Page 1 of Deliverance

CHAPTER 1

EVELYN

Sirens blared through the night by the time the van skidded to a stop outside the Archers HQ. Or what was left of it. The SUV with my guys squealed to a stop beside us.

I threw open the door and leapt out into the chaos. The smoke hit me first, thick and acrid, coating the back of my throat. Three fire trucks were parked haphazardly around the building, like they had flown in from different directions. Their red and white lights strobed against the surrounding buildings. Liam and Sebastian stayed on my heels as I wove through the trucks. The heat hit me next, radiating off the rubble in waves I could feel from twenty feet away. Nothing was left standing. Not the walls, the roof, or the door I had walked through a thousand times. Just a skeleton of smoke and debris with embers still floating up into the night sky. My heart dropped. Maya…

“Hey, you can’t—Evelyn!” A firefighter waved me over.

I recognized Jeff, the captain of the local firehouse. His eyes darted from me to the still-smoldering building, then widened. The Archers HQ was a secret from most people except select people. Jeff wasn’t an Archer, but we had helped his sister getout of a domestic situation a couple of years ago, and he was a solid guy.

“Jeff,” I rushed out. “Maya was in the building.”

Jeff frowned, his tone careful but resigned. “I’m so sorry, Evelyn, but there’s no way anyone could have survived that.”

Liam let out a strangled sound beside me as my hand flew to my mouth. No, there was no way. Maya wasn’t…

“The safe room,” I blurted.

Liam stiffened, his eyes wide. “The safe room,” he breathed.

“What safe room?” Jeff asked.

“Before we bought the building, the guy who owned it was a survivalist type. Tried to have a warehouse and sell the stuff, but the business went under. He had installed a bunker, and I updated it when I bought the building.”

“Where is it?” Jeff asked, stepping towards me urgently.

“Back right corner of the lot.” I moved forward to show them, and Jeff caught my arm.

“It’s not safe. We’ll find them. Back right corner of the lot?”

I wanted to rush in and help, but the heat coming off the building was insane. “Yes. It was a trapdoor in the floor. Black metal door. It’s supposed to slide, but…” I gestured at the fire.

Jeff turned and yelled at some of his crew. “Martinez! Gonzalez! Grab the jaws of life. Smith! I need a pathway to the southwest corner of the lot!”

All I could do was stand there as the firefighters sprang into action. Liam trembled beside me quietly. I reached out and squeezed his shoulder, keeping my hand there as we waited.

Sebastian pressed in close behind me, and the rest of my guys fanned out around us. No one said anything. The seconds seem to tick by endlessly, every moment stretched out like a rubber band. Adrenaline thrummed through me, and I shifted on my feet. The smoke was so thick still that I could barely make out the muffled shapes of the firefighters as they headed into thebuilding. I needed to be doing something, but I was paralyzed to the spot.

The rubble crackled and popped. It looked like there had been a central blast explosion in the main room, but the rest of it burned quickly. What could have done this? The director’s words came back to haunt me.You’ll learn tonight.Was this what he meant?

It felt like hours before we saw any movement in the smoke. Liam clutched my hand on his shoulder as dark shapes emerged from the rubble. Three firefighters stepped out of the smoke, and my knees went out from under me. Maya was in Jeff’s arms, coughing but alive. Sebastian wrapped his arm around my waist, catching me. Liam sagged into me briefly, then we rushed towards them.

“Maya!” Liam cried as we reached them.

They coughed but reached out to Liam as Jeff set them on their feet. I wrapped my arms around both of them, and we clung to each other.

“Hey boss,” Maya rasped. “Remind me never to give you shit about the bunker ever again.”

I choked out a laugh through the tears. “I’ll resist the urge to say I told you so.”

They, along with the others, had given me some shit when I first insisted that we spend a lot of money to update the bunker into a safe room. I never dreamed that we would need it for something like this, but I was so glad we had it.

“We need to get them checked out,” Jeff gently reminded us. “They inhaled some smoke, and the concussion of the blast might have ruptured an eardrum.”

I pulled back and cupped Maya’s chin, tilting their head. A trickle of blood ran down the side of their face from their ear. “Fuck, Maya.”

“I’m okay,” they said. “I might have some hearing loss, but I’ll take it.” They were alive and that’s what mattered.