There was just the desperation of the mother’s utter flat calm.

  Chapter Twelve

  As the mother held her squirming, terrified kid, Mary gripped that child’s ankles with her full adrenaline-fueled strength.

  “Now!” Mary screamed and went over backward, jerking the kid through the bars.

  Dropping backward, Mary slid the child along her body.

  As soon as the boy left the woman’s grasp. She grabbed back at Mary’s ankles, giving Mary a counterweight that would keep her from slipping off the balcony.

  The weight of the child pulled Mary’s arms long. Her hands had become vices, trapping the child’s ankles as he swung—upside down and screeching—five stories above the glass-sparkled ground.

  Mary hung there, feeling her body stretched by his weight, feeling the tug of the sinews in her shoulders and the begging scream for relief from the nerves behind her knees.

  There was no oxygen upside down. There was snot and saliva.

  “I have him. Release.”

  Mary’s fingers froze in the grip. And though she shouted at her hands to cooperate, she couldn’t make them comply.

  “I have him,” the man hollered. “Release his feet and get the next child.”

  In her mind, Mary was back at pole class when the teacher would say, “Let go with your right hand. Trust that your body will hold in place. Let go and reach.”

  Let go and reach.

  Mary closed her eyes, remembering that feeling the first time she was upside down with the pole trapped between her thigh and calf when she was able to force her hands open so she would hang. And she had been fine.

  Remember that. You were fine, Mary cajoled herself.

  Her nerves ablaze with terror, she forced her joints to extend. The weight slipped from her fingers.

  Squeezing her eyes tightly, she kept herself from looking. The child survived, or the child didn’t. She no longer had any control over his outcome.

  There was still a little boy above her at risk of burning. Mary thought that falling to one’s death was a far preferred way of dying than broiling in a flame.

  The tool guy on the windowsill below hollered. “Good job. Perfect! You’re doing perfect. Get the other baby.”

  The blood rushing to Mary’s head made it feel like it had swollen in size. The heat burned the pads of her feet.

  Get the other baby.

  She folded up again.

  This time, the child wasn’t fighting. He lay in his mother’s arms, oxygen-deprived and shocky. This was cutting things much too close. His little head lolled back, and Mary saw Kaleb’s face. “I’m here. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I’m here, baby.”

  Any fatigue, any fear, any hesitancy left her.

  She reached for the boy. As she wound the hasty into place, Mary’s gaze slid over to assess the mom. The woman was slight, small for an adult. Lightweight didn’t mean easy. Even the weight and size of the first little boy had been hard.

  The mom smoothed a hand down her child’s face and kissed him.

  Mary had seen that in the hospital, too. This woman thought she was saying good-bye. She didn’t think she was going to survive. As Mary positioned the boy against her chest, the mom came up on all fours, hacking and gasping.

  There was the billowing, noxious smoke stinging and clouding Mary’s eyes. There was the heat of the flame torching her skin. The metal posts grew ever hotter. Even through her hazy, watery sight, Mary could see the child’s face was black with soot, and his lips were turning blue.

  “In coming.” This time, there was no ready, set, go. This child needed fresh air. Now.

  Mary grabbed his ankles, thinking absurdly, I have the talons of an eagle. I can hold a flailing fish tight in my grasp and get it back to my nest. She flipped over backward, draping the child along her body until gravity dropped his hands within reach of the guy below.

  No one grabbed at her ankles, and Mary slid until her feet caught on the bars. This, too, she’d done on the pole, holding her feet rigidly back to support her weight. It was familiar enough that she had done it automatically. But still, the tug of the rope around Mary’s waist was a welcomed reminder that she wasn’t going to plunge to her death. Not unless she chose to. Not unless there were no other options for escaping the flames.

  “Got him! Release.”

  Releasing was easier the second time.

  The screams and gasps from below were less of an upswell.

  But now, mucus flowed into her mouth and clogged her nose. Her system was trying to clean its airways, and instead, it was suffocating her. Her stomach muscles clenched as she coughed and sputtered and choked.

  There was no counterbalance sitting on her feet and holding her legs this time. Mary was on her own to tighten her abdominal muscles and curl herself up. She writhed this way and that as she clasped her legs, trying to use her arm strength to hand over hand walk herself up her thighs, grab the heated bar, and drag herself up.

  Up there was less air, more smoke, and her system worked overtime, dragging in the needed oxygen only to cough it back out.

  Mary scooped her arm toward where the mother had been.

  Where was the mother?

  With her head down, through squinty eyes, Mary could make out the curl of the woman’s hand, and she reached for it to no avail. The cutters lay to her right. Mary cut the third rail and then a fourth bar as if it were butter—the effects of the adrenaline pumping through her system like a geyser that made her lips buzz, and possibly the help of the fire’s heat.

  The opening was now adult-sized. Leaning through, the woman lay just out of Mary’s reach.

  Using the handle on the tool, Mary scraped at the woman’s skirt. She was able to drag the fabric close enough that she could pull the weight of the mother.

  Was she already dead?

  Mary leaned over her shoulder and yelled, “Mother.” Then hacked up a lung.

