Chapter 1 - Into the Fire
The freezing rain fell in sheets, hissing against the twisted, burning metal of the sedan.
Inside the bus, forty Oakbridge Preparatory students sat paralyzed, the cruel jokes and arrogant laughter completely choked out by sheer terror. Julian Vance knelt on the rubber floor, staring out the windshield as the "lunch lady" he had just mocked sprinted directly toward a vehicle that was seconds away from exploding.
"She’s going to die," Mrs. Gable, the chaperone, whispered, her hands covering her mouth.
Elena Rostova didn’t hesitate. She moved with a frightening, calculated precision. Reaching the burning sedan, she didn't bother trying the mangled door handle. She wrapped her jacket around her elbow and smashed the remaining shards of the driver’s side window.
Flames licked at the dashboard, illuminating the trapped driver—a man whose legs were pinned beneath the crushed steering column.
"Look at me," Elena commanded, her voice slicing through his panicked screams. She reached through the window, her hands sliding over his collarbone, checking for spinal displacement. "I am Commander Rostova. I have you. But you are going to experience ten seconds of the worst pain of your life. Do you understand?"
The man nodded weakly, blood pouring from his forehead.
Elena anchored her boots against the frame of the burning car. With a guttural shout, she bypassed the steering column, grabbed the man by his heavy winter coat, and pulled with a terrifying, mechanical strength. Metal groaned. The man screamed. But he came loose.
Elena dragged him backward across the slick asphalt just as the sedan’s fuel line ignited. The shockwave knocked them both to the ground, a ball of orange fire rolling into the gray mountain sky.
Back on the bus, Julian’s dropped phone was still livestreaming. Thousands of people were watching as the woman in the grey uniform shielded the injured man with her own body against the shower of sparks and debris.
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When the smoke cleared, the state trooper ran up to her, breathless. "Medevac is three minutes out, Commander. God, I haven't seen you since Kandahar."
Elena stood up, wiping soot from her jagged neck scar. "Set up a triage perimeter, officer. And keep those kids on the bus. We aren't done here."
