Oliver tut-tutted, swinging his gun between Harris and Agatha. "Language! We're in the presence of a lady."

"Are you for real? Stop this fucking... masquerade!" There was no other word for it. Oliver dressed like a diver in a catsuit, with weirdo cylinders strapped to his back for the full effect. Though it was gold, so maybe it wasn't for diving. "Are you playing a fucking supervillain?"

"Watch your mouth!" Oliver growled, waving his gun at Harris. Maybe this lunatic pictured himself as a superhero, not a villain, but screw that. Harris slowly raised his arms in the air. Anything to get Agatha away from here. Anything!

Oliver's blue eyes glittered with glee. "There he is, Ablaze. Your ape, your baboon, your Neanderthal in his full glory! This louse for whom you whored yourself after refusing to consummate our sacred union! Just look at him."

The first explosion went off beneath their feet. The sound was shockingly loud, making it feel like the building rocked to its core, even if it didn't.

Once the rocking and roaring stopped, Agatha jutted out her jaw. "There was no union, Oliver. You stalked and groomed me."

Harris had no idea anger could sharpen her lovely features so much. He admired the carved beauty of it, and it freaked him out. Even more, he was terrified that she'd anger Oliver so much, Harris wouldn't be able to take her place as the victim.

"Agatha," he hissed in a warning tone, but there was no stopping his fiery girl.

"You used my grief and tricks to manipulate me into believing that you were a higher being." Agatha spat at her ex-fiance. "When you were a pervert preying on a child, a disgusting, foul creature."

Like always, Oliver ignored everyone else. He blew right past what Agatha had said. "Look how low you have fallen by laying with a rando! I had contemplated taking you to a safe place when they released you from a hospital, saving you from base temptations. But I thought—let the dirt of the world touch her. Let it—and I shall cleanse it with fire! Yet you were so pure, you didn't let some dirty animal touch you back then."

"I wish I'd slept around," Agatha snapped.

A wild cackle came from Oliver. "I rejoiced! Revelled in it. Imagine that!"

This didn't look much like rejoicing to Harris, more like a villain material for a crappy movie. Down to the fact that Oliver didn't know when to shut up. "How I was mistaken! Your cravings weren't refined. O no, far from that! They were too low. Base! You fornicated with a man whose entire people know only how to haggle at bazaars!"

Harris only half-listened, focused on Oliver's hands. He wished the slur came with the arms' waving or pointing. Too bad Oliver was the only maniac in town who could hold a gun with an impressive steadiness. His king-of-the-hill position let him aim at Agatha and keep Harris in his view at the same time. All Harris could think of was to rile the jerk some more. Maybe his hands would shake then.

"We, the Americans, value freedom and trade, prick," Harris said.

Oliver remained unmovable, but Harris' right side had tremors building up. He must have overtaxed his wounded side beyond endurance. Sweat that coated him in the stairwell trickled down his face.

"Look at him sweat! They're like cockroaches, sticky and pungent! This one is a brute who doesn't overburden himself with—" Oliver finally pointed at him. Alas, it was with his free hand, not his gun.

Another explosion boomed downstairs, interrupting Oliver's litany of Harris' shortcomings. This explosion felt closer, enough to shake off molding from the edges of the broken ceiling above their heads.

"I love him," Agatha whispered.

No explosion, thunder or gunshot could ever be louder than her soft confession. It wrenched the heart clear out of Harris' chest, sending it flying to her. "I love you too," he said. "More than anything in the world."

Oliver twitched. "Leave! Get out!"

"Not without her, I won't."

"Harris!" Agatha slumped all the way to the floor. "Leave! He'll burn both of us alive otherwise."

Drizzle started falling through the gap in the ceiling, chilling Harris' flushed face. They needed a downpour, because the old building was going to become a furnace soon. Though the strongest rain in the history of rains might not be enough, since Oliver was so fucking competent in setting things on fire. He'd burn them both... and there was no death scarier to a firefighter than in a fire. Harris knew what burning alive would feel like; he'd tried it for size already.

Thankfully, as Oliver pointed out, he was too stupid to even be afraid.

"I was ready to offer you a lifetime, but minutes would have to do. I'd cherish " Harris changed a private smile meant for Agatha into a smirk. She'd understand in a second, or he prays she would figure out what he was going to do later, when she was safe and had time to think. When she lives. "Every minute I can think of the sweet, sweet, little, wet pussy of yours."

"Shut up!" Oliver screamed. His inflamed gaze swung to Harris. With it—his gun.

Harris didn't wait for the muzzle to point at his forehead before he lunged. Deranged or not, Oliver was no slouch. Agatha's scream and the gunshot rang together, half-deafening Harris and throwing him back half-a-step. But like hell he was stopping for a bullet! For one precious moment of adrenal rush pain didn't hurt him. And this was his moment, and his only chance to save Agatha.

"Harris!" She screamed his name, fighting against her bonds. That clank of handcuffs on the steel pole made her see her efforts were useless. She sank down, her face broken by weeping, scrunched. "Harris!"

