At Close Range by Jessica Andersen

for a tripwire or pressure pad.
    The smell was less intense in the cellar, suggesting that the gas line had been looped into one of the forced hot air vents.
    When Seth reached the bottom, he shined his light over the dusty space, picking out a neat stack of cardboard boxes, a discarded bicycle, a hot water heater, and finally the furnace.
    He froze and cursed at the sight of a wire-laden device duct taped to the tank. As he watched, the red numbers of the digital display ticked from twenty-one to twenty.
    Then nineteen.
    He spun and ran for the stairs. No time. There was no time to disarm the device, even if he had the knowledge. Once that thing blew, the spark would follow the gas trail up into the house. He had to get Cassie out of there, fast.
    Seventeen. Sixteen.

    He pounded up the stairs to the kitchen while the numbers counted down in his head. His flashlight beam carved through the darkness ahead of him as he bolted up to the second floor and shined the light into a short hallway, a bathroom, a bedroom.
    No Cassie.
    Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen.
    Damn it. Where was she?
    He reversed direction and charged down the stairs, heart pounding in time with the seconds left on the digital timer.
    Twelve. Eleven. Ten.
    He skidded back into the living room, aware that the slightest spark, the smallest flame, and it was all over. His head spun with the foul air. Desperation pounded in his veins, along with the sudden, all-consuming fear that this had been a setup, that she’d been taken, that both of them would be presumed dead in the blast and nobody would know to look for her.
    Then he heard it.
    The faint moan came from behind an overstuffed sofa. He staggered when he turned toward it, and a foggy piece of his brain told him that wasn’t a good sign.
    “Ca-Cah-shee?” Hell, he was slurring like a drunk.
    Got to get out of here, he thought as he circled the couch and shone his light down.
    He saw Cassie lying motionless on the floor behind the sofa.

    Five. Four.
    He dragged her up. His muscles felt like putty and his coordination was off. He nearly fell, but forced himself to lift her, to stagger toward the door.
    Got. To. Get. Out. Of. Here. The words hammered in his brain, strengthening his legs and arms. He could hear sirens in the far distance, agitated shouts closer by, but the inside of the house was deadly silent.
    Three. Two.
    He ran for the broken-open door, putting one foot in front of the other by sheer willpower as the seconds ticked down in his brain.
    One. Zero.
    Boom.

Chapter Four
    Only the explosion didn’t come.
    Seth staggered out onto the porch and into blessed, clean air. He sucked in a huge lungful and pushed himself down the front stairs on rubber legs.
    Cassie’s neighbor broke free from the knot of people milling in the street and charged across the muddy lawn. “Let me help. Come on, we’ve got to hurry. The house could blow flat any minute.”
    “I can…walk,” Cassie said, and struggled weakly.
    Seth set her on her feet. “Don’t walk. Run. There’s a bomb in the basement.”

    But the countdown in his head was at minus five seconds.
    The three of them bolted across the front lawn just as two BCCPD cruisers and the chief’s four-by-four screeched to a halt nearby.
    Seth pushed a dazed Cassie toward her neighbor and told the guy, “Make her sit down. As soon as the ambulance gets here, have the paramedics check her over.”
    He didn’t like how disoriented she seemed. Maybe it was because she’d inhaled way more of the gas than he had. Or maybe there was something else. Had she been hit? Drugged? Anger surged through him. He’d find out soon enough, and then there’d be hell to pay.
    She went with her neighbor rather than arguing, confirming that she felt terrible.
    If she’d had even an iota of her natural temper, she never would have let him order her around. That knowledge, that vulnerability tugged at him.
    But instead of following and standing over her until the paramedics