PART III

Cheryl's silence told him that she had figured that out, too. Probably, he realized woozily, before he had. The silence grew and he blurted finally, "So what are you waiting for? Go!"

Cheryl didn't answer right away. Finally, she said, "I will. Once the paramedics get here."

Steve coughed harshly. "This place could go up - in a second. Get out of here. Now." He couldn't sense any movement from Cheryl behind him, so he tilted his head gingerly back and tried to get a glimpse of her face. He couldn't see anything except the slant of the ceiling whirling in a sickening circle, so he closed his eyes again quickly. His lungs ached as he tried to push words through them. "Don't do this, Cheryl."

This time the answer came, though slowly. "Do what? I'm just waiting for the emergency crew and the crime scene team."

"Too long. Go. Get help."

"Get help. What am I, Lassie? I told you - I called for help. They're on their way. Welcome to the twenty-first century."

"Too long," he insisted. The smoke was getting heavier now, the crackling noise underneath more pronounced. Heat hung in the air like a blanket.

"I think the stairs are out of the question now anyway."

Steve sighed, then choked, trying to clear his lungs. He knew he could come up with a convincing argument if only he could think, but the pain saturated his brain, crowding everything else out. He flashed on the image of Drummond silhouetted against the attic door. "Try - attic. The window…fire escape…"

"That fire escape is one full floor down. And it looked like it was made out of coat hangers and held together by pipe cleaners - not something I want to try a long drop onto."

Steve fought to control his breathing, to keep it slow and steady, wondering how the heck Cheryl was managing to breathe. It felt like he was trying to inhale and exhale something solid. But he had to make her see his point - to leave. "Go. How do you think I'll feel…if you die…because of me?"

He felt Cheryl shrug.

"Way I figure it, if that happens, you'll be dead too - so I guess you won't have a whole lot to say about it one way or the other."

Steve barked a breathless half-laugh.

There was an answering smile in Cheryl's voice, but a steely determination, too. "Nobody's gonna die."

Steve slid further down against her, his mind filled with troubling images. "Not - so. Firetrap. Fire'll spread - building to building. Place must be full of - vagrants. Homeless. Somebody - somebody needs to - "

This time he did feel Cheryl's uncomfortable shift, then the movement of her chest as it rose and fell in a resigned sigh.

"Damn you," she said quietly at last.

"Go." She still seemed to be hesitating so he added, more urgently, "Try - just one flight down. Then the fire escape."

She eased him forward. "Let me try one more time to get you free."

"No time." He wished he could shake her, push her, force her down the stairs, but he tried something that he hoped resembled a smile instead. "C'mon - go. Help's coming for me. You…said so."

"I hate it when you do that," she muttered uncomplainingly, sliding out from behind him and struggling to settle him comfortably.

He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood to keep from crying out when the motion jarred his right arm, hoped to hide it and sound natural anyway. "Hate - when I'm right?"

"No, when you do that "for me" thing."

The movement had brought on another flood of vertigo, accompanied by a churning clutch of nausea, so he took a second to collect himself before protesting, "Didn't."

"You didn't say it, you looked it."

He held at bay an almost overwhelming desire to curl on his side and throw up, knowing she would never leave him alone in that condition no matter how polished his arguments, and swallowed hard instead to keep things in place, forcing a tiny smile. "Always - works."

"Yeah. That's why I hate it."

He couldn't find the energy to laugh this time. He could almost feel the heat deepening in the surrounding air, scalding his lungs. Go, Cheryl, go on, hurry - get out of here! "Move." It came out sounding like an order.

"Yeah." Cheryl didn't sound particularly offended. "On my way." He felt the awkward clasp of her right hand in his left and tried to return the pressure. "I'll be back with help. Just call me Lassie." Her hand disappeared from his and he thought she was gone until he heard her voice float back at him, "You be sure that you're here!"

Yeah. I'll be here.

A scuffle of feet, then silence, except for the crackling, which was growing to a muted roar. She was gone, then.

An overwhelming wave of relief, followed almost as quickly by an overwhelming wave of loneliness and despair swept through him, sapping his remaining energy. Setting his teeth hard, he shut his mind down against it, blocking everything out. He could focus on that later. Right now, he needed to try and get his foot free. He felt his way forward with his left hand, down his right leg and to the splintered mess where his calf joined the stair. His fingers brushed something hot and wet and sticky, then the forward position became too much for his head and he had to lean back again, letting the world re-steady itself.

That throwing up thing was sounding better all the time.

He had no desire to maim himself, but he had even less desire to become a stack of charcoal briquettes, so refusing to let himself think about what he was about to do, he drew a deep breath and pulled gently. Things twisted deep inside skin and muscle, tearing, ripping, opening fresh blood flow. He gasped, slid sideways down the wall, swallowing a mouthful of smoke. He hit the floor on his right side, his arm bouncing off the boards. The white flash of agony there was the last straw, and everything was devoured by darkness.

TBC