difficult to breathe.
“We have to get out,” she said. She had to shout to be heard, though Jason was only a foot from her.
“Kitchen door,” he shouted, pointing.
She agreed. They might be shot dead. But they had to take the chance, because after two more minutes in the house, they’d be dead anyway.
They crawled, staying as close to the ground as possible while still moving as fast as possible. Jason led the way. The door was unlocked, and even though flames crawled up the walls of the kitchen, the door was still intact. He pulled it open. Scarlet tried to look around, but the smoke stung her eyes and she saw nothing but light and dark.
And flashing. There was flashing all around them. And sirens. She heard them over and above the crackling flames.
She and Jason half-crawled, half-ran from the house.
Scarlet realized she wasn’t quite thinking straight because her first thought was to protect Jason. Subconsciously, she sensed the fire truck and men dressed as firemen, but she also knew that only minutes ago … well, she didn’t know how long ago, really … people had been shooting at them. Two men with masks—fire masks? Oxygen tanks?—approached and she held up her gun.
Jason was coughing on the ground next to her.
She coughed so hard her chest hurt. She blinked but still couldn’t see anything but shapes. Shapes like men with helmets.
You’re not thinking, Scarlet. They’re firemen.
What if they weren’t? What if it was a ruse? Her head spun and everything blurred. She couldn’t see, dammit! She needed to see.
“Easy. Easy, ma’am.”
Her arm dropped and she collapsed. She felt her gun being taken from her hand. No, no, no, don’t take my gun! Something was over her face. Her body was being carried away from the house.
“She’s bleeding.”
Jason. She had to protect him like Krista protected her.
She fought with whatever was on her face, but she couldn’t move her hands.
“Ma’am, it’s okay. Just take it easy.”
Voices, running, a spray of water. Lights and sirens.
Police. Fire. They were safe.
Safe for now
Chapter Six
“No, I’m not going to the hospital,” Scarlet said. And she meant it.
The paramedic—a muscular woman with piercing green eyes—frowned. “You need to be fully examined, Ms. Moreno. You have multiple lacerations.”
“But I wasn’t shot.”
The glass and wood splinters had hit her and Jason , producing several nasty gashes on her arms. One of them was from a bullet that had grazed her, which burned like hell, but she wasn’t going to the hospital unless the bullet was actually inside her and needed to be removed.
She’d been out of it by the time she and Jason escaped the house. Now, thirty minutes later, the fire was contained. The fire fighters had moved fast, not only working on the fire itself, but saturating the area surrounding the house. Luck was with them—there was no wind. If the Santa Anas were blowing, it would have been a far more deadly fire.
Jason was sitting in the ambulance across from her. He had similar injuries, but he was also cuffed to the gurney. The responding officers had his name and ID for an arrest warrant, and she had told them to please call Detective Richardson before they took him anywhere. Now that Scarlet was thinking straight—straighter, at least—she needed to convince Richardson to put Jason into protective custody.
She’d already given her statement, including identifying the dead guy in the basement. The fire fighters couldn’t go inside to retrieve his body because the fire had been burning too hot. She’d already overheard conversation that it was arson, started outside of the house. Someone had doused the external walls with gasoline. Because it was an old house, it had burned quickly.
They had been extremely lucky.
“Ms. Moreno,” the paramedic was saying, “I strongly advise that you go to the hospital to be thoroughly examined. You could have shrapnel I’m not seeing with the
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