  “Ready!” he called.

  Yeah, well, Mary realized that the woman’s deadweight was beyond her capacity. Unless this woman was actively clinging to Mary, there was no way this was going to work.

  But what were the options?

  The sirens wailed below, but they were too far away. By the time the trucks pulled up and the ladders raised, it would be over for this woman and maybe for Mary, too.

  Mary climbed through the open bars. Then, lying on her stomach, Mary inched her way to the edge and peered over at the Tool Guy below her, seeing him for the first time.

  It was the guy from the airport. The man waiting for his beautiful dog.

  It felt right that she had a moment of non-urgency to see this man before they were tossed together into life-or-death circumstances.

  It felt like some kind of hand had moved them into place. He was at the airport, too. Had he also been brought in for this task?

  Pre-ordained.

  Written in the stars.

  Mary cupped her hands around her mouth to project her hoarse voice down to the guy below her. “I can’t hold the woman’s weight and hang upside down, and you can’t hold her weight perched on that window like that.”

  She saw that he’d cut the shutters open and kicked the window clear. Smoke billowed from that apartment, too. The fire had moved down to his story of the building.

  “I’ve already figured this out. I’m coming up. My teammate is moving up to take my place. We lower the woman. Then I lower you. And I’ll follow.”

  He was already roped up in a hasty made of lime-yellow webbing, the color for emergency equipment. Something about that color calmed Mary’s system.

  In her job in the emergency department, there was adrenaline—lots of it. Everything was life or limb. She’d learned to maneuver around the adrenaline with muscle memory. She didn’t have much in the way of repetitive practice to apply at this stage of the rescue, but a man with lime green would. He did. His team did. They knew what they were doing. Trust.

  “Lace one of those ropes through three rods, then send both ends down to me.”

  She knelt on the ceramic tiles, complying with the directives. Her knees burned. Mary conjured cool nights in the woods with the fire blazing up, heating the knees of her jeans to scalding temperatures while the rest of her froze, though everything here at this moment was painfully hot.

  After she followed the directives, Mary pushed the mother over next to the bars, angling her face outward. She had no idea what was inside that apartment, what toxic fumes were billowing out, and no idea why this woman was unconscious. Was it smoke inhalation or something more?

  The man moved with practiced ease up the side of the building.

  But in the end, how brave was he?

  How determined?

  Would he stay to get both the other woman and Mary down? Or would he assess his own chances of survival and bail?

  Lying under the blanket of smoke, Mary got herself as far out of the way as she could so Tool Guy had space to maneuver.

  Smoke billowed through more of the building’s windows as the fire spread through the interior.

  Soon, Tool Guy might receive his orders to abandon his position.

  When he saved himself, Mary would lose her own shot at survival.

  Had she flown to Tallinn to die?

  The woman with the star charts had sent her to this place on this day to do the thing.

  Not the three choices offered to Deidre. Not the career, life trajectory, romance opportunities.

  Just be here.

  Be here, where Mary’s exercise hobby allowed her to save those babies.

  There must be something huge in those children’s futures—something Mrs. V. saw aligned in the stars that needed safeguarding by the universe.

  And to save them, Mary would be the sacrificial lamb.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Halo held the mic button between his front teeth. He bit down to open the communication channel and spoke with exaggerated lips and tongue to make himself understood. “Subject descending.” Halo edged the unconscious woman down toward Gage, who had taken up the position in the fourth-floor window.

  Feeding the line through his grip as smoothly as possible, Halo worked to keep the subject from beating into the side of the building.

  Halo didn’t take the time to assess the mother’s condition as he'd packaged her up for this descent. With face and clothes black with soot, Halo couldn’t tell if she was breathing. But flames were quickly engulfing the wall that attached to the balcony. If required, CPR would need to be rendered on the ground.

  Nutsbe was in his ear, giving directives. “Halo, hold, hold, hold. Gage, get out of there. Move down to Thorn’s window.”

  “Halo. Holding.”

  “Gage. Moving.”

  Feet braced against the bars, Halo pressed into his legs, leaning back to keep the subject in place.

  The warrior goddess didn’t hear any of that. She’d have no idea what was happening.

  Right now, her focus had locked onto the flagpole she’d climbed up and was probably calculating the possibility of jumping for it.

  The bravery of that woman. Just like his team, she had moved in for the rescue with no sure exit strategy.

  But what else could they have done?

  The children were alive. Possibly, the mother could survive, too, if they got her medical help right away.

  They still had some time before they hit the kind of desperate straits territory that would necessitate the leap from burning platform to flagpole.

  “Halo, the fourth-floor window is engulfed. I need you to get your subject up three feet to keep her away from the flame while Gage gets into his new position.”

  “Wilco. Tell me when the subject is in a safer place.” Hand over hand, Halo pulled the mother back up the side of the building.

  “Good. There. Hold. Be apprised, Gage is with Thorn on the third floor. You’ll need to lower the subject down to them. The lines are fire resistant, not fire retardant. Make it a speedy descent.”

