Olivier (Chicago Blaze #9) - Brenda Rothert Page 0,1
the car will explode.”
A line of bystanders watches as I run over to the car and get on my hands and knees on the ground. The fire must be coming from the engine, and has already spread to the passenger seat. I look towards the driver’s seat. A side airbag is blocking my view, but I can see a woman’s hand hanging limp, her short nails painted pale pink. I don’t think she’s conscious, but I call out to her anyway. There’s no response. I don’t even know if she’s alive.
“The police are on the way!” a man yells from the row of bystanders. “Don’t move her! Let them do it.”
The fucking car is on fire. And with rush hour traffic and no sirens approaching, I might be this woman’s only hope.
I try to open the front door, but it’s crunched into the ground along with the roof, and it doesn’t budge at all.
“I need a knife!” I yell to the crowd. “Somebody get me a knife!”
Taking a deep breath, I open the back seat passenger door. The car is sitting at an angle, and the door won’t stay open unless I’m holding it. I grab the fabric of the car seat, the floormat—anything I can get my hands on to hoist myself up. Nothing works.
Shit. I have to get into that car. I can feel the heat from the fire, which is dangerously close to the unconscious woman. I get my hand on a piece of metal beneath the driver’s seat, and I try to pull myself up on it, but it’s not big enough.
Thoughts race through my mind. There’s no time. I can’t let this woman burn to death just because I can’t figure out how to get in this car. There has to be a way.
“I got you,” a deep voice says behind me.
I turn to see a tall, broad-shouldered man with a bald head and a determined expression. He bends down, slides his head between my legs so I’m sitting on his shoulders and stands up, raising me high enough that I can slide all the way into the back seat.
It’s hot. I cough as smoke fills my lungs, getting in my eyes and making it hard to see.
“I’ve got a knife,” the man calls out, passing it up to me. “Careful, it’s a hunting knife. It’s sharp.”
He backs up several steps, probably because this car could blow up at any moment. My heart pounds as I grab the knife handle from him.
Since I can’t see through the smoke, I rely on my hands. I run them down the back of the driver’s seat until I get to the point where the seat belt should be. I find it, but everything is so goddamn hot.
Coughing harder now, I set to work cutting through the seat belt. The flames are so close to her that this feels like an impossible task. It’s not just my will to save her, but my will not to die in this fire myself, that drives me to saw through the seat belt at her waist.
Tossing the knife into the burning passenger seat, I move my hand up her arm until I find her shoulder. The heat and smoke are almost too much. I’m not leaving without her, though.
I get my hands through her armpits and I take two giant handfuls of her shirt. I’m about to start pulling when I see that my own shirtsleeve has caught fire.
“Come on, man!” the guy who hoisted me into the car calls out. “I’m right here! You can do this!”
Squeezing my eyes closed, I pull. The woman moves a couple inches. She’s stuck.
A sound escapes my throat—half frustration, half terror. I regroup and pull again, her body rising off the seat but not coming back. It feels like I have almost all of her weight, but her lower right leg, or maybe her foot, is stuck.
I don’t have time to think about it. There’s a risk I’ll hurt her if I keep pulling, but the alternative would be worse.
With a deep breath of smoky air that makes me lightheaded, I slide my hands down to the waistband of her pants and pull there instead. I pull until my shoulders ache with exertion, and suddenly, her body is free.
Scrambling, I grab her beneath the armpits again and pull. My head is swimming and my throat feels raw. Is that burning skin I smell?
The door I entered the car through is being held open by someone.