"It's just an electrical fire, Rex," Victor said softly through the vent. "Old wiring. Tragic accident. I'm sorry."
The speaker clicked off.
A second later, an orange glow flickered beneath the door gap. The heat was instantaneous. Flames shot up the outside of the door, greedily consuming the gasoline. Thick, toxic, pitch-black smoke began pouring underneath the frame and billowing through the ceiling vents, instantly turning the air inside the locker room into poison.
Rex, Sal, and Gabe began kicking the door desperately, but the reinforced steel refused to give. The heat in the room spiked. The smoke alarms began to scream, a piercing, relentless wail that offered no salvation.
My lungs burned as I coughed, the black smoke blinding me. We were locked inside a concrete box, and the oxygen was rapidly turning to ash.
CHAPTER 4
The heat inside the locker room became agonizing within seconds. The black smoke layered from the ceiling downward, forcing all four of us to drop to our knees. Sal was coughing violently, his hands clutching his throat. Gabe was throwing his body against the door in a panic, but the heavy external chain Victor had wrapped around the handles absorbed every impact.
"It won't break!" Gabe screamed over the roar of the fire on the other side. "The chain is too thick!"
Rex was beside himself. He grabbed the aluminum bat he had used on the lockbox and began swinging it wildly at the doorknob. Sparks flew into the smoke, but the reinforced locking mechanism barely dented. Rex, a man who had spent his entire life relying on brute physical dominance, was suddenly powerless against a piece of hardware.
My eyes were watering so badly I could barely see. The smoke was acrid, burning the back of my throat with the taste of burning plastic and gasoline. If we stayed in here for another two minutes, we wouldn't die of the fire; we would suffocate.
I looked at the door. It opened outward, meaning we had to push it open, but the chain held the center fast. However, the hinges on the far right side were exposed.
I grabbed Rex’s arm, my fingers digging into his massive bicep.
"Rex!" I coughed, struggling to breathe. "Stop hitting the lock! We have to hit the hinges!"
"It's solid steel!" he yelled back, wiping soot from his eyes. "I can't break three hinges at once!"
"You don't have to," I gasped, climbing to my feet, ignoring the searing pain in my lungs as I stood up into the thicker smoke. "You hit the top two. I'll take the bottom."
Rex looked at me like I was insane. "You're a hundred and twenty pounds! You'll shatter your leg!"
"Do you want to die in here?!" I screamed, coughing violently. "Hit the top hinges on three! Put everything you have into it!"
Rex didn't argue again. He gripped the bat with both hands, stepping back to gain momentum. Sal and Gabe backed away, useless in the narrow space.
I stepped back, closing my eyes for a fraction of a second. I didn't think about the smoke. I didn't think about the heat. I thought about my mother, standing on that faded rug every single morning, wrapping my hands, forcing me to repeat the motion until I cried.
Transfer the weight. Drop the center. Focus the kinetic force into a single point. Make contact.
"One!" Rex shouted.
I anchored my left foot into the linoleum.
"Two!"