LITMIR.BIZ

       3

      ANTONIO WAS OUT the door right behind Izzy. The gym was empty, but when they entered the hallway they saw a lot of the candidates spilling from the different training rooms. Everyone looked dazed. A smoky haze in the hallway made him worry about fire. The alarm was loud, and there was the sound of something crashing in the distance.

      “Someone needs to take the lead,” Izzy said. “And then we need to sweep the rooms to make sure everyone is out.”

      “I’ll take care of this group,” Antonio said. “You have more medical training than I do—why don’t you go see if anyone is injured.”

      “Sounds good,” Izzy said.

      “Listen up, everyone,” Antonio said. “We are going to stay together and leave the building. Bombshell is going to sweep the rooms to make sure everyone is out.”

      “Is she nuts? We should all just get out of here,” one of the candidates from the NASA team said. Antonio wasn’t sure his name.

      “There are only—” he broke off as he scanned the faces “—eight of us here. We know there are twenty-four candidates who could be in this building at any time.”

      “I’ll help Bombshell,” Velocity said. He was one of the senior astronauts in the program and Antonio had a lot of respect for him.

      “Sounds good. Be safe.”

      Antonio looked at Izzy’s heart-shaped face for just a moment too long. He wanted to grab her and take her out of the facility, but she was well trained and would be fine. She gave him a nod before heading into the room closest to them. She was doing her job; it was time for him to do his.

      “Let’s go. Follow me,” Antonio said in a loud voice to command their attention. “Everyone move out.”

      He led the way down the corridor, keeping the group moving. He wished he could help Izzy check the rooms, but his focus had to be on getting the candidates to safety first.

      “Cover your noses and mouths,” he said, pulling his own shirt up to do so. The smoke was thicker as they proceeded down the hall. The scent was odd, more chemical than woody.

      He tucked that fact away in the back of his mind to analyze later. One of the candidates from Space Now made a sort of panicked moaning sound and started to run. Antonio stopped the man with a hand on his arm. He had to think for a minute to remember the candidate’s name.

      Peter Jensen. He was from the UK and had trained with their space program before joining Space Now two years ago.

      “Jensen, stay centered. This is nothing to worry about. We are going to get out of here,” Antonio said.

      “I know... I know, man, but fire... It’s one thing I have nightmares about. I’m not sure I can—”

      “You can. We’re all right here with you. And if we do this calmly and sensibly we can all get out of here together. There’s no reason to panic. I won’t leave you,” Antonio said.

      Jensen nodded, causing the shirt he had tied around his face to slip. Antonio stopped walking and gestured for the rest of the group to keep moving as he retied the shirt on the kid’s head. “Let’s go.”

      Everyone had stopped around the corner, and Antonio made his way to the front of the group to find debris that had fallen from the ceiling blocking their path. Three of their group were already working to shift it, and he and Jensen joined them. Antonio had a lot of training in working with people in emergency situations at home on the ranch in his native Argentina. And he knew from experience that giving people a task made them feel more in control of the situation.

      So he gave a task to everyone who had hung back, getting the team to shift the pile of rubble and debris until they could all safely move through the hallway. Once again he found himself at the front of the pack, and as they neared the exit, he noticed that the smoke was getting thicker.

      “Everyone down on the floor. We need to crawl,” he said.

      Everyone reacted quickly, following Antonio’s lead. The smoke was thinner on the floor and he moved with as much speed as he dared, constantly monitoring the team by looking back over his shoulder and keeping a close eye on the floor ahead of them for new dangers.

      They reached the exit and he touched the door with the back of his hand to see if it was hot.

      It wasn’t.

      He slowly lifted himself into a standing position and opened the door. Fresh air rushed in as the smoke billowed out, and Antonio motioned for the candidates to leave the building. He stood by the door, counting to make sure the six people he’d had with him at the beginning of the journey were all here.

      Though Antonio had expected to see emergency vehicles, there were none, just the open Texas landscape under the early-evening sky. He scanned the area again and noticed Jessie Odell, the survival instructor, standing to one side with Ace, the commander, and Thor, Ace’s lieutenant for the mission.

      He had a feeling this was a test and could only hope that he’d done enough to pass. Getting on the first Cronus mission was his goal. But he realized he was also worried about Izzy. He knew she could hold her own but if this were a test, who knew what might be waiting for her in the facility.

      * * *

      IZZY HAD TRAINED with Velosi, aka Velocity, for the last six months at this facility. They’d both been close to winning the second-in-command position that had ultimately gone to Thor. A part of her was glad for the screaming alarms and smoke filling the hallway, because it was much easier to deal with an emergency than to worry about the aftermath of making love with Antonio.

      His call sign was Playboy.

      That should have been enough for her to have stayed away. Sleeping with him might jeopardize her chances of making the Cronus mission, but that didn’t stop her from remembering the way he’d felt inside of her with a delighted shiver.

      “Want to split up?” Velosi asked. “You take the left and I’ll take the right.”

      Focus, girl. This was what she was good at. She’d come so close the last time.

      “Yes. Call out when you enter and leave a room,” she said. “Velocity in. Velocity out. Room clear. Does that work for you?”

      “Sounds good, Bombshell. Let’s do this. I don’t think my wife will be too happy if I end up getting hurt while I’m training in Texas.”

      Nor did she want to be injured and out of the game before they were even named for a mission. “I agree. We need to be quick and get moving.”

      There were three rooms on either side of the hallway that led to the back of the gym. The smoke was getting a little bit thicker and Izzy took off her shirt and tied it over the bottom half of her face. She carefully touched the door to check for heat before she reached for the handle. Only after she was sure it was cool did she call out that she was entering the room, turn the handle and go in. She scanned the room first, just as she’d been taught in her first emergency training class and then walked the perimeter, confirming it was empty.

      She exited and called out, then waited for Velosi. He rejoined her soon after, and they confirmed their rooms were clear. They cleared the other two rooms before returning to the gym and starting toward the exit.

      They worked efficiently. The third room she entered was different. As soon

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