Sloane and I were supposed to go ice-skating on Saturday, but I didn’t want to insult Vuk again by postponing. If I finished the walkthrough in the morning, that left the afternoon and night free for our date.

I smiled. “Saturday it is.”

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear.

Sloane had stayed over last night, and she was still in bed when I slipped out to meet Vuk. She rarely slept in, but I’d kept her busy all night so I didn’t wake her before leaving.

The city was already awake and busy when my cab dropped me off at the skyscraper housing the vault. A family of tourists in matching Christmas sweaters blocked the building entrance, and I had to endure their impromptu daytime caroling as I skirted around them.

At the same time, someone came around from the other side and bumped into me. A baseball cap shadowed half his face, but he looked vaguely familiar. Before I could investigate further, he disappeared around the corner, and my curiosity about his identity became an afterthought when I entered the vault to find Vuk and Willow waiting for me.

He wore the same black shirt and pants; she’d changed into a red dress that matched her hair.

“Add some green accessories and you’ll give the Rockefeller tree a run for its money,” I quipped.

Willow was not amused.

I’d paid the construction company a shit ton of money to work weekends; even then, they could only spare a skeleton crew this close to Christmas.

There were only three workers inside, which made this walkthrough much easier than the first one. Actually, it was more than easy.

It was smooth. Perfect.

Until it wasn’t.

I’d just finished answering Willow’s last question about the security measures when her head jerked to the left. Beside her, Vuk tensed, his nostrils flaring with the first iota of emotion I’d seen in him.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“Do you smell that?” Willow’s voice and body were drawn as tight as the strings of a violin.

I paused, my senses pushing aside the overwhelming construction-site scents of wood and metal to focus on the whiff of something harsher.

Smoke.

The realization hit right as the drills died and a panicked shout reverberated through the room.

“Fire!”

What occurred next happened so fast, my brain didn’t process it until the back wall burst into flames.

More shouts. Running. Movement. Heat.

So much fucking heat. It was the bad kind, the kind that hit you like a sudden power outage, plunging crucial corridors of your mind into darkness and short-circuiting the pathways between your brain and muscles.

Choking, paralyzing, life-stealing heat. Sweat enveloped my skin.

Xavier! ¿Dónde estás mi hijo?

She was trapped…couldn’t get past the front door… Died of smoke inhalation…

Lucky we recovered her body… It should’ve been you.

My mind seethed with visions better left buried. Reality wavered, switching from past to present and back again.

It should’ve been you.

An attempt at air drew in smoke instead of oxygen. I coughed, my lungs burning, and ironically, that was what snapped me out of it.

The smells, the heat, the panic. I’d been here before.

I’d almost died when I was ten, but I wasn’t ten anymore, and I’d be damned if I let another fire finish what the first one had started. I blinked, and my surroundings rushed back in horrifying clarity. Flames danced around me with malevolent glee, spreading faster than my eyes could track them. Their red and orange tongues reached hungrily for anything in their path and cast a surreal glow on the vault’s stone floors and ribbed ceilings. The temperature soared to such unbearable heights that every inch of my skin screamed for relief.

Still, my feet remained rooted to the floor.

My mind was back, but my body remained frozen until a loud crack finally, thankfully shattered my numbness and spurred me into motion.

I didn’t waste time checking to see what had caused the sound. I simply ran, dodging abandoned tools while covering my mouth and nose with my forearm. Flames rushed toward me like ants streaming toward an overturned picnic basket, and I made it halfway to the exit before a wave of dizziness slowed me down.

I stumbled but didn’t stop moving. I was already lightheaded from the smoke; if I stopped moving, I would die.

I made it another ten or so feet when a flash of black caught my eye.

My heart stopped. Vuk.

“Markovic!” I coughed from the effort of shouting amid a scarcity of oxygen. “We have to get out of here!”

The fire was closing in fast. If we didn’t leave soon, we’d get trapped.

Vuk didn’t move. He stood there, his eyes blank, his body so still I couldn’t even see him breathe. If he weren’t standing, I would’ve thought him dead.

Willow was nowhere in sight.

“Vuk!” I didn’t give a shit if he hated his given name. I only cared if it got through to him.

It didn’t.

Dammit.

I silently cursed using every English and Spanish expletive I knew as I closed the distance between us and forcefully hauled him toward the exit.

I was in excellent shape. I worked out regularly, and I packed a good amount of muscle, but trying to drag two hundred and thirty-five pounds of uncooperative Serb through a fire was like trying to pull a freight train with a toy car.

Sweat poured into my eyes. My muscles weakened and turned slack. The distance between us and the door stretched endlessly, each step akin to climbing a different Mount Everest.

Part of me wanted to give up, lie on the floor, and let the flames burn away the pain and worries and regrets.