  “Not enough rope to get her two floors more down,” Halo responded with a saliva-filled mouth. With the mic between his teeth, it was hard to swallow. “Working the problem.”

  He turned to the warrior goddess. “I need that rope you have around your waist.”

  She looked down, put her hand on the line, and then looked over to where she’d tied in.

  “I’m wearing webbing. Connecting two like ropes is better,” Halo said.

  She focused on him, unblinking. There it was again, that crazy sensation. A connection like he’d never experienced before, though he had been in many a life-threatening circumstance with his Commando brothers. This was something new for him. It had a strength to it. A conviction.

  And as those thoughts formed, the woman rolled her lips in and nodded. Then, she turned to untie the hasty from around her waist and then the subject’s line from the bar.

  While she worked to release the knot, she had to be doing survival calculations. With the rope around her waist, she’d most likely make it to the flagpole. Without it, her chances of leaping, grabbing, and sticking were about zero.

  Halo was very aware that he was asking her to take a risk that he wasn’t taking himself. “Only for a minute. I swear to you, I will get you down.” He desperately hoped that he could live up to that promise.

  Sticking her hand under her sports bra, she ducked her face to rub the fabric across her eyes. Then she looked down to where the woman hung from the harness, framed by smoke. “Figure eight?” She didn’t wait for an answer; she just flipped her hand, joined the two lines, dressed the knot, pulled it tight, and then added a stopper knot to each line. She knew what she was doing.

  “Excellent.” He told her, then bit the mic. “Halo. I have enough line rigged to get the mother to the third story.”

  “Halo, let her down.” Nutsbe stayed in his ear. “Keep coming. Keep coming. Three feet. Good. Hold. Gage, get that rope released before it catches on fire.” And after another moment. “Halo, spool up the line stat.”

  The much-awaited fire trucks slowed in front of the neighboring buildings. The emergency workers jumped from the still-moving vehicles as they assessed and got into place at the same time.

  No ladder truck, Halo noticed.

  “Hey!” Halo asked as he brought up the last of the line. “You hanging in there?”

  The warrior goddess tried to speak but was barking a cough. She extended a thumbs up.

  “Halo, be aware, Thorn and Gage have to abandon their window,” Nutsbe said. “You need to get the two of you down to the second story.”

  Suddenly, the balcony lurched to an angle. “The fire must be eating away at the connective structure,” he yelled past the roar of flames. If that happened, there was nothing else to tie into. For a moment, he considered holding the woman’s wrist and swinging her back to the pole she’d climbed up. Considered making a jump for it himself.

  He tucked those thoughts away as a last resort.

  If they could get to the second story, even dropping from the end of a rope was a matter of broken bones. And shouldn’t kill them.

  There was no time to lower her by herself.

  They were going to have to go over together.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The man had hollered at her to wrap herself around him. And as soon as she complied, they went over the lip.

  That was – whew! This was—yeah.

  Clinging to him, her system was freaking out.

  When training to be a flight nurse, learning how to care for patients in the back of a helicopter, she had seen rescue-types working with ropes.

  It looked pretty easy.

  But then again, when people knew what they were doing, pole dancing looked effortless. And it was anything but.

  At her pole dancing school, they also offered aerial silk classes that Mary wasn’t brave enough to try yet. The women would knot themselves into long drapes of fabric and perform graceful gymnastics flows. Seeing them perform didn’t translate into the body coordination needed for achieving the move.

  But the silks class provided a better, more proximal image for her to hold. Unlike the jacked-up rescuers, the silks class was comprised of women of all ages, shapes, and levels of physical ability. Heck, there was even a class for kids that taught “fairy school” and how to “fly” on the apparatus.

  Granted, they were doing it three feet off the floor, and there were mats and spotters.

  Feeling them come to a stop, Mary batted her lids open to find the Tool Guy looking directly at her. His eyes were warm, intelligent, and full of concern.

  “What’s happening?” Her legs wrapped around his waist, and her thighs rested on his as he crouched against the wall. Her arms wrapped over his shoulders, his wrapped around her, holding the rope behind her back. Their limbs knotted them into a single whole. With dawning awareness, Mary understood how a man and a woman could partner to reach their goals, each contributing their skills. Equals. It was a powerful moment—a zing of electricity.

  “No more line,” he said. “Don’t panic.” He smiled when he said it like it was a joke. Like he knew he could trust her the way she was trusting him.

  He had a great smile.

  “No.” She wasn’t panicked. She wondered how much it hurt him to have her weight adding to his own. She’d been trying to think “light as a feather” thoughts. But how much could that have possibly helped? “Sorry,” she said without offering any context.

  “Patience. We’re almost down. I promised you I’d get you down. You trust me?”

  “Completely.” Mary didn’t have to think about it, didn’t need to consider it. Her conviction came from the very marrow of her bones. She knew that with this man, she was safe. “Absolutely. A hundred percent.”

  And as he smiled his response, the mic still caught between his front teeth, Mary thought, Please, don’t let the ropes catch on fire.

  She didn’t want to look down to see how far they still were from the ground.

  Tool Guy bit down on the metal necklace. “WILCO.”