal stared. “How could you possibly⁠—”

“Intuition,” she said with a shrug. “And a weird childhood.”

Above them, voices shouted. Firefighters cleared debris, searching for access points.

Lioness raised her voice. “HEY! UP THERE!”

A helmeted head peered down. “How the hell did you get in there?”

“Not important!” she yelled. “You need to lift the crossbeam on your left and the diagonal brace on your right. Only those two. If you touch the center one, everything drops.”

The firefighter hesitated. “Ma’am, respectfully, you don’t⁠—”

Cal cut him off, voice firm. “She’s right! If you touch the center brace, we’re dead!”

That got them moving. Metal shrieked. Dust rained as the beam was retracted. The weight on Cal’s leg eased. He dragged himself free, groaning as sensation returned.

Lioness hooked his arm over her shoulders. He was warm, heavy, and definitely not fitting through the tiny gap she had come in through.

“Your crew opened a path,” she said. “We go that way.”