This fire had been set deliberately, the cubs and Carly trapped inside the room on purpose.
Carly would have to save her fury at whoever would be twisted enough to set fire to a building with kids inside for later. Right now they had to get out.
“Cherie!” she called. Cherie came to her at once, the large bear shivering as she leaned on Carly. Looking for reassurance, Carly realized. And for someone to tell her what to do.
Carly put her arm around the bear’s shoulders, giving her a half hug. “We’ll get out of this, Cherie. And you’re going to help me. Can you break that glass? There’s a fire extinguisher.”
What a small extinguisher would do against a giant rampage of flame, Carly didn’t know, but it couldn’t hurt, and it would give Cherie something constructive to do.
Cherie bounded to the extinguisher, her tread shaking the floor. With one blow of her large paw, she shattered the glass case. Carly snatched up the extinguisher inside, bigger and heavier than the one they kept at the gallery, and cranked it on.
The extinguisher, at least, worked. Fire retardant spewed from its hose, keeping the advancing flames from reaching this part of the hall. Carly dragged the thing back into the studio from which cubs were still straggling out, spraying what she could.
She yelled at Cherie to start trying to break down the other doors. Cherie obeyed, the tiles vibrating under Carly’s feet every time Cherie’s heavy body hit a door.
Carly kept spraying the studio. She was coughing though, not finding air. The cubs surrounded Carly, holding each other, holding her. She did a head count and nearly cried with relief when she counted eight—nine and ten were Cherie and Olaf in the hall.
Her effort with the fire extinguisher was working somewhat, tamping down the immediate flames. Carly led the cubs out of the studio again, squirting at fire as she went, taking the kids to where Cherie was still trying to open a door.
All the doors seemed to be sealed shut, or bolted. They were steel doors, and Cherie was denting them, but none had broken open.
But they had a chance. Carly kept spraying, Cherie kept beating at the doors, Olaf trying to help. The rest of the cubs huddled around Carly, Jordan holding on to one of her legs.
All would have been well, Carly thought, if not for the next explosion that ripped down the hall, shooting another inferno into the corridor.
* * *
He barreled through them all, the barricades, the firefighters, the police who tried to stop him. He broke anything in his way, including the front door that already sagged from its hinges, and leapt into a fiery nightmare.
It was black-dark and hot, smoke pouring through the corridor. He’d never been in this building before, never been near it until he’d followed Carly and Armand here today.No matter. Tiger’s well-honed sense of smell told him the cubs were above him, trapped on the second floor. It also told him the jaguar and large gray wolf at the end of the hall were frustrated by the barricade that blocked their way up the stairs.
The debris included part of the walls, the pipes, the ceiling. Spike and Ellison were trying to climb over it, but with every leap or step, the pile shifted, sending them down again.
Tiger growled, shaking the air. Ellison and Spike swung around, wolf and jaguar staring in surprise before turning back to the task of climbing up the blockage.
Tiger bounded past them. He stretched his big body and leapt up the mounded debris, finding holds that had eluded the other two, until he made it to the top. From here, it was a short leap to the next floor, but Spike and Ellison were snarling beneath him.
Tiger slid a few inches back toward them, speaking in growls. Grab on, ass**les. Hurry up.
Ellison’s wolf understood, and he reached up to clamp his mouth around the base of Tiger’s tail. Spike, behind him, wrapped his jaguar paws around Ellison.
Tiger leapt. He used claws and paws to scramble up through the hole to the next floor, the weight of the other two barely slowing him. When they reached level flooring, Spike and Ellison dropped off, and all three faced a corridor littered with burning beams.
Tiger ran. His body stretched and bunched as he plowed through the flaming mess, closing his eyes against the black smoke. He knew where Carly was without having to look. The mate bond was taut like a stretched rubber band, pulling him straight to her.
He found Carly on her back on the floor, inches from a burning beam, her body still. Tiger roared, shaking loose more debris, and cubs screamed.
The jaguar ran by. Jordan shouted, opening his arms. Spike caught Jordan’s shirt with his teeth, flipping the little boy up and onto his back.
Cherie in her grizzly form was hunkered next to Carly, and she raised her muzzle in a mournful howl. Olaf, in his human form, sat on Carly’s other side, holding Carly’s hand.
Tiger’s heart pounded as he slid to a halt, but he knew Carly wasn’t dead. The mate bond was still there, as was the bond to her cub.
But she was unconscious, Carly’s face ashen in the light of the fire. Cherie rocked next to her, moaning.
Tiger nuzzled Carly’s face, taking her scent, sending reassurances through the bond. Then he turned and grabbed at the handle of the nearest door, the heat of it singeing his paws.
Olaf, serious-faced, said, “We tried to open the doors. They’re blocked. Is Carly dying?”
Tiger saw where Cherie had dented two of the steel doors. He grabbed for the handle of one of the bent ones, but the door handle snapped off, and Tiger slipped to the floor.
He stood again, shaking himself out, letting rage take over. Cherie couldn’t budge the door, but Cherie hadn’t been created in a lab where breaking through doors had been part of her training. After a while, the researchers had had to make Tiger’s cage doors about two feet thick.