Sparks and ash snowed down on Gray and Rev.
“What are you doing here? Get out!” Gray yelled, but his face was pale and sweaty. He lay flat on his back against the pile of rubble and wood, right below an antique-looking table that stuck out from the mountain of debris that climbed all the way to the hole in the ceiling at a steep angle. There wasn’t much blood to be seen when Jake approached. He wanted to shout at Gray to get his act together and move, but then he noticed that Gray’s left arm disappeared in the pile. Jake’s stomach sank heavily, as if he had just drunk a pot of melted lead.
“He’s trapped,” Rev said, uselessly pulling up a broken wooden beam that stuck from the rubble above Gray’s arm. Sweat formed dirty streaks on his wrinkled face as he strained his entire body to free his son. But the beam didn’t even budge. “Help me out, Jake. We’ll try to hold it up. We only need a few seconds, so he can pull his arm out.”
Gray looked up, pale as a sheet, with a touch of purple to his lips and a daze in his eyes. “No... just go, or we’re all gonna burn together. Go before the fire spreads.”
“Shut up, and do as I tell you!” Rev yelled.
“Jake. Take my father and leave,” hissed Gray, twitching on the floor, but Jake ignored him and squeezed his hands on the dry piece of wood that would have been thick enough to form a mast on one of the great sailing ships of the past.
The fire breathed on them from above, roaring with mocking laughter when Jake strained his muscles until his fingers went numb and his head pulsed from the effort that achieved precisely nothing.
“Maybe we can get some leverage if I go push the bit above instead—”
Gray interrupted Jake, wheezing. “I said get the fuck out of here, both of you!”
Rev showed his teeth. “If you think I’m losing another kid, then you’ve got another thing coming. I’d rather burn here with you than see you die!”
Jake’s heart sped up. He looked up into the flames above them. What would Gray have done in Jake’s place? Would he have wasted time pondering options? Just earlier tonight he’d told Jake not to sentence himself to death if there were other options, but what other options did they possibly have?
“I can take us out of here through the roof,” he said.
“What about the beam?” Rev yelled, but Gray must have understood his meaning, because he screamed out in anguish, as if he were dying.
“No! No, no, no! Don’t you dare, Jake! I will handle it!” Madness hid in Gray’s eyes when he said that, and before Jake realized what was happening, Gray pulled on his own arm with a scream. The nasty crackle of bone, squelch of ripping tendons, and blood oozing to the floor were the wakeup call Jake needed.
For the briefest moment he remembered that Vars was waiting for him outside, worried sick, but when Rev screamed, scooting down at Gray’s side, Jake invited Azog out of its cell somewhere deep beyond Jake’s conscious mind.
The beast’s hot, black tentacles spilled out. Jake choked when they passed his throat, and fell to his knees when they streamed in a torrent down his nose and ears. He’d feared Azog in the past, but this time he accepted the monster with open arms. He was safe and warm, enclosed in the hot cocoon of rock-hard muscle.
And then, he was Azog.
The presence inside of him pushed at his mind immediately, making him feel sleepy, but Jake would not allow himself to rest until his task was completed. He grabbed the beam with a roar and lifted it as if it were a toy. His newfound strength didn’t mean safety for Gray just yet, but Rev pulled his son out from under the rubble, and dragged him away.
“Take him! Take him out of here!” Rev yelled, a big man who suddenly felt so small when Jake looked at him with new eyes.
Gray shook violently, his intact hand squeezing tightly above the twisted flesh of his injured arm that must had cut into some sharp debris. His eyes shut even before Jake pulled him close to his chest, cradling the burning hot body like a baby.
He shot Rev a hard stare. “On. On. Me,” he stuttered with tongue and jaws that refused to form the sounds correctly. He must had been clear enough though, because the moment he faced away from Rev and scooted down, the man’s considerable weight pushed down on Jake’s back.
He could only hope Rev was holding on tightly enough. Gripping Gray under one arm, he climbed up the unsteady beam to the burning hell above them. He raised his wings to shelter Rev, but his focus was already on the large window in the corridor. Gray’s body against him felt as fragile as a child’s, and Jake could waste no time.