13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

M ara

My heart is pounding so loud I’m sure Krull can hear it as I follow him to the window. I don’t know how long there’s been a leak, but the gas fumes are making my head spin. He braces his hands on the sill, amber eyes scanning the street below with grim focus.

As I peer around him, fear clogs my throat. The sidewalks are lost beneath churning water, dotted with flotsam, both man-made and natural. Down the block, looters move boldly through the murky currents with their stolen booty in black garbage bags over their shoulders.

Krull’s jaw tightens, gaze fixed on a metal drainpipe running down the brick facade close to our window. “We need to climb down. It’s our only way out.”

I blink, pulse skittering with nerves. “Down that? Are you sure it will hold our weight? ”

His eyes soften as they meet mine. “It will hold your weight, Mara. I may have to get down another way.” He points to where the fire escape crosses the pipe about halfway to the ground. “You only have to shimmy halfway down before you reach the fire escape, which looks sturdy. Here.”

He tears the blanket into strips and ties them together, the knots so tight they look as though they’ll hold for all eternity.

“Come here.” Though I know he’s scared, if only for me, he manages to sound tender. He ties the makeshift rope around my waist, gives me a fierce kiss, then says, “Hurry.”

My breath shakes and my fingers tremble, but I nod as I gather my courage. I have no choice but to spring into action because hydrogen sulfide is highly flammable, and I think we’ve used up all of our luck. I need to be brave and trust Krull to guide us to safety.

Gripping my hand gently in his calloused green one, Krull helps me onto the windowsill. My sneakers slide treacherously on the slick brick as I fumble for the steel pipe. Krull grips my hips, his solid warmth bolstering my nerves.

“That’s it. Nice and slow,” he coaches. “I’ve got you.”

Clutching the cold metal, I shimmy down, clutching the rain gutter with my palms, thighs, and feet. I used to hate phys ed when they made us climb those freaking ropes in the gym. I never got more than five feet off the ground. Now my life depends on the same skills I never mastered.

“Doing great, Mara. So good. Don’t worry. If you slip, the sheets will catch you.” His voice wraps around me with affection, infusing me with the will to keep going, even though it’s at a snail’s pace.

Finally, I let my weight shift as I stretch my toes for the rungs of the fire escape ladder bolted below. After the quickest moment of relief because I’m on solid footing, I gaze up at Krull, who is still leaning out the second-floor window.

“It didn’t feel all that sturdy, Krull. And you outweigh me…”

His face was already pinched with worry. My pronouncement didn’t change his expression. He knows the rain gutter won’t hold his weight.

“Does the fire escape feel solid?”

“Yes. Do you want me to wait here or—”

“Untie the rope around your waist. I’ll be down to help you soon.”

Is he going to…? If I wasn’t certain of my affection for him before, I am now. My belly coils with tension as I worry about how he’ll get down.

After telling me to toss the end of the sheet-rope into the swirling waters below, he says, “I’ve tied this end to the old radiator. Let’s hope it holds.”

Before I can scream in protest, because that old radiator couldn’t be sturdy enough to hold his bulk, he leans over the windowsill and scrambles down the rope so fast it makes my head spin.

I haven’t even caught my breath before he slogs through the moving water at a jog to stand beneath where I’m stranded on the bottom fire escape platform.

“Jump into my arms. The building could explode at any minute.”

If it were anyone else on the planet, I would hesitate before leaping into empty air, expecting someone to catch me. But this is Krull, my orc protector. I don’t give it a second thought. Just as I knew he would, he catches me and then crosses the street with me in his arms.

“Terrified you’d die,” he grits out as he dodges an empty dog cage big enough for a Great Dane that’s barreling at us in a swirl of other debris.

My lungs constrict as we cut between two buildings, and I observe the cramped alley, the water lapping halfway up the rusty dumpsters.

Krull scans our surroundings, body coiled, ready to act. “I’m not sure what to do, Mara.”

It must have cost my big, strong orc a lot to admit that.

“Stay here? We can watch your building and see when Chief Brokka arrives in the RHIB or try to make it to safety.”

We both check our phones, as though the answer will be written on the screens.

“No signal,” we say in unison.

“Do you trust your chief?”

“With my life, which, by the way, he’s saved a couple of times as we fought fires together.”

“If he’s half as trustworthy as you, Krull, then he’s coming. We’ll bet our lives on that.”

