The Price {Completed}

Chapter Twenty-Five

In the earliest hours of the morning, the Vigilant Men struck. Their shouting and gunshots yanked me from my sleep, thrusting me into a reality that flickered with firelight.

Ferdinand rushed into the room, his shirt unbuttoned to his waist, his skin glistening with sweat. Our eyes met, his frantic and fevered, mine confused and still dull with sleep, and he reached for my hand.

"They're burning the row houses. We have to get out now or we'll burn along with everything else."

I smelled the smoke then, filling the room. Gray leaked in through the door to the hallway, crawling across the roof. The sound of crackling came from above us, in the attic. Panic hit me as I realized we were trapped beneath flames, and surrounded by the choking smoke.

With my hand still in his, Ferdinand grabbed the satchel of our things, throwing them over his shoulder and adding his coat and my blanket to the bundle. They were all we had time to snatch before the timbers above us gave a great groan and the plaster showered down in a heated cloud. We ducked out of its path, though we couldn't dodge the smoke that billowed in through the holes in the ceiling. I gagged and stumbled, trying to keep up with Ferdinand as he rushed into the common room and to the door to the hallway. I raised my arm to my nose, trying to block what I could, but the smell and taste of smoke was everywhere.

We dashed down the stairs, pushing our way through the crowds of other tenants trying to escape the impending flames. The crush of bodies on the stairway made it nearly impossible to move, and I knew if they didn't clear out within the next few minutes they would be crushed or burned. Ferdinand elbowed his way through, our dancers' legs and flexibility serving us well in winding through the bodies that blocked our path.

The gleam of the rising sun greeted us at the bottom of the stairs, and we rushed toward it. The cobblestones leached the warmth from my feet, but it was better than the sickly warmth of the flame heated floors inside. I managed a glance over my shoulder, to see the destruction, and felt ice flow through my veins. The rowhouses surrounding the boarding house were in flames, their windows burst and the tar from the shingles dripping down in black tears. They'd spread the flames to patches on the boarding house's roof and façade, though it wouldn't be long before it was surrendered to the orange flickering flames as well. Ferdinand didn't even send a single glance toward his old home, and ran across the street and down the sidewalk.

We ran and ran, until I shivered with the cold and limped from the pebbles and hard pavement that ripped at my feet. As if he'd only just noticed my unsuitable attire, Ferdinand slowed and then stopped in front of a seemingly harmless shop window as he dug inside the satchel for my boots. He offered them and I pulled them on with a pair of thick stockings. We hadn't grabbed my coat, so he gave me his. It was overly large and the fur collar pressed up high on my cheekbones. It was gloriously warm, though, and I stuck my hands in the pockets to try and warm myself.

"We can't stay out in the roads right now," Ferdinand said, his gaze flicking in the direction we'd come. Though we were out of sight of the burning buildings, we still saw the rising smoke. I shivered at the memory of the ragged men and woman watching the destruction from the street with their eyes gleaming.

"The theater?"

Ferdinand shook his head. "As dangerous as your apartment. They might be watching it."

"Well, let's see," I said. I put on the facade of business that I usually adopted when Mr. Lennox left me alone in the flat after I flubbed a combination during rehearsals. I liked to have my body busily run through tasks in order to keep my mind from charging down that path of What Ifs that too easily lead to hopelessness. So I turned with a purpose to survey our surroundings.