The Hellfire Legacy Teaser

For those of you who have finished the Night Shift, here's a little something to put your minds at ease. 

 *Spoiler Alert* Please do not continue unless you have finished reading The Night Shift.

Teaser  After the break:

The earliest moment of my life I can remember with clarity was the day I fell out of a tree in my parents’ backyard and broke my arm. I was eight. All previous memories were erased when my brother’s soul was first sent adrift from his body. Some of those memories come floating back on occasion—but they were nothing as clear as falling out of that tree.

            The pain, the sharp sound of cracking bone and my mother’s scream. I could never forget it.

            This was another of those moments. There was smoke all around me, heat pressing in and screaming voices from those unlucky souls I could not save. I was being dragged out of the heat and misery by someone I could only vaguely see, the smoke was too thick.

            In the back of my mind I knew the man was Braum, dragging me up the stairs to the emergency exit from the basement level. I knew he was bleeding badly, as my way was made easier by the lubrication of more blood than I cared to think about. My senses were in overdrive and as a woman on the fifth floor suffocated, I felt her death.

            I felt all of their deaths.

            Braum was dying as well, I could feel it. But he kept going, and I heard rather than saw the doors fling open to let in fresh air and sunlight. Heard him shout for help and throw me out into the arms of someone else.

            I clutched at his arm. “No,” I croaked.

            “Got to be done.” He squeezed my hand and headed back into the fire. He had to set off the purification seals—had to because if he didn’t the level of death in the place would never be purged in our lifetime. Had to keep that kind of stain from blighting Chicago. Had to be done now while there were still living souls.

            No one left in the building would make it out.

            “Sir?” I was being forced onto a gurney, an oxygen mask placed over my face. I coughed into it. “Sir, what’s your name?”
            I grappled for my badge, tugging it out of my pocket and shoving it into the emergency responder’s hands.

            “Mr. Adder?”

            I nodded, trying to slow down my heart and get my lungs back into my own control. I coughed again, and it set off a spasm. I kept coughing until I blacked out.