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That last fact is the only one that matters.

“Can you stand?” I ask.

Jules grimaces. “Depends entirely on your definition of stand.”

Maggie actually laughs.

The sound dissolves into another violent coughing fit.

Fear claws through me again as I look around the smoke-filled room. We’re running out of time.

The firefighters begin clearing the doorway while Luka appears behind me, carrying oxygen masks.

“We need to move now,” Luka says grimly.

I nod. Maggie is alive. Nothing else matters. I’m taking her home.

As firefighters move around us, Luka appears and shoves an oxygen mask into my hand. I secure it over Maggie’s mouth and nose before she can argue. Her fingers close around my wrist, and that single touch does more to steady me than the air burning inside my lungs.

“Breathe,” I tell her, keeping my voice firm. “Slowly.”

She tries, then coughs hard enough that her whole body folds forward. I brace one hand between her shoulder blades while the other keeps the mask in place. The sound tears through me, but I don’t let it show. If she sees fear on my face now, she’ll carry it along with everything else she already insists on carrying.

Jules coughs beside her while one firefighter crouches near his injured leg. “I think my ankle’s broken,” he rasps, his voice muffled by the mask Luka shoves over his face.

He squints up at Luka. “You know, for a man built like a refrigerator, your bedside manner is truly terrible.”

Luka stares down at him. “You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

“See?” Jules coughs again. “Terrible.”

A firefighter clears more debris from the doorway and looks back at me. “We can get them out through the side hall, but we move now. Roof is unstable.”

I look at Maggie. “Can you walk?”

She nods too fast.

No.

I know her too well for that now.

I slide one arm beneath her knees and the other around her back before she can protest. “You’re not walking.”

Her hand grips my shirt. “Alexei… Jules.”

“Luka has him.”

“I have him,” Luka confirms from behind me. “And if he talks more, I may leave him.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Jules mutters as Luka and the firefighter lift him carefully.

“I would,” Luka answers.

Maggie’s eyes close for a moment against the mask, and I feel the tremor that moves through her. I hold her closer and turn toward the narrow path the firefighters have opened through the debris. Heat rolls across us from the hallway, and smoke presses against every inch of the air.

“Stay close,” the firefighter orders.

Maggie feels too light in my arms. Her head rests against my shoulder, and each breath rasps through the mask. I move through the hallway with her held tightly against me while water rains from broken sprinklers and ash drifts through the air. The walls sweat soot. The floor is slick beneath my shoes. Somewhere ahead, another firefighter calls out directions while the beam of his flashlight cuts a pale path through the smoke.