No sound of people could be heard ahead, just what sounded like the crackle of fire.
“Wesley? It’s me, Lydia. Are you down here?” she yelled at the last step, standing on the outskirts of a large room filled with flames and smoke.
“Go...back!” A muffled voice grabbed her attention from somewhere close by.
It was Wesley. She was sure of it. Even faint as it was, she knew. She also knew he sounded distressed. Was he hurt or blocked in behind the fire? She couldn’t leave him. But where was he? She could barely see her hand in front of her face. How would she find him in here and in time?
Lydia headed to her right and found a wall. Her hand felt along a few steps. “Hang on, Wesley! I’m coming!”
“No! Lydia, get off the boat! Now!” The voice came from her left. She whipped around to find where he called from. Somewhere on the far side of the room. “I’m coming!”
Her hands went up in front of her to feel her way across the room.
As she stepped out, debris tripped her up. She fell to the floor but kept crawling. A little easier to breathe down near the floor, she crawled forward, but her throat burned from the smoke. Her lungs ached and her eyes burned. She told her body to move, to find Wesley, who was in this room somewhere. He could be hurt. He might need help. She forced her eyes to open and felt heat dry the surface of her eyes as she realized fire lapped directly in front of her. She tried to turn back but couldn’t go anywhere.
Two flaming tongues blocked her in. She’d come to a dead end.
Just beyond the flames, she could hear Wesley banging on something. A door? He was blocked in, too. All she wanted was to help him, but with the barrier of scorching heat between them and around them, she could do nothing for him now.
Or herself.
The flames pressed in, searing her lungs with each of her breaths and leaving little doubt that helping Wesley might have been a bad decision on her part.
* * *
Wesley kicked and kicked, trying to get out of the cabinet. The explosion had dented it, making its hinges unmovable. After many attempts, the door gave way to a smoke-and fire-filled engine room. As hard as getting out was, the cabinet saved his life, and judging by the fact that he was still alive, the bomb hadn’t done what it was supposed to do. It must have malfunctioned...not that he was complaining.
He ignored the pain in the shoulder that had taken the brunt of the impact and the ringing in his ears. He checked the doorway and saw the door had blown off.
He was free—except for the fire blocking his path.
Glad for his fireproofed uniform coat, Wesley hiked it up over his face and began to dodge and weave through the growing flames. The engine could still catch fire and blow the whole boat sky-high, but he wanted to be long gone by then.
Without waiting for three, he went up and over the flickering flames that were blocking the threshold of the room. He landed in a run with balls of fire as obstacles. He still had to get through the lounge, and with the smoke filling the room up, he couldn’t see past the flame in front of him. Weaving left to right, he hurdled over the dangerous bellows one by one until he reached the bottom of the stairs.
When his foot hit the first tread, a cough sounded from behind.
Wesley swung back around to the smoke-filled room. Someone was down here and in the flames. Was it Lydia? Had she stayed down after he told her to leave? Was she in the flames somewhere?
Wesley confronted the inferno again. It crept close to his feet. He wondered how long they had before the whole boat erupted. “Lydia!” he called out, and stepped straight a few paces. “Lydia, are you in here?”
“Wesley?” a faint voice came from the wall with the bar, followed by more fits of coughing.
She had to be on the floor. “Hang on, Doc. I’m coming!” Thoughts for his welfare vanished. He let his mind rationalize that this fact was because someone was hurt on his watch, but somewhere deep inside he knew he never felt such a rising panic over any of his islanders before.
Regardless of why he felt this different response, and regardless of the heat charring his eyebrows, he pressed in farther. Step by step, intense temperatures pushed at him as he pushed through. He edged around each whipping flame, jumping a few that were birthed from other flames. Sweat trickled down the searing flesh of his neck. Smoke clouded his vision and filled his lungs. He hit the edge of the bar and knocked the noxious fumes out in a rush.
“Lydia!” he choked.
“Here!” she answered, her voice close but muffled. “Behind...bar.”
Wesley grabbed the lip of the bar and let it guide him around to the back. The next moment, his foot met her leg, and he dropped to the floor.
The air was a little clearer down here. He could make out her shape and position. She lay curled up in the fetal position, pressed into the back of the bar, her face tucked into her chest and arms. He scooped her up and she lifted her chin to meet his gaze. “I tried.” She coughed. “To get...to you. But fire—”
“Shh. We’ll talk later. We’ve got to get out of here.” He wrapped his arms under her legs to lift her.
“I’ll...walk,” she said, pushing at his chest.
He ignored her and hefted her up as he stood. “Don’t fight me. You’re no small pixie, and I could drop you in the flames. Put your face into my coat.” With her in his arms, he stepped back into the thick of the smoke. As he instructed, she plastered her face into the crook of his arm while he shielded her long frame as much as he could with his thick-coated sleeve. “Hang on!” he yelled as he made his first sidestep around a hot orange flare.
The door loomed ahead in the black haze. Wesley put his face into his shoulder to take another breath before attempting a leap over the lower of the two flames in front of him. Sharp needles of pain cut his lungs as he landed closer to the exit. He picked up his pace as he stepped forward, nearly free and clear—until a blast roared up in his path too fast for him to avoid.
“My arm!” Lydia cried out.
The sleeve of her parka ignited in fire. The flaring sight knocked the tight air from his chest, but the only thing he could do at the moment was push through. One more leap had him colliding with the wall and depositing her on her feet in the same moment.
She fumbled with the zipper, her hands a trembling mess. His weren’t much better, but he managed to push hers aside to make a clean escape. He ripped her jacket from her back, tossing it to the floor, and grabbed her arm to find her sweater charred through.
“Come on!” Wesley pulled her up the stairs behind him. They just had to get out the door at the top before the boat blew.
Most boats had fire suppression systems in the engine room to extinguish a fire in the engine so it wouldn’t blow, but would that include an all-out blaze like this? And if the person who set the bomb wanted the boat to explode, he might have shut the suppression system down. He remembered her arm and yanked her blackened sleeve up. “How’s your arm?” he asked, his voice scratchy and raw. An edge of anger he couldn’t control layered in it as well. He felt more of that chest-tightening panic from before as he inspected the frayed and burned clothing.
“It’s okay,” she rasped. “I think my flame-retardant thermals staved off the burn all the way through.”
He should have been relieved, but his pumping adrenaline wouldn’t let his fight mode relent. His emotions still felt raw, and so did his words. “Thermals? I’m surprised you planned enough to remember any warm clothes at all.” He pulled her farther up the