Like nothing else could, her tears pushed Harris forward. He chopped Oliver's wrist, sending the gun flying. The asshole didn't watch it go. He hammered Harris' burnt shoulder at the same time as the pain of the gunshot wound cut through the adrenalin buff to Harris' brain. The world disappeared in a flash of white, threaded through by some red wiggles. With the last bit of consciousness, Harris' nails blindly clawed at the fabric of Oliver's gold suit, scraped at the metal on his arch-enemy's back.

Outside, a siren moaned, breaking through the hum of the growing fire and the hissing of the rain in the building. The sirens meant the EMS, police, fire department... To Harris, it was the best sound in the world: they found him.

"You hear that Oliver?" Harris said with his barely moving tongue. "That's truck twelve coming." It didn't have to be his crew. In all probability, it wasn't, but if he believed it was them, if he could scroll through their faces in his mind—Jung, Colin, and the rest—it helped him to cling to consciousness. He had to, to keep clawing at Oliver.

Oliver yelled, his spittle spraying Harris' face. He kicked Harris until he was on the floor, stepped on his groin... which was as excruciating as anything. Despite it, a beatific smile bent Harris' lips. "Run while you can, prick," he drooled a cuss with bloody saliva.

"Watch your language!" Oliver cackled.

"Hah." Barely a word, but it took all the strength Harris had in him to utter.

Oliver stomped some more, crushing something that crunched ominously, but the main thing? He didn't retrieve his gun from the burning debris and shot Agatha.

"I'll fly away on my fiery wings, imbecile." Oliver hoisted Harris' half-way up, grabbed his hair and twisted his head so he looked at the opposite wall. Fire had reached there, licking the ratty wallpaper with its tongues. Getting closer to the loaded gun, another mortal risk, but keeping it out of Oliver's reach.

The first of the sirens went silent at the base of the building. More, so many more, were converging on their location.

Oliver dropped Harris back onto the litter pile like a sack of shit. "You may crawl away, maybe, but they won't make it in time to free her. The fire shall cleanse her, while I soar above on my fiery wings and watch." He fumbled with the controls on his belt.

"Fiery wings, my ass," Harris grated. The contraption on Oliver's back was a personal flying device, a jet pack or a drone. Probably a prototype from Singapore, the city of the future. "Just a stupid gismo."

Then, with no warning, fat drops of water pelted down the dust around his head. Their hiss becomes a drumbeat. The drumbeat sped up to a sound like from a machine-guns' rounds—all in the space of a single second.

Oliver swiped water out of his eyes, pushed back hair that didn't look so good with the water plastering it to his forehead. "What the fuck is this shit?"

Harris lay on his back, so the heavy drops pounded his face, plowed down his cheeks and poured into his mouth, nose... It hurt his ribs like hell, but he howled with laughter. It was his turn to laugh like a crazy man, because a glorious downpour had broken over Milwaukee. Two to three inches per hour kind, the keep-the-fire-from-Agatha, downpour. His favorite kind of rain.

He spurted the water out. "You're a seraph, you should know a miracle when you see it."

It was their miracle, Agatha's and his.

"Fuck you!" Oliver yelled.

"Watch your language, motherfucker." Harris' instincts screamed to roll away and protect his shoulder when Oliver lifted his leg for another kick. Instead, he grabbed Oliver's spandex-clad knees to anchor him to the ground.

Alas, his hands were numb, slipping even before Oliver tugged to free himself.

Oliver launched into the sky, and Harris flopped on the ground like an overturned turtle. He spat more rain out, because like hell, he'd die by drowning after all that had happened today. As if in response to his spit, a fireball booms overhead. Red, orange and white Armageddon of burning gas expands above the gap in the ceiling, where Oliver's figure hovered a split second ago. Like watercolors on wet paper, the burning man stretched, broke, then came down as a smoking hail of charred meat and bone.

"I killed him," Harris rasped, though he couldn't hear himself with all the noise. "I killed him!"

Apparently, he had a few good laughs left in him. His chest shook, spilling dry cackles and sending jolts of pain through every bone in his body. He killed the creep! Not by spitting at him, of course. He wasn't delirious yet to believe such a thing.

He'd killed Oliver when he grappled half-consciously with his foe. He must have loosened a wire on the jet-pack and in this electricity-charged air, a spark plus even a minor fuel leak produced the ka-boom!

Too bad it didn't end all the explosions. The next one shook the floor under Harris. Apparently, from beyond the grave, Oliver wanted to accomplish what the city engineers could not—bring down this crabby old building on top of Harris' head. And it wasn't just his life at stake here.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Harris flipped over onto his belly with a groan, using her name as an incantation. "Agatha."

First three feet he crawled. Then, groggily, he climbed to all fours. Correction: all threes. His right arm dangled uselessly, sending jolts of pain into his shoulder. WIth adrenaline all used up, pain hurt like hell. But hell or high water, he staggered toward his only goal in life.

