The heat climbed as the fire roared above us. I pushed the most obvious question - assuming I survived this trip, how in God's name was I going to get him safely out again? - from my mind, and focused on the task at hand, on breaking it into its smallest components.
Step one: Find my grandfather.
A burst of fire suddenly rushed above my head. Terrifying . . . but revealing. A few feet in front of me I saw a glint of light - the firelight dancing on the face of my grandfather's watch. I dropped to my knees in ashy carpet, pushing aside half-burned books and pieces of what I assumed was Jeff's computer.
I grabbed his hands.
"Hi, Grandpa," I said, tears rushing my eyes.
He was on his back, surrounded by rubble. He squeezed my hands, which was a good sign, but across his abdomen was a gigantic wooden beam. It must have supported the basement ceiling and main floor.
Panic quickly set in, and I had to consciously remind myself to breathe slowly. A hyperventilating vampire would do no one any good.
One step at a time, I reminded myself. Step two: Put on a good face, and get him untangled from the burning remains of his house.
"What in God's name have you gotten yourself into this time?" I said with a mock laugh, brushing his hair from his face.
He coughed again, each sputter sending an uncomfortable torque through my gut.
"I need a babysitter," he said.
"Apparently so. You appear to have most of the ceiling on your legs. I'm going to try to move it now."
Like an athlete preparing for a dead lift, I squatted, knees bent, and tucked my hands under the beam. "All right, Grandpa. On three. One . . . two . . . three!"
I put every ounce of strength - biological and supernatural - into my arms and thighs, and I lifted with all my might.
The beam didn't budge.
Fear - and lack of oxygen - tightened my chest. It was getting harder to focus, and bright spots were beginning to appear in the corners of my vision.
This plan might go horribly, horribly wrong.
And for the first time, it occurred to me to actually ask for help.
Ethan? I asked, trying the telepathic connection between us. Can you hear me?
But I got no response.
"So, Grandpa, you've managed to get this thing pretty wedged. I'm going to try again." I tried again. And again. And again, until my fingertips were bloody and my arms and legs were shaking.
I reverted to screaming.
"Someone! Anyone! Get in here! I need help!"
The ceiling above us - what was left of it, anyway - shuddered and creaked ominously.
I covered my grandfather with my body, slapping at the embers that scattered my hair and jacket. A moment later, the ceiling stilled again, and I started a new set of dead lifts.
But I wasn't strong enough.
"Merit," my grandfather said, "get out."
His words and tone were forceful, but of course I ignored him. I was a vampire. He wasn't. I'd do what I could for as long as I could . . . and then I'd try again.
"You are crazy if you think I'm leaving you. I need help down here!" I yelled out.
I didn't want to leave him - wasn't going to leave him. Especially not when I could use my body to shield him if the roof fell. Hopefully, the house hadn't been constructed of aspen. Because, much like burning to death in a rather ill-thought-out plan to rescue my grandfather, that would be bad.
Okay, so terror and oxygen deprivation were making me even more sarcastic than usual.
"Merit!" Jeff's voice rang through the smoke. "Merit?"
Tears of relief sprang to my eyes. We weren't out of the predicament, but Jeff's voice - and his shifter-heightened strength - was a filament of hope. That was all I needed to hold on to.
"Down here! Grandpa's stuck, Jeff. I can't move him!"
Jeff dropped through the hole, hitting the ground a few feet away. He made the trip look stupidly easy, but I decided that would have been impossible without my having fallen through the floor in the first place.
"I was only gone a couple of hours, Chuck," Jeff said as he checked out my grandfather's position. "I want you to know I'll be seeking overtime for this."
"Only fair," my grandfather said, chuckling lightly. "Only fair."
Jeff pointed me into position. "There," he said. "On three. I'm not going to lift - I'm going to lever. When I do, pull your grandfather away." He looked at me, and I saw behind the boyish jokes and flirtations, the eyes of a man.
I nodded at him and took my designated spot a few feet away.
"Chuck," Jeff said, "we're going to lift this thing off you. I can't guarantee it won't hurt, but you know how this goes."
"I know how this goes," my grandfather agreed, wincing as he prepared himself.
I squatted again, this time reaching under my grandfather's armpits, ready to move him when the weight was lifted.
Jeff rolled his shoulders, moved to the end of the beam, and braced himself against it, one knee forward, the other leg extended back. He blew out three quick breaths in succession.
"One . . . two . . . three!" he said. He pushed the top of the beam upward, levering it just enough to lift the weight from my grandfather's abdomen. I dragged him away, his feet clearing the beam's path just as Jeff let it drop again.
My grandfather blinked. "That did hurt," he said.
And then his eyes closed, sending my heart racing again. "Jeff, we have to get him out of here," I said, but the last of my sentence was muted by a crash above us that sent a bevy of sparks over us . . . and covered the gap we'd used to get into the basement with flaming drywall.
"On it," Jeff said. He scooped my grandfather up and headed toward the back of the basement.
"Where are you going?"
"Back bedroom. Emergency window."
I hadn't even remembered there was a bedroom back there, much less a window.
"Right behind you," I said, listening for his footsteps in front of me, as I certainly couldn't see anything. I covered my mouth with a hand, smoke from the fire upstairs beginning to funnel down through the cracks in the ceiling.
Jeff moved swiftly through the serpentine basement hallway, around corners and into a small back room where, I now remembered, my grandmother had kept our Christmas presents before they were wrapped. My sister and I had dug through the closet on occasion, trying to figure out which one of us got the Lite Brite and the doll that wet itself.
But those presents were long gone. Instead, we fixed our sights on the small window that was about to become our escape route.
"Open it," Jeff directed, and I pulled a stool over to the window and unlatched the window frames, which opened into a window well.