Chapter 2

2: 2

My hand kept feeling along the floor, and it closed on an oxygen mask. I pulled it on fast and gulped down air in great heaving breaths.

Then I tucked the recorder into a fireproof pouch, ready to get out and report them.

That was when the shutter screeched open, and Mia and Christian actually walked back in.

Maybe there'd been too much black smoke before, and they couldn't see clearly, so they wanted a look inside.

But with that steel shutter standing wide open now, every part of me screamed with pain, and I couldn't even get to my feet.

"Leonard! You hide in here, and the people out there burn!"

Once she'd spotted me hiding, Mia's face went cold. "Where's your pride as captain?!"

She looked at me, burned raw and blistered head to toe, and there wasn't a shred of pity in her voice.

Looking at this woman I'd sworn to protect for the rest of my life, I let out two bitter laughs and couldn't get another word out.

I leaned against the wall in silence, blocking the mouth of the escape passage behind me.

The fire around us warped the air with its heat, but inside I was frozen to ice, without a trace of warmth.

"Mia, quit wasting words on him! Grab that mask off him and take his phone so he can record the will!"

"I'm still waiting to be fire captain next week!"

"Then we split his money and go straight to the Bahamas for our honeymoon!"

As he spoke he glanced at me and deliberately wiggled his fingers, the ring on them catching a flash of silver that shot straight into my eyes.

Pain stabbed through my heart.

That ring was the one Mia and I had made together, the one we'd promised to wear when we married.

And now it sat on his hand instead. On his ring finger, no less.

Christian lunged over and ripped the oxygen mask off me.

Black smoke came pouring in at once, and I coughed and couldn't stop.

Watching me suffer, the corner of his mouth curled up.

He pointed at my phone, his voice low and dark.

"Captain Fox, record your will yourself, leave us the money and the captain's post, and I'll leave you the mask so you can be comfortable a few more minutes!"

"When we carry you out, at least you'll go in one piece. How about it?"

My eyes went wide and I gripped the phone tight on reflex.

"You're trying to force me to make a fake will? You know that's a crime!"

"You think I'd hand you the captain's chair? Aren't you afraid I'll come back as a ghost and haunt you!"

Mia's patience ran out and she sighed.

"Leo, just do what Christian says and record the will."

"When I'm out I'll bury you in the memorial park. I won't shortchange you."

Hearing that, all I felt was cold spreading through my chest.

"Mia, quit stalling! Help me hold him down!"

Mia hesitated, then stepped up and pinned my firefighting gear.

Christian slammed a kick into my burned arm, and the pain made me let go. The phone flew out of my hand.

He bent down and picked it up, traded a look with Mia, and watched me with a soft laugh.

"After Captain Leonard Fox charged into the core fire zone, he locked the steel door from the inside, then used the notes app to record his will, leaving his assets to his wife Mia Harding and his trainee Christian Barnes... tsk, tsk, not a single flaw in it, right?"

He wrote as he looked at me, the corner of his mouth curling up with satisfaction.

"This is murder for money! Even as a ghost I won't let you off!"

My heart slammed and I screamed the words in fury.

But Mia only stood there with her arms crossed, watching me in silence, not a flicker of a reaction.

All that was left in me was despair, and I quietly tightened my grip on the recorder.

The air roaring through the escape hatch I was blocking behind me had become my only hope now.