The room reeked of smoke and metal. My hands shook as I pressed the cloth against his bleeding side. “Don’t you dare close your eyes,” I hissed, forcing my voice to stay steady. He tried to smile—then coughed, red staining his lips. The concrete under our knees vibrated with every distant boom, like the whole building was arguing with gravity.
“Leave me,” he whispered.
“No.” I swallowed the panic. “If I can’t save you… we die together.”
And then the door behind us clicked.
I spun, yanking the handle. Locked. The tiny maintenance room had one grated vent near the ceiling and a single fluorescent strip that flickered like it was afraid. Outside, a siren wailed and cut off, replaced by shouting and the crackle of fire. This was supposed to be a quick stop—me picking up Evan Carter after his late shift at the Harborline Logistics warehouse. Evan had been digging into their “missing inventory” story for weeks, insisting it was bigger than stolen pallets.
He’d texted me: COME TO DOCK 7. NOW. Then nothing.
I found him slumped behind stacked chemical drums, clutching his side, eyes wild. “They’re burning it,” he rasped. “All the records. The cameras. Everything.”
I wrapped my jacket around his wound and dragged him toward the nearest door, but the smoke moved faster than we did. Someone’s footsteps pounded the catwalk overhead. Evan grabbed my wrist. “Mia… it’s not an accident.”
“Talk to me,” I demanded, checking his pulse with fingers that wouldn’t stop shaking.
He pushed his phone into my palm. The screen was cracked, but the audio recorder still ran. “I got the meeting,” he said. “Names. They saw me. They said—”
A violent thud slammed into the door, hard enough to rattle the hinges. A shadow blocked the narrow window. A man’s voice, calm and close, drifted through the metal.
“Found them,” he said, almost bored. “Boss wants the phone.”
Evan’s grip tightened, then slipped as his eyes rolled. The fluorescent light died, leaving us in dim red glow from the fire outside—while the lock began to turn from the other side.
My brain snapped into motion. If that door opened, we were done. I shoved Evan’s phone into my waistband and kicked the utility shelf. Tools clattered—one ugly distraction. I grabbed a thick steel pipe and jammed it through the door handle and an exposed bracket, turning the lock into something that couldn’t rotate. The handle twitched, then froze.
“Cute,” a man said through the metal. “You can’t hold it forever.”
“Evan, look at me,” I whispered, fingers on his neck. His pulse was fast and thin. Shock. I packed his wound with cloth and cinched a pressure wrap. “Breathe. In… out.”
He tried, chest rattling. Outside, another voice snapped, “Torch the room. Now.” A lighter clicked, and the stink of gasoline seeped under the door.
The vent near the ceiling was our only exit. I climbed onto the sink, then the shelf. Four screws held the grate. One stripped instantly.
“Move,” the first man ordered. “Boss wants the phone.”
I yanked the stripped screw out with pliers and tore the grate free. The duct ran toward the dock offices—tight, dusty, but open.
I dropped down, staring at Evan. He couldn’t crawl like this.
“Can you stand?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Then we cheat,” I said, hauling him upright and half-carrying him to the sink as flames licked under the door. I boosted him into the opening. “Pull with your elbows. Don’t stop.”
He dragged himself forward, inch by inch. I climbed in behind him, shoving his boots when he stalled. The duct scraped my ribs; my lungs burned. Behind us, the pipe groaned as heat warped the door.
Then the duct dipped. Evan’s weight shifted backward and we both slid. I jammed my boot against a seam and hissed, “Evan!”
He looked back, eyes sharp with pain. “If they get that recording,” he rasped, “they bury everything.”
“Then they don’t,” I said, and shoved until the duct leveled.
We reached another grate. I kicked it out and we tumbled into a carpeted office, landing among overturned chairs. Through the glass wall, Dock 7 swam in smoke. Two men swept flashlights across the catwalks, searching.
I grabbed my phone—no bars.
A jammer.
Overhead, a calm corporate voice boomed: “All personnel remain calm. This is a contained incident.”
Evan’s face tightened. “That’s Mark Delaney,” he whispered. “Operations director.”
The office door handle turned—slow, deliberate—and the latch began to give.
I shoved a filing cabinet against the office door. The handle jerked, wood creaked, but it held—for now. Evan tried to sit up and winced, blood soaking through my wrap.
“We need help that isn’t stuck outside,” I said, scanning the desk. A facility map showed the dock offices leading to a corridor marked SECURITY. If Delaney had a jammer, he had cameras—and guards.
My eyes locked on an old fax machine beside a dusty landline. A hardwired line. I punched 9-1-1 and fed a page through with block letters: HELP. DOCK OFFICES. ONE GUNSHOT WOUND. POSSIBLE ARSON. The machine squealed, then finally grabbed the line.
Evan caught my wrist. “Mia… if they find us, don’t trade the phone for me.”
I leaned close, shaking with anger. “You’re not a bargaining chip,” I said. “You’re the reason I’m still here.”
The fax machine beeped. A page slid out: RECEIVED.
Relief hit hard, but the cabinet shuddered again. They were forcing it. We couldn’t wait.
“Stairs,” I whispered, tracing the map. An emergency stairwell sat behind SECURITY, near the sprinkler control room. Water would trigger alarms and buy us time.
I hauled Evan up, my shoulder under his arm, and we slipped into the corridor. Smoke curled along the ceiling tiles while the PA kept insisting it was “contained.”
The SECURITY room door was ajar. Inside, monitors glowed—camera feeds of smoky aisles and, in one corner, Dock 7. Mark Delaney stood there in a crisp shirt, talking into a radio like nothing mattered.
I snapped photos of the screens. Then I yanked the manual sprinkler release.
Water thundered overhead. Alarms screamed. The monitors fizzed into static. Somewhere close, men shouted in surprise.
“Now,” I told Evan.
We stumbled into the stairwell and down, step by step. At the exterior door, cold air slapped my face. Down the service road, red and blue lights finally bounced off wet pavement—responders, following the fax.
Evan sagged against me and whispered, “You saved me.” His hand squeezed mine like he meant it.
I looked back at the warehouse, water pouring from broken doors, and knew how close we’d come to being erased.
If you were in my place—evidence in your pocket and someone you love bleeding beside you—what would you do first: grab proof, or run? Drop your answer in the comments, and share this with a friend who’d choose the same way.