"No," Agatha shouted over the thunder, the fire, the sirens, and the chariots of Hades converging on the cursed city of Milwaukee. "Harris, get out. Out! Save yourself!"

Harris' energy all went into his progress toward her. The ruins on the floor bruised and scraped him when they didn't bar his way. They became extra slippery from the rain and Oliver's blood too. The last thing Harris needed was an obstacle course, but when life hands a guy an obstacle course, make lemonade... or whatever. Thoughts jumbled in his head, but his glance stay ahead, on Agatha.

Once he knelt next to her, he fished out a key from his jacket's pocket. "Oliver wasn't wrong about my trashy tastes. I apologize for being kinky sometimes."

A laughter rippled through Agatha as she stared at the key in disbelief. "I love you," she whispered, "my sexy beast."

"Looking forward to hearing that in bed tonight." Hopefully, Oliver used the universal handcuffs and his fingers were nimble enough to unlock the handcuffs one-handed, but he didn't share his doubts with Agatha. Shaking and sweating, more by luck than design, the key slipped into a small hole. He'd take luck. He needed it.

Shakily, the key twisted while Harris dared not to breathe. The metal bracelets fell off Agatha's wrists. "It worked!"

"My God, you weren't even sure it would work!"

He was too drained to explain about the universal handcuffs, and Agatha cradled his face, kissing him, rubbing her tear stricken-cheeks against his nose. Her lips are wonderfully hot against his rain-soaked skin. "Thank God, you're promiscuous!"

"That was before I met you."

She laughed more than she cried at that, and he could cuddle with her forever, in a burning building among the rubble, but...

"Sweetie, we're not through yet. We need to make it down. Come on." He half-carried, half-walked them to the stairwell. The concrete and steel wailed and rattled around them like a freight train. "And sorry, I made you all wet."

He ripped the jacket off and wrapped it around Agatha. In the dark interior, blood that stained his shoulder looked black like tar. She stared at it, growing paler and paler with every passing second. "It's just tar," he lied.

"Tar." she nodded and swallowed a few times. "What else could it be?"

"One step at a time," he whispered as they stumbled down the first flight of stairs. "They're coming toward us. Jung. Colin. Everyone."

Even as he mumbled into her ear, the fears swarmed him. Another explosion would ruin all his good work. The bomb squad must clear the object first, and the firefighters might never even enter the building if it was deemed unsafe. Who could blame them? It would only be the right call.

"We need to get as close to the team as possible. Go as far down as we can." Exiting this crumbling tower would be the best.

"Agreed."

It was hard to say if he was holding her up or if it was the other way around.

"Hey, what did Oliver say about your uncles?" he asked. Anything to get their minds off that wobbly building. They had to keep moving.

"Oliver said they..." She hiccuped. "...they put a hit on my parents. My father made deals they didn't like, but couldn't challenge. He was the eldest, see?"

"I wouldn't trust a word out of Oliver's mouth."

"He gave me proof... a stick drive. His parents weren't the rich eccentrics as the cops said. She was CIA. He was MI6. Hung out to dry after the cold war's end, so they went rogue. High end assassinations, industrial sabotage and espionage... you name it. Trained Oliver since childhood to do the same."

"That's what I'd call a quality homeschooling."

"They always gathered a file on the client as assurance—that's the file Oliver gave me. That's... that's how he got 'hooked' on me. They had my family under surveillance for a while before staging the accident."

"Pervert," he hissed under his breath. Fourteen! She was fourteen!

There was an on-rush of steps from the hallway. "Milwaukee Fire Department! Call out!"

Tears spurted out of Harris' eyes, because the voice was so damn familiar. He poured the last ounce of his strength into a shout. "Jung! Over here!" He slumped against the wall and listened.

"Did they hear you?"

"Yes. Yes, they did." Or they were screwed.

The door scraped open at the landing just below them. "Third floor! Stairwell!" Lt. Jung yelled into the radio.

There could be more explosives. The building could collapse any second despite all the excessive steel in its framework. The crew could be called out after additional assessment.

Harris smiled and pushed Agatha forward. "Jung, get her out of here. Do it—and I'll put in a good word for your wretched soul before God."

"He's shot!" Agatha nearly tumbled on top of Jung, but caught herself on the railing. "Shot! Help! Him!"

After a moment of darkness, Jung's face loomed over Harris. His head was too floaty to pick up anything from all the yelling but the keywords. Male. Twenty-five. Gunshot wound. Urgent. Medevac. Standby.

Why had nobody ever listened to him? Agatha was still there, in the dangerous stairwell, wedged next to Jung.

"Stay with me," she cried. "Stay with me. Marry me. Harris! Harris?"

He couldn't have heard it right, but it was nice. Couldn't be a better thing to take with him into the afterlife. With an idiotic grin spread over his face, Harris kilted over to one side, bumping into the wall. His shoulder was burning, but the rest of him turned cold and numb to the pain. It was good not to feel much for a change as pure black engulfed him.