Lauren’s feet unglued themselves before her brain had even realized what the horrendous wailing sound meant. She raced back to her seat, the bag she’d brought down to the pool tumbling to the ground and spilling its contents all over the damp, paved ground. Her hands sifted through the mess, seeking anything that felt like the rigid plastic card that would open her hotel room. She barely looked down, her gaze frantically moving from place to place, looking for her son. There! Her fingers finally scraped over the hard edge, and she snatched up the plastic keycard and ran, leaving everything else lying in a soggy mess by the pool.

It wasn’t until she was halfway back to her room that she realized the futility of going to her destination. There was no way Brayden would be able to get inside the room without the key. Still, she kept moving. Smoke had billowed out of the main hotel area, stinging her eyes. She swiped at the tears that obscured her vision. If Brayden couldn’t see his way properly, either, he could have ended up anywhere—or he could have traced his way back to the one place in the hotel he’d been before—their room. Her tennis shoes slapped against each concrete stair as she barreled toward the room’s door, ignoring looks from other guests going in the opposite direction. Not one of them stopped to talk to her or try to help. Lauren wasn’t surprised. They were also likely just trying to get out of a dangerous situation, and had no time for the crazy-looking woman running toward it. Shit! Why was the smoke thicker up here?

Wiping her eyes again, she shoved the keycard into the door, almost crying tears for real when the door swung open. She bolted into the room, sucking in a blessed lungful of cleaner air. It took her racing heart a few seconds to catch up to the fact that the room was empty, and her stomach felt like she’d just dropped twelve stories. Ignoring her pounding pulse, she rushed into the bathroom, then even checked inside the closet, in case Brayden had panicked and tried to hide inside. Nothing. She’d been so sure he’d be there!

She coughed. The smoke inside the room was thickening. Lauren could hear shouts in the distance, but the immediate area surrounding their hotel room was quiet. Too quiet. She needed to get out of there.

Closing the door on the empty room felt wrong, as if she’d somehow missed Brayden hiding inside, but she forced the feeling away. Her panic was getting the best of her. She’d be no use to her son if she lost it. She’d done that when her husband had died, and because of the time it had taken for her to find her way back, they’d both suffered. She wouldn’t do that to Brayden again. She had to find him. Now.

She moved down the hall, going the opposite way she had originally come. If anything, the smoke was thicker that way, but she had no idea whether the corridor outside her room led to the outside or would wind her deeper inside the maze of rooms. At least she knew she’d eventually hit the entrance to the pool again. If she could just figure out which turn to make . . .

She found the entrance to the pool, but the area was still deserted. A clump of people stood over on the large lawn beyond it, but to get there, she’d have to scale a tall fence. The only gate was child-safe and on the doorway to the entrance back inside the hotel. It didn’t matter. There was no child-sized person in orange swimming trunks standing with the crowd, and she wasn’t leaving until she’d found Brayden.

A man in a uniform ran past her, skidding to a stop when he caught sight of her heading farther along the same hallway. “Ma’am! We need to leave.”

Lauren shook her head. “I need to find my son.”

The man frowned and grabbed her elbow, tugging slightly. “There’s no one down that way, ma’am, and it’s definitely not safe. Let’s go!”

He tugged again, but Lauren pulled herself free. She’d failed Brayden once before, and she’d die trying before she did it again. “No!”

A whoosh and crackle sounded from farther down the hall, and an invisible wall of heat rushed over them. The man coughed, his face wrinkled with disgust—or anger?—she didn’t care. “Crazy bitch,” he muttered before turning and running back the other way, leaving her alone.

Lauren turned, placing her hand on the wall. It felt strangely warm beneath her palm. Somewhere nearby, probably much closer than she’d like, a sudden boom sounded, followed by a hiss. Something exploding? Was she close enough to a storeroom or the kitchen to hear a water pipe?

Her eyes streamed, and she pulled her sweater up over her nose, her tired lungs gasping for clean air. Another noise, that time a cracking ping and then the tinkle of glass falling to the ground behind her. The sounds echoing down the hall were so loud that she doubted she would have heard it at all had the window not been large and right behind her. She sent a small prayer of thanks that she hadn’t been standing directly under it when it broke.

She pressed on. The smoky smell that had filled her lungs earlier intensified, mingling with the heat in the air, each breath feeling like it was searing her lungs. She could almost taste the ash on her tongue. She coughed, trying to clear the phlegm, but all she could manage was a rasping wheeze. God, if Brayden was down there, was there any possibility that he was even still alive? She took a step forward and then another, before the heat rolling down the hall stopped her in her tracks. Even with all her determination—and all her guilt—Lauren couldn’t continue down the hall. Not anymore. The heat coming off the walls was surrounding her, hot enough that it felt like it was searing her skin. If she went much farther, it felt like it would melt from her bones. A gasp escaped her, followed by a sob. If Brayden hadn’t made it out without her, then he was already gone. There was no way anyone could survive the hell that was burning in front of her.

Lauren stepped back, falling on her ass as a shower of sparks flew from a light fixture above her head. She coughed again, trying to force herself to her feet, but she could barely stand. She threw a hand out to steady herself, but the walls were too hot to touch for long, the paint bubbling beneath her fingertips, burning her skin. She took a gasping breath, and her lungs filled with the acrid smell of chemicals. The room was filled with an eerie glow. Shouldn’t it be still daylight outside? Where had the sun gone? Everything had been replaced by a pulsing orange glow coming from down the hall. She looked down at her hand. It, the walls—everything—was covered in a sort of sooty blackness.

She turned, squinting through the darkness. A thin shard of light crawled through the broken window behind her—just enough to highlight the shape of a man striding down the hallway. Tall, his face was obscured by a mask, his body obviously strong even covered from head to toe in bulky turnout gear. He almost glowed, lit from behind as the orange haze suddenly seemed to engulf the entire hall. Lauren fell again, her hands flying to her head as another round of ash and sparks rained from the ceiling. Tiny pinpricks of pain dotted her skin, but her mind was too hazy and muddled to register much else. The room throbbed at the corners and then darkened. Lauren thought she heard the firefighter swear, and then something tugged at her, hard. She felt herself lifted into the air as her mind tumbled into oblivion.