Touch of Danger

     White fear washed through her like ice, and once again Carolina O’Kelly asked herself if now wasn’t a good time to take another step back from life. She couldn’t think straight, and if she got flustered she’d die.
     The hotel was burning down around her.
     There were  no fire instructions on the door that now let tendrils of smoke curl into the room, despite the wet towels stuffed there. No firetrucks had yet shown up here in the middle of nowhere. And no matter how anxiously she wished, the ParaNet was probably on the other side of the world stopping some war or another.
     It was up to her to save herself.
     She jerked the knot on the sheets in her lap tighter, letting out an “umph!” for her efforts. It didn’t feel secure to her. She stepped on one sheet and pulled up, testing–and the knot slipped.
     Damn.
     So she reknotted it and pushed the thought of failure away as if it were a physical thing. It was five long stories to the ground from this rapidly-crumbling firetrap someone had advertised as a hotel. A bitter, dark fume oozed out of the electrical outlet next to her.
     She set to work on the next sheet, tying it to the thin blanket with renewed determination. All she had to do was plan and take action: one, two, three, like all the Zig Ziglar motivational tapes she listened to.
     Goal A? Get out of hotel. Alive.
     She tugged on the new knot. This one held–good. Hope bloomed within her. Gathering up her prize, she ran to the balcony and threw it over the railing. It unwound down the side of the ugly cement structure–less than halfway. The bloom soured into a tight ball in her gut.
     **You’ll need more sheets,** they told her.
     “I noticed,” she replied. She looked around her room wildly. Where could she get more? How much time did she have?
     Lina wanted to kick the walls and scream. This damned cardboard hotel didn’t offer much for survival. Hell, the fire alarm hadn’t even peeped yet. She’d used up all her room’s resources. What was left? Oh–other rooms. Behind a chair stood a connecting door to the room next door.
     Of course it was locked. Nothing in this life came easy. She hurled herself at the door–yowch!–did it again–and it gave. One more heave and it crashed open.
     The cloud of dark gray smoke hanging in this room whirlpooled from the disturbance. After she pulled her nightgown’s bodice up to cover her nose and mouth, Lina yanked one corner of sheets and blankets off the bed there as quickly as she could. Still she had to pause to cough out the bitter smoke.
     Suddenly someone pounded at the hallway door. The sound stopped. She heard male coughing in the corridor, then the pounding resumed. Please, God, let it be a fireman!
     “Hold on!” she cried as she unlocked the door. It stuck. The person on the other side threw himself against it. As it finally slammed open, a new, darker cloud of smoke followed. Heat poured in like a wave. Lina doubled over in a paroxysm of coughing. The blind sound of man-coughing echoed her. He wheezed as he shoved the door closed behind himself and then pulled Lina closer to the balcony and fresh air.
     She gasped it in and rubbed her tearing eyes.
     “You okay?” the man asked.
     She blinked against the blur. Tall. Brawny. Dark hair, medium-brown skin. A familiar, chiseled jawline and even more familiar black clothing. Valiant?  Awright, Valiant! Yes!
     Valiant of the ParaNet.
     Valiant equaled safety. Lina’s shoulders sagged with relief.
     But... but he wasn’t doing anything. He wasn’t putting out the fire with his parapowers, wasn’t sweeping her up in his arms to fly her from this horrible mess. This had to be someone dressed like the famous parahero.
     But no. The right sleeve of the costume might be in shreds, but the face was definitely his.
     “I’m, I’m fine. Thanks,” she managed to say.
     “Oui, I’m the real thing,” he assured her, and his voice held Valiant’s French-Canadian accent, the rich timbre. “But non, maintenant I have no powers. Sorry. Don’t worry. We’ll get out.”
     He scanned the area outside the balcony, assessing the situation much as she’d done. Then he turned back into the room to circle the place as he kept low out of the smoke, checking what was in drawers, searching for tools.
     Valiant without powers! How had that happened? And a helluva time for it to happen.
     Valiant went out to the balcony again.
     “There’s no way down out there,” she told him. “I think we have to make our own rope. Help me with these sheets?”
     He grunted his acceptance of her plan and together they wrestled the final sheets off the bed.  Back in her room he snapped the TV off. CNNi had been airing PanRand, with that spectacular footage of Valiant towing a transatlantic jet on his back to a safe landing. The powerless version here and now sat on her bed and knotted cheap sheets together.
     He nodded with his chin at the sheets she’d already worked. “They’ll never hold,” he declared. “Watch.”
     He made some kind of sailor’s knot with his sheets: over, over and through. He gave it an ineffectual tug and frowned.
     “I’ll get used to this,” he muttered, and then jerked the knot tight with more force than was necessary. He displayed the result to her before starting on a new sheet.
     Lina quickly undid her knots and retied them the way he did. When she pulled on the two ends, the connection was definitely stronger.
     Her guides’ warning cut through Lina’s concentration. **Get out now.**
     “You could have given me a little more warning,” she griped.
     “Warning?” Valiant asked.
     “I’m sorry, not you,” she said quickly. “Um, we’ve got to get out now.”
     He fished inside his black vest. “I have some twine we could add to these knots. You have a scissors or knife?” he said.
     “Sorry,” she told him, trying not to panic at the stream of **hurry, hurry, hurry,** in her mind, “but we’ve got to get out now, ready or not.” She knotted her first sheet to the balcony railing. Throwing the line of sheets over the edge, she caught the last corner. “Come on, give me yours,” she demanded.
     “Not yet. We’re in enough trouble as it is. We have time to make this safer.”
     “No, we don’t,” she told him. “They say we have to get out now. Hurry!”     
     “Qui? Who says?”
     “My guides. Please don’t argue with my guides; they’re usually right. Usually.”
     He sat there on the bed, frowning at her and not moving.
     “I know it sounds weird, but please. Please! We’ve got to hurry. Now, they say.”
     **Tell him to roll when he hits.**
     “And they say to roll when you hit,” she added as she grabbed the sheets from him.