The smoke didn't smell like wood fire. It smelled like burning plastic and expensive carpet.
"They're burning the lobby," Oryn said, coughing into his elbow. He touched the metal door of the stairwell. "It's hot. The fire is climbing the shaft."
"We're trapped," Silas said, looking around the broadcast deck. "Elevators are dead. Stairs are a chimney. And there's an angry mob below us."
I walked to the window. The heat radiating from the glass was intense. Fifty floors down, the street was a sea of torches and flashlights. The people looked like ants swarming a sugar cube.
But ants move with a purpose. This crowd was moving with a script.
"Look at them," I said, squinting through the smoke. "They aren't looting. They aren't running. They're waiting."
"Waiting for what?" Cyprian asked.
