Leah
A child crying. Down the first-floor hallway. Deeper in the building.
I didn’t think. I went.
The hallway was filling with smoke, the lights flickering overhead, and the heat was real now, radiating through the ceiling from whatever was burning above. I dropped low, pulling my shirt over my mouth, following the sound of the crying through the gray haze.
Third door on the left. A family apartment, the door standing open, the room beyond hazed with smoke. And under the kitchen table, knees pulled to his chest, a boy no older than five, frozen the way children freeze when the world becomes too loud and too wrong to process.
“Hey.” I crouched in front of the table, keeping my voice steady and warm while my lungs burned. “Hey, sweetheart. I’m Leah. What’s your name?”
His huge eyes fo
