“Shoes…” Erin said, looking around the room.
“No time. Too much smoke already.”
“Smoke?” Oliver had convinced himself it was a false alarm. He turned toward the hall and realized Gavin was right. The place was filling up with smoke…fast.
The three of them raced down the hall to the living room, the smoke even thicker in the large room. Oliver couldn’t see flames, but his eyes were starting to water, to sting. “The fire must be down in the pub.”
Fuck.
The fire was in the pub.
Oliver stood in the middle of the room as the reality of that crashed down on him hard.
“No time for this!” Gavin said, pushing Erin forward as he reached for Oliver’s arm.
Gavin led them all to the fire escape and threw open the window. Glancing down into the alley behind the building, he turned and nodded. “It’s safe. Come on. We’ll have to go out this way. Won’t make it through the pub if the fire is down there.”
Erin stepped out onto the fire escape as Oliver heard the sound of sirens in the distance. Finn had installed a state-of-the-art alarm system a couple of years earlier after a rash of robberies in the neighborhood. The system not only detected break-ins but fire as well, which meant in addition to sending a message to the fire department, it would have blown up the phones of most of his aunts and uncles, and Padraig as well.
The system was also supposed to activate the sprinklers. He hoped they’d come on, and that was what accounted for all the smoke, sending up a prayer that perhaps the fire had already been contained or, even better, put out. However, given the incredible, unbearable heat coming up from the floor beneath him, he didn’t hold on to that hope for long.
The moon shifted, peeking out from behind some clouds just as Oliver reached the window. He glanced over his shoulder—and his stomach sank.
“Ollie. Come on!” Gavin shouted to be heard over the alarm. He had one foot over the window ledge—half in, half out. Oliver could see Erin standing just behind Gavin on the landing. They were waiting for him.
Oliver shook his head at his best friend when he caught sight of the Christmas tree.
“Start down without me,” he muttered, quickly changing direction. He couldn’t leave Grandma Sunday’s ornaments here to burn.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Gavin asked, coughing in the thick smoke. “We don’t have time.”
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Gavin point toward the stairs that led down to the pub. Oliver followed that direction and saw the first hint of orange light, indicating the fire was making its way upstairs.
“The ornaments,” he yelled back, choking on the smoke as well. “Go! Go!”
Gavin shook his head, but Oliver wasn’t leaving this pub without the ornaments.
He stared hard at his foster brother. “Go now! Take Erin.”
Gavin must have seen the determination written on his face. Unfortunately, he didn’t react the way Oliver wanted.
“No!” Oliver yelled when Gavin waved for Erin to start down without them before climbing back over the ledge and into the apartment.
“Gavin, Ollie!” Erin cried from the window as Gavin ran over to Oliver, the two of them frantically trying to find the ornaments in the dim lighting.
“Where the fuck are they?” Gavin said.
They were both coughing hard now, the air a thick cloud of smoke. Seeing was hard, breathing harder.
“Here!” Gavin said, holding up two ornaments he’d found.
Oliver’s eyes watered and burned, his chest tight from lack of oxygen.
Fuck yeah—he had the other two. “Let’s go!”
He and Gavin raced to the fire escape. Erin was halfway down, only starting her descent when she saw them heading toward her. He’d give her hell later for not getting to safety immediately, but that would have to wait until he could breathe again. Right now, he was coughing so hard, he was afraid he’d drop the damn ornaments he could now admit he’d stupidly risked his life and Gavin’s to save.
They rounded the side of the building as a police car took the corner way too fucking fast, squealing its tires, the siren piercing the night. Slamming on the brakes and throwing the car in park, Aaron emerged from the cruiser, clearly ready to race into the burning building.
“Aaron!” Oliver yelled, drawing his uncle’s attention as they ran across the street to him.
“Call came through dispatch. I wasn’t far away,” Aaron said. “Thank God you three got out! No one else—”
“No. No one,” Oliver said, his voice tight, throat inflamed from the smoke. Speaking was painful. “Pub’s been closed for hours.”
A fire truck pulled up in front of the pub, the firefighters jumping down and rushing around to unroll the hoses.
Glass shattered, and Oliver turned at the sound. He saw flames shooting out the front of the pub through the hole where the large plate glass window proudly bearing the name Pat’s Irish Pub used to be.
“Fuck,” Gavin said, coughing hard. “Jesus. Fuck!”
Aaron put a comforting hand on Gavin’s shoulder, and then Oliver’s, as the two of them continued to gasp for air, their struggles for deep breaths broken up by hard, rib-rattling coughs.
Oliver’s gaze took in the entire building, and while the flames weren’t visible on the top two floors yet, he knew there would be no saving them if the firefighters didn’t get the hoses hooked up to the hydrant, the water pumping, and the blaze under control quickly.
As it was, the pub and Sunday’s Side were already engulfed in fire, and there was no doubt they couldn’t be saved.
He glanced to his side as Gavin continued to cough deeply. They’d both taken in too much smoke. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, unsure if his foster brother even heard him as more fire trucks and police cars arrived, Landon and Miguel climbing out of one of the cars and racing over
