My Cult Leader Boss Thought I Was a Broke Temp Medic Until My Sleeve Slipped in the Infirmary Tent
The guard shack, which housed the compound’s main hydraulic gate controls, was fully engulfed in flames. Black smoke billowed from its windows, and the roar of the fire intensified, a living entity consuming the timber structure. The main exit gate, half-closed by Elias’s earlier panic, was now frozen. Its massive iron jaws hung suspended, trapping the remaining fourteen recruits inside.
Ruth was screaming, her voice raw with fear. “They’re going to burn! We can’t get them out!”
The heat was radiating in waves, making the air shimmer. I could see the recruits huddled by the partially open gate, their faces terrified, trying to push against the heavy metal, but it wouldn’t budge. The hydraulics were seized.
“Manual override!” I shouted, my voice barely audible over the crackling fire. “There has to be a manual override!”
I sprinted toward the burning shack, the heat searing my skin even from twenty feet away. My scrub jacket, already damp from the rain, felt like it was instantly drying, shriveling on my arms.
“Mara, no!” Ruth shrieked. “You’ll burn!”
But there was no other way. I had to go in.
I wrapped the sleeve of my jacket around my hand and pushed open the door, kicking through the smoldering frame. The interior was a fiery hell. Flames licked at the ceiling, and the air was thick with choking smoke. Sparks rained down like burning confetti.
Through the inferno, I spotted it. A large, red manual override wheel, recessed into a scorched control panel, its paint already blistering. It was the hydraulic bypass valve. If I could turn it, I could release the pressure and open the gate.
I plunged into the heat, crawling on my hands and knees to keep below the thickest smoke. The air burned my lungs with every gasp. The floorboards creaked and groaned beneath me, threatening to give way.
I reached the wheel. It was molten hot, the superheated steel radiating unbearable pain. I grabbed it, ignoring the immediate sizzle and charring sensation on my skin. My hands screamed in protest, every nerve ending firing, but I clenched my teeth and held on.
The metal bit into my palms, searing my flesh. My muscles screamed as I twisted, my focus absolute, my vision blurring from the smoke and the pain. I pushed, I pulled, every fiber of my being committed to this one, agonizing task.
Slowly, agonizingly, the massive iron gates began to grind open. A groan of relief went up from the recruits. I held the valve, my hands clamped onto the burning steel, refusing to let go, even as my skin blistered and peeled.
One by one, the fourteen recruits squeezed underneath the slowly widening gap, their faces etched with gratitude and terror. Caleb was the last. He looked back at me, his eyes wide, before he, too, scrambled through to safety.
I held it until the last child was clear, my hands screaming, my body alight with a pain I had never known. Then, and only then, did I release my grip, collapsing to the charred floor as the gate swung fully open, and the fire roared around me.
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