Chapter 2 - The Ring in His Glove.
Ben shoved his boot between the elevator doors before they could seal.
The rubber sole screamed against metal as the doors pressed inward with unnatural force.
"Help me!"
Two firefighters in the lobby grabbed the edges and pulled.
Emily watched the gap widen by inches while the elevator shuddered beneath her.
The bleeding had not stopped.
Every tremor felt like the floor was preparing to disappear.
Ben kept one hand on her shoulder and the other clenched around her diamond ring.
"Stay awake, Emily."
"Where is Alex?"
Ben did not answer fast enough.
"Where is he?"
"He took the other patient to triage."
"Her name is Claire."
Emily did not know why she said it.
She had seen the name printed on the woman's leather satchel before the smoke thickened.
Ben's eyes sharpened.
"You know her?"
"No."
The doors were finally forced open.
A rescue litter slid into the elevator.
Ben and another firefighter lifted Emily onto it, carefully supporting her abdomen.
As they carried her out, she saw the lobby for the first time.
Sprinklers hammered water across marble floors.
Smoke crawled along the ceiling.
Paramedics moved between injured office workers beneath the violent pulse of red and blue light from emergency vehicles outside.
Near the revolving doors, Alex knelt beside Claire.
His helmet was gone.
His dark hair was wet with sweat and sprinkler water.
He was holding an oxygen mask over Claire's face.
Emily felt something inside her go cold.
Alex looked up as the litter passed.
He surged to his feet.
"Emily!"
Ben stepped between them.
"We need to move her."
Alex reached for Emily's hand.
She pulled it away.
His face registered the rejection immediately.
"Em, listen to me."
"Go back to her."
"That isn't what this is."
"Then what is it?"
Ben pushed the litter toward the ambulance bay.
Alex followed.
"She was losing consciousness."
"And I was bleeding with your baby."
Alex's face drained of color.
He looked at the blood on the sheet.
"Oh God."
The rage went out of Emily for a moment because his fear was real.
Then a battalion chief seized Alex by the arm.
Captain Marcus Reed was broad-shouldered, silver-haired, and famous in the department for never raising his voice.
He did not need to.
"Carter, you're still assigned to interior rescue."
Alex turned on him.
"My wife is going to the hospital."
"And we have six people unaccounted for upstairs."
"Find someone else."
Reed's eyes hardened.
"That's an order."
Emily waited for Alex to ignore him.
She wanted him to climb into the ambulance beside her and let the whole building burn if that was what it took.
Instead, Alex looked at her with an agony that made the moment worse.
"I'll be there as soon as I can."
Emily laughed once through her tears.
"Of course you will."
The ambulance doors slammed before he could answer.
Inside, Ben cut away the lower edge of Emily's maternity dress to assess the bleeding.
She turned her face toward the wall.
"You can give him the ring now."
Ben looked at the diamond in his palm.
"I will."
"Tell him I didn't lose it."
"Emily."
"Tell him I took it off."
Ben did not ask why.
The ambulance accelerated into the rain.
At St. Matthew Medical Center, the trauma team was waiting.
A fetal monitor was strapped around Emily's abdomen before she had even been transferred from the stretcher.
Everyone in the room stared at the screen.
Emily watched their faces instead.
A nurse adjusted the sensor.
"Come on, sweetheart."
Nothing.
The obstetrician moved the sensor lower.
A faint heartbeat finally crackled through the speaker.
Emily sobbed with relief.
Then the physician's expression tightened.
"Fetal heart rate is sixty-eight."
The nurse repeated the number as if she had misheard.
"Sixty-eight?"
"We have a prolonged deceleration and suspected placental abruption."
The room exploded into motion.
Consent forms appeared.
Someone put a surgical cap over Emily's wet hair.
"We're going to the operating room now."
Emily grabbed the doctor's wrist.
"Is she going to live?"
"We're going to do everything we can."
It was not the answer she wanted.
Across town, Ben found Alex inside the damaged building nearly forty minutes later.
Alex was coughing beneath his mask as he came down the stairwell with an elderly man over one shoulder.
Ben waited until the victim was transferred to paramedics.
Then he caught Alex by the sleeve.
"Emily gave me something."
Alex saw the ring and stopped breathing for a second.
Ben placed it into his bare palm.
"She said to give this to you."
Alex stared at the diamond.
"Why?"
"She thought she wasn't getting out."
Alex closed his fist around the ring so tightly the setting cut into his skin.
Then Ben said something that made him look up.
"She also told me the other woman's name was Claire."
Alex's face changed.
Ben noticed.
"You do know her."
Before Alex could respond, Claire's leather satchel was carried past them by a police officer.
Alex lunged toward it.
"Where did you get that?"
"Recovered from the elevator."
"Don't open it."
The officer frowned.
Alex looked toward Captain Reed across the lobby.
Reed was already watching them.
Then Reed lifted his radio and spoke quietly into it.
May you like
Less than ten seconds later, every light in the lobby went black.
GIVE THIS TO ALEX