“I’d love to get you out of the water, Mara, but… there’s nowhere safe. Let’s move to the back of the alley next to the fire escape. We’re too exposed for me to set you on top of this dumpster. ”

Krull pulls us deeper into the alley and we crouch there in several feet of water as we keep an eye on my building across the street. He keeps his back against the wall, his muscles tight, clearly on the lookout for danger.

I’m tired, still shaking with adrenaline, and have been on the edge of terror for longer than a body can handle without collapsing. Does Krull know how exhausted I am, or does he pull me close, my back to his front, because he takes comfort from me just as I receive it from him?

I nestle against him as I take stock of the neighborhood I’ve come to know over the past months. It’s unrecognizable. Storefronts stand shattered, their guts spewing onto the sidewalk. Wrecked cars have been left abandoned. I can’t help but hope everyone made it out alive.

Down the block, a bottle smashes. Someone laughs, the sound jagged. Krull’s grip tightens.

“I’ll keep you safe, Mara.” His voice is so strained with worry it’s almost unrecognizable.

Suddenly, a group of shirtless guys comes into view as they travel down the street. They have stuffed pillowcases over their shoulders with, I assume, stuff they’ve looted. I hear the clank of bottles; they must have hit the liquor store. Even from half a block away, I smell trouble.

Krull stations me behind him. His body is a barricade, shielding me as I peer around his broad back.

The men weave unsteadily through the high water, their leers malicious. “Well lookie here! Got us a freak. A freak and… you an Otherfucker, babe? You like green dick? ”

Krull growls a warning, the sound vibrating through my cheek pressed to his spine. One hand strokes my hip absently while the other flexes at his side. My own fists clench helplessly against his back.

The man in the lead swigs some liquor, then displays a lecherous grin. “You love getting fucked by animal cock, bitch? You just haven’t met the right human yet.”

Krull growls, low and threatening, every muscle in his body tightens.

The men are staggering closer, taunting us.

“You should keep your animal on a leash. His kind isn’t allowed out of their fence.”

Their hatred is palpable. I shudder, pressing tighter to Krull’s steady strength.

“This doesn’t need to get ugly. Walk away now,” he grinds out. His gaze still focused straight ahead on the thugs, he says, “Mara, I want you to climb all the way to the top of the fire escape.”

When he boosts me to the first rung, about six feet from the ground, I do as he says. Terrified, I climb the ancient black metal fire escape that runs the height of the building and zigzags about a foot away from the brick. I stop on the fourth-floor landing while still keeping an eye on the action.

Krull’s big and fit, but there are six of them, fueled with alcohol and God knows what else. I’m not sure he can take them, and what if they’re armed ?

The bearded one spits, “Fuck you, freak. Gonna teach you and your cunt a less—”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence before Krull moves. Almost too fast for my eyes to follow, the man is pinned to the brick fa?ade of the two-story building on the other side of this alley. Krull’s tusks are bared, inches from the man’s face. The others stand slack-jawed, perhaps wondering if this is a battle they want to fight.

Krull thumps the man against the wall again and again. I can hear the dull thud of the jerk’s body hitting the bricks, yet it’s obvious Krull’s only pressing his shoulders against the bricks. The asshole is lucky Krull hasn’t chosen to crack the man’s head open instead.

“You’re going to leave us alone. Keep looting. Keep drinking. But you’re going to get the hell out of here, now, before I show you what an orc can do.”

Instead of hurting the man who was ready to hurt him—and me—only moments ago, Krull snags a floating two-by-four piece of lumber and snaps it in half as though it were a twig.

His spoken threats hadn’t made a dent in the mob of drunken thugs, but the physical demonstration of his strength seems to have made an impression. The lot of them are staring wide-eyed, starting to backpedal.

“Leave. Now!” The sound of his shout proclaims his Other roots, it surely didn’t sound human.

Stumbling over themselves, they flee without a backward glance. The street is silent save for my ragged breathing and the ripples of the moving water .

“Mara,” he calls up to me. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” It’s all I can do to say it loud enough for him to hear through my shaky breath. Between Mother Nature’s wrath and the human jerks marauding through the aftermath in this wasteland, it’s not safe out here.

“We should keep moving. Do you need help getting down?”

I’m shaking, but I’m perfectly capable of descending four flights of steps.

Rust flakes coat my palms as I carefully take one step at a time. I haven’t gotten to the third-floor landing when the fire escape lurches. I wait for it to steady itself, but on my next step there’s a high-pitched squeal of metal, and the steps shift from under me.

It’s going to collapse! I’m going to die!