06 Double Danger Read Online Free PDF Page A

fine. I just burned my hand—the whole thing is really hot.”
    “Be careful.”
    He nodded, then grimaced as he tightened his hold on the rebar. “On my count.”
    She sucked in a breath as he counted down, muscles primed as he called “three.” She could feel a little movement, but it wasn’t enough. She still couldn’t move. The pressure increased as he let go, and any hope she’d had evaporated.
    The room was deadly silent now, the smell of fuel growing stronger.
    “You need to go,” she whispered, the pressure on her chest intense again.
    He looked up, his gaze colliding with hers, the resolution there unmistakable. “One more time.” He adjusted his stance, and then, with a second count to three, shoved against the rebar, the muscles under his T-shirt rippling with the effort.
    At first there was little difference, a slight easing of the pressure, and then the metal groaned as it slid sideways. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Moving on a burst of pure adrenaline, Jillian slid from underneath the twisted fuselage. The resulting wave of pain was instant and intense, but she was free.
    She rolled to a sitting position, fighting a wave of nausea, more than aware that their time was running out. The smell of smoke drew her eyes to the left and the fire burning near the twisted body of the helicopter, the flames licking toward the expanding pool of fuel beneath it.
    “We’ve got to move now,” Simon said, echoing her thoughts as he scooped her into his arms, and she fought against another wave of pain.
    “I can walk,” she argued, shuddering as she caught sight of a body, a nurse from the hospital, Gail something or other. The woman’s eyes were wide, her mouth open in a silent scream, one leg twisted at an inhuman angle. Blood stained her scrubs and the floor beneath her.
    “Don’t look.” Simon pulled her closer and headed across the room through the smoke to the elevator bank.
    “Too late,” she whispered, heart hammering as tears filled her eyes.
    Behind them, the room seemed to shimmy and then erupt. The sound of the explosion reverberated off the walls, shards of metal and glass flying through the room like shrapnel as a giant ball of fire erupted from the center of the wreckage.
    Heat buffeted her exposed skin as Simon ran into the comparative safety of the hallway in front of the elevators. His body blocked hers as the room behind them splintered into a fiery hell—the heated flames reaching out across the room with an intensity that melted the carpet beneath their feet.
    Propping her between his body and the wall, he reached out with one hand to yank open the door to the stairwell. Then he shoved her through, slamming the door behind him, the sound accompanied by the sharp thwack of shrapnel against the metal on the other side.
    “That was close,” she said, suppressing another shudder.
    “It’s not over.” The warning in his voice was echoed as the stairs shook beneath them. “Can you move onyour own?” He shot a glance down the stairwell and then moved his gaze back to hers.
    “Yes. I think so.” She nodded, her feet already moving as he wrapped an arm around her, propelling them down the stairs. Above her head, she heard the shearing of metal and a tremendous crack as the landing broke away and fell in a hail of rubble onto the stairs just behind them.
    “Keep moving,” he yelled over the din, his arm tightening as he practically carried her downward, the sound of the collapse still roaring in their wake, a billowing cloud of smoke and dust enveloping them as they ran.
    In what seemed like hours, but was probably no more than minutes, they’d covered the distance from the fifteenth floor to the first, Simon sweeping her back into his arms as they hit the bottom landing and burst through the doors into the pale rays of an October afternoon. There were first responders everywhere. Along with dazed people. Patients in beds, doctors in scrubs. People in crisis.
    Her first