“Wait. The CD,” she said out loud. She had just received the backup design disk from the bank and it was in her room. “Screw it.”
As she was about to open the door, she felt heat on the other side and ran to the window where the fire escape was. Was being the operative word. The damn thing was leaning away from the building on bolts that looked rusted through. Crap! When did that happen? Now there was no other way out. Damn old buildings.
She heard pounding on her door. Maybe Drake was here to save her again. She rushed over and threw it open. To her surprise, Adolf Balog stood there.
“Where’s the other one?” he asked.
“Angie’s at a friend’s house.” Lucky Angie.
“Hurry. Upstairs,” he said.
One glance and she understood why. Fire was licking up the wooden steps from below. “Won’t we get trapped up there?”
“No. There’s a secret passageway to the next building under the roof.”
“Let’s go,” she shouted and hurried up the staircase behind him.
Mr. and Mrs. Balog were already prying open the door to the attic. Why they didn’t have a key she had no idea, but at least they knew a way out existed.
“Pop the hinges, Father,” Adolf said.
“I’ve almost got it.” Mr. Balog grunted, and with one more herculean effort, the lock broke, allowing everyone entrance to the attic. The men stood back and allowed Mrs. Balog to climb the narrow wooden staircase first. Then with a grand, sweeping gesture Adolf indicated Bliss was next. What a time to be chivalrous! But it was heartwarming to realize heroes came in all shapes and sizes.
What she had to climb wasn’t a ladder, but Bliss had to turn her size nine feet sideways to avoid falling off the tiny steps. People must have had much smaller feet back in the seventeen-hundreds.
At last all four of them were under the rafters on their hands and knees. Mrs. Balog said something in a language Bliss didn’t understand, but she figured it meant something like, “Follow me” or “This way.”
Bliss cradled her precious laptop against her chest, which gave her only one hand to hop across the dusty floor.
“Leave the computer,” Adolf said from behind her.
“Not on your life,” Bliss said, and then she realized how appalling that sounded under the circumstances. “Um… I mean, I can’t.”
“Fine. Hurry.”
Why hadn’t the fire department arrived yet? Bliss wondered. Yes, it was the middle of the friggin’ night, but didn’t they have their clothes and boots next to their beds all ready to jump into?
Bliss noticed what looked like a couple of doll beds and some doll clothes. Did kids really play up here? Because of the momentary distraction, she almost rammed Mrs. Balog in the ass. Finally they had arrived at the end of the loft.
The older woman found the door to the next building, turned a wooden latch and gave it a shove. Surprisingly, that was the only security to keep the next-door neighbors from crawling over the Balogs’ heads. I guess back in the day people trusted each other. Then Bliss remembered the locked attic door. Or not.
“We should go two or three buildings over,” Bliss said, even though her wrist was beginning to hurt from hopping on one hand. “My boyfriend is a firefighter and said sometimes if they can’t get to the fire fast enough, the next building will go up too.”
Mr. Balog rattled off some words in another language and Mrs. Balog nodded. A moment later, they were crawling again.
Why me, Lord? Do you really want me to drop out of this competition or something? At last Bliss heard the faint wail of sirens. Thank God. Drake, what took you so long?
Their little parade paused at the next door just long enough to turn the latch and crawl through. Mrs. Balog located the stairs and led the four of them down to someone else’s attic. Then she pounded on the door with both fists.
Shit. It hadn’t occurred to Bliss that they could be trapped in a wall if no one let them out. The Balogs weren’t calling out to anyone, so it was up to her.
“Hey! People! Let us out before we become crispy critters!”
***
A lump lodged in Drake’s throat when he heard the address of the job they were responding to. It was midnight, and the place was fully engulfed by the time they got there. He suspected a certain dragon lady had been planning this all along. If he could get his hands around her throat, he might forget she was a female.
The windows had burst from the intense inferno inside, and rather than wait for his fellow firefighters to bash down the front door, he grabbed a hose and leaped through the opening. He was glad he was the first one in there; otherwise the humans would have met with a shocking surprise.