He grabbed Ellison by the scruff of the neck and dragged him to Carly. Ellison, catching on, shifted to human, his skin breaking into sweat from the fire’s heat. Ellison lifted Carly over his shoulders and ran with her to the window.
No time to wait to see whether the ladder trucks came for her—Tiger had to get the others out.
Spike ran by with Jordan on him as well as one other cub, and into the room with the open window. The cubs scrambled from his back to the windowsill.
Tiger growled at Cherie. She shook herself, recognizing the commander in Tiger. Three more of the cubs fit on her back, and she ran through the burning door to the next room.
Four cubs remained, including Olaf. Tiger lowered himself and they climbed onto him, clinging to his fur. A sweat-streaked fireman appeared at the window, reaching for Carly, and then another fireman came behind him. Spike and Ellison stayed with the cubs, helping and calming them, while the firemen lifted them out.
They’d make it.
As soon as the thought formed in Tiger’s head, another explosion sounded, blasting Tiger and his load of cubs back into the hall. The steel doorframe of the doorway to safety folded in on itself as the wall broke apart and fell.
The explosion had come from above, and now the corridor’s ceiling collapsed, burying Tiger and all four cubs under burning wreckage.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Carly swam to wakefulness, and thought she was being smothered. She grabbed for the thing that pressed her face and found a plastic mound, then saw the dark face of an EMT behind it.
“Take it easy,” the man said. “You’re fine. You just need oxygen. You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” Carly nodded, the mask moving with her. “We’ll get you to a hospital and have both you and the baby checked out. All right?”
Carly lifted the mask from her mouth. “Where are the others?”
The EMT pressed the mask back into place. “They’re coming out. Your boss said there were ten kids. That right?”
Carly nodded again, tears leaking from her eyes.
“Some crazy tiger ran in there after them.” The EMT shook his head. “I guess he was one of those Shifters. We couldn’t stop him.”
Tiger? Carly couldn’t shout questions with the oxygen mask over her face. More tears came. Tiger had returned. And he was saving the cubs.
She made herself relax, to breathe the healing oxygen and not move. Tiger would come out, he’d have the cubs, and all would be well.
There was a whump, and firemen shouting, and a huge plume of flame and smoke shot from the building’s roof, high into the blue of the afternoon sky. Every window showed fire, and a part of the building collapsed.
Carly screamed. She ripped off the mask and tried to scramble from the stretcher. The EMT, a strong Hispanic man with muscles almost as big as a Shifter’s, pushed her back down. “No, you stay here.”
“Did they get out?” Carly yelled. “Did they get out?”
“I don’t know. We’ll find out, okay?”
Carly clutched the padded sides of the stretcher, staring at the building until her eyes ached. Ellison and Spike were on the ground, human now, leading Cherie and the cubs to the parking lot. Other Shifters had arrived, Liam and Dylan, Sean and Ronan. Ronan ran for Cherie, now a human girl again, and caught her in his arms. He led her away, snatching the blanket a fireman brought them and wrapping it around her.
Cubs: one, two, three, four, five, and Cherie. Six. The rest must be inside with Tiger.
Carly scrambled off the stretcher again, holding the mask to her face. She could barely see through smoke and tears, or through the crowd of people and emergency vehicles. All she could make out was that the small community center was now a flaming wreck, collapsing on itself, with Tiger and the cubs inside.
Shouting sounded at the front of the building. The rest of the med team started that way, running, running.
Smoke billowed from the front door, and people scattered. Through the opening, parting the smoke and haloed by flame, ran Tiger. His fur was blackened, body moving fast, children clinging to his back.
He stopped as the medics ran forward, Tiger dropping flat on his belly so the kids—three of them—could drop from his back. The medics swept them up, and Liam and Dylan surrounded the kids and EMTs.
Only three cubs.
Carly threw down the oxygen mask and darted away from the EMT, running, stumbling, toward the entrance and Tiger.
Tiger was already climbing to his feet as she sprinted forward. “Olaf!” she yelled. “Where’s Olaf?”
She had to stop as coughing wracked her, more gook in her lungs coming out. Ronan released Cherie and pushed her at Sean.
Tiger had turned for the building even before Carly had shouted about Olaf. Another explosion lit up the world, the community center now nothing but flames surrounding a shell.
Tiger ran right into it.
Carly collapsed, sitting down hard on the ground. Tiger’s body was outlined in flame for a brief instant, then he was gone.
* * *
There was no longer any up or down, backward or forward. There was only flame, and the melting floor searing Tiger’s feet, his fur burning. Trying to see was useless, so Tiger closed his eyes.
Numbers whirled across the insides of his eyelids—coordinates, angles, distances. Every piece of data about the building as it had stood condensed itself into formula, and danced before him.
Tiger had known exactly when Olaf had fallen, but Tiger hadn’t been able to stop his forward momentum to snatch him up. The other cubs had been falling too, sliding, coughing. Tiger had put on a burst of speed to take them to safety.
The new explosion complicated things, but Tiger moved unerringly through the flames, eyes closed, stopping at the small limp body of the polar bear cub. He reached down and gently picked up Olaf by the scruff of his neck.
Then Tiger turned and ran. Fire tried to stop him. It burned him, his fur singeing with an acrid stench, his sinews melting. But Tiger kept going.
The door wasn’t where he’d left it. Tiger closed his eyes again, relaxing his mind, letting the numbers come. Why they were there, and how Tiger understood them, he didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. With the strings of numbers to guide him, Tiger ran directly to the last door in the building that existed and out into daylight.
A giant Kodiak bear caught Olaf as he fell from Tiger’s numb grip. The Kodiak turned into Ronan, who lifted the unconscious Olaf into his arms and ran with him toward a medical team.
Tiger collapsed. His lungs were liquid, his coat gone, fire dissolving his skin. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t make a sound.