Chapter 9 - Through SmokeWilla knew hospitals burned differently than houses.
In hospitals, fire was not only flame.
It was oxygen lines.
Electrical equipment.
Patients who could not move.
A private ICU inside a mansion was worse: all the danger, none of the protocols.
She ran up the service stairs with her dress soaked from sprinklers, one hand gripping the railing, lungs already stinging.
Nora appeared on the landing above her.
“Mrs. Kane!”
“Everett!”
“The hallway is blocked.”
“Show me another way.”
“There isn’t—”
“Show me.”
Nora hesitated only once.
Then she grabbed Willa’s hand and pulled her through a narrow servants’ passage hidden behind a linen cabinet. The air inside was hot and dusty. Somewhere below, people shouted. Somewhere above, alarms screamed.
“Sterling renovated this wing after Mr. Everett’s accident,” Nora said, breathless. “He sealed old passages.”
“Why?”
“To control access.”
Of course.
Even the walls had been turned against Everett.
They reached a small door near the converted ICU. Smoke leaked through its edges.
Willa wrapped part of her wet gown over her mouth.
“Nora, go back.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
Nora’s face hardened.
“I was quiet for eight months. I am finished being quiet.”
They opened the door.
Heat rolled over them.
The hallway lights flickered. Smoke crawled along the ceiling. At the far end, two men in dark suits were dragging Dr. Vance away from Everett’s room.
Willa recognized one by the scar on his cheek.
The man from Briar Glen.
She ducked back before he saw her.
Nora whispered, “Sterling’s men.”
Willa looked around desperately.
A brass fire extinguisher hung beside the passage door.
She pulled it free.
“What are you doing?” Nora breathed.
“Being unstable.”
Willa stepped into the hall and swung.
The extinguisher struck the scarred man behind the knee. He shouted and collapsed. Dr. Vance twisted free and drove her elbow into the second man’s throat with impressive precision.
Nora stared.
Dr. Vance coughed. “I played college lacrosse.”
“Everett,” Willa said.
“They locked the door,” Dr. Vance replied. “Dr. Cho is inside with him, but the backup oxygen is failing.”
Willa ran to the door.
The keypad flashed red.
Nora shoved Crowley’s stolen skeleton key into the lock.
Nothing.
“Electronic override,” Dr. Vance said.
Willa looked at the scarred man groaning on the floor.
She grabbed his jacket and searched his pockets.
Keycard.
She slapped it against the panel.
Green.
The door opened.
Inside, Everett’s room was dim with emergency light.
Dr. Cho stood over the bed, manually ventilating through a portable mask while trying to disconnect monitors with one hand.
Everett’s eyes were open.
Barely.
But open.
Willa forgot the fire for half a heartbeat.
He looked at her.
Really looked.
Not through a screen.
Not from beneath closed lids.
At her.
His eyes were dark, furious, exhausted, alive.
“Hey,” she said, voice breaking. “You picked a terrible night to wake up.”
His mouth moved.
No sound.
She touched his face.
“I know. Later. We yell later.”
Dr. Cho snapped, “We need to move him now.”
“Can he survive transport?”
“He won’t survive staying.”
They worked fast.
Willa’s old training returned like muscle memory. She clamped lines, checked the portable oxygen tank, secured the catheter tubing, lowered the bed rails, and helped switch Everett to a transport monitor.
Dr. Vance stared at her.
“You were a nurse.”
“I was.”
“You still are.”
Willa had no time to feel that.
The hallway outside filled with smoke.
Nora ran ahead to clear the path.
They pushed the bed through the door.
Everett’s hand found Willa’s wrist.
Weak.
But deliberate.
She leaned close while moving.
“I’m not leaving you.”
His fingers tightened.
Behind them, Dr. Cho shouted, “Elevator is out!”
“Service ramp,” Nora called. “This way.”
They turned into the old passage.
The bed barely fit.
Metal scraped plaster.
Smoke followed.
From below came the sound of sirens, distant but approaching.
Then Sterling stepped from the shadows at the end of the corridor.
He held a gun.
Not pointed at Everett.
At Willa.
Nora stopped so abruptly the bed struck the wall.
Sterling’s hair was wet from sprinklers. Blood marked his lip where Willa had slapped him. His suit clung to him, ruined.
He looked almost happy.
“Move away from him,” he said.
Willa stood at the foot of Everett’s bed.
“No.”
Dr. Vance whispered, “Sterling, there are police outside.”
“Then we should be quick.”
He looked at Everett.
“Hello, cousin.”
Everett’s eyes locked onto him.
For eight months, Sterling had spoken beside his bed without consequence.
Now those eyes answered.
Sterling’s hand trembled.
“You were never supposed to come back.”
Everett’s mouth moved.
This time, sound emerged.
A broken rasp.
“Bad… plan.”
Willa almost laughed and sobbed at once.
Sterling’s face twisted.
“You always thought you were untouchable.”
Everett’s gaze shifted to Willa, then back.
His voice was barely air.
“She… touched.”
The words made no sense to Sterling.
But Willa understood.
She had touched his hand in the dark.
Touched the truth.
Touched the wound Sterling thought he had buried.
Sterling raised the gun.
Before he could fire, Crowley appeared behind him and struck him with a heavy iron candlestick.
Sterling collapsed against the wall.
The gun skidded across the floor.
Crowley stood over him, breathing hard.
“I resign,” he said.
Willa stared.
Nora crossed herself again.
Dr. Cho shouted, “Move!”
They ran.
By the time firefighters carried Everett through the north entrance into the freezing night, the ballroom guests stood huddled across the lawn under emergency lights.
Cameras flashed.
Police shouted.
Sterling was dragged out in handcuffs, blood on his temple, rage in his eyes.
Willa stayed beside Everett as paramedics loaded him into the ambulance.
Elena reached them, soaked and furious.
“Willa!”
“My mother?”
“Safe.”
“The evidence?”
“Secured.”
“Sterling?”
“Alive, unfortunately.”
Everett’s fingers moved.
Willa looked down.
His eyes were on her.
She climbed into the ambulance without asking permission.
A paramedic tried to object.
Everett turned his head one inch.
One inch from a man who had been immobile for eight months.
The paramedic shut up.
As the ambulance doors closed, Everett’s hand found Willa’s.
His voice was a ruined whisper.
“Promise.”
She leaned closer.
“What?”
His eyes held hers.
“The altar.”
Willa’s throat closed.
“I promised I wouldn’t laugh at you.”
His fingers tightened.
“More.”
She remembered the words she had not spoken aloud to anyone else.
I think you’re trapped. I’m going to get you out.
Tears filled her eyes.
“I promised I’d get you out.”
Everett Kane, feared by half of Chicago and betrayed by the other half, looked at his nineteen-dollar bride as if she had just handed him the world.
“You did,” he whispered.
May you like
Then his eyes closed.
But this time, it was sleep.
