At 1:17 in the morning, the fire alarm began screaming, and Mara Vale knew they had seconds before the stairwell filled with smoke.
The sound came from the hallway, thin and frantic.
Her brother was already out of bed.
Elias stood in the doorway in gray sweatpants, one hand raised, listening past the alarm to the building itself.
“Smoke,” he said.
Mara smelled it a heartbeat later.
Plastic.
Hot dust.
Something sweet and poisonous underneath.
They lived on the fourth floor of Marigold Towers, a building with cheerful yellow balconies and a landlord who called every repair request an act of aggression.
The stairwell door at the end of the hall had been sticking for months.
The alarm had failed twice.
Mara had filed complaints.
Elias had called the fire department after the hallway extinguisher disappeared.
They had done everything right.
The fire had started in the laundry room.
“Shoes,” Elias said.
“Keys. Phones.”
Mara grabbed the red emergency bag from under her bed.
Elias took the small pry bar they kept by the door.
The alarm sharpened until it hurt.
They ran into the hallway.
Mrs. Alvarez from 4B was trying to open the stairwell.
Her hands shook against the push bar.
Elias shouldered the door.
It gave an inch, then jammed against something on the other side.
“The door’s chained,” Mara said.
Smoke crawled along the ceiling behind them.
Elias wedged the pry bar between the frame and the latch.
The metal bent.
Mara pulled with him.
The door groaned open far enough for Mrs. Alvarez to squeeze through.
“Go!” Elias shouted.
Mara followed her down one flight, then stopped.
A child was crying above them.
Elias saw her face.
“No.”
“There’s a kid.”
“I heard.”
“Then you know.”
His jaw tightened.
He hated when she was right.
He hated it more when she was right in a way that could get her killed.
They went back up.
They found the child hiding beneath a kitchen table in 4D, wrapped in a blanket, her small hands over her ears.
Mara carried her.
Elias led them toward the stairwell, coughing now.
A beam cracked overhead.
The hallway lights went out.
They had done everything right.
They had checked the exits.
They had called for help.
They had gotten people out.
Then the ceiling came down.
Elias shoved Mara forward.
The child slipped from her arms into the stairwell, where Mrs. Alvarez caught her.
A burning timber struck Elias across the back.
Mara turned.
She grabbed his wrist.
Their fingers locked.
For one breath they were still standing.
For one breath there was only the alarm, the heat, and the two of them holding on.
“Don’t you dare let go,” Mara said.
“I was going to say that.”
She tried to pull him.
He tried to push her.
Neither could make the other move.
“Next time,” Elias rasped, “we save ourselves first.”
Mara almost laughed.
“Next time, we’re making sure no one can do this to us again.”
The ceiling broke open in a storm of sparks.
The last thing either of them felt was the other’s hand.
Then came the dark.