31. Aurora
31
AURORA
AURORA
R ain pelted the roof in a distinct hiss. The beach was empty, free of the summertimers who had been soaking in the last remaining rays of sun before school started. In their place was a high tide and wicked current.
Mother Nature was in a mood today.
So was I .
Hers was the pissed off, “let me show you what I’m made of ,” demeanor. Mine was melancholy.
Thunder cracked and rolled overhead. A flash of lightning sliced through the somber sky.
This morning, I had woken up in Jack’s arms with him holding me so tightly to his chest it was like he thought I was going to disappear into thin air. I had climbed out of his grasp and slipped over to my house so I could give Whitney her clothes back and say goodbye.
At least they had gotten out of dodge before the storm set in.
Reluctantly, I had gone back over to Jack’s and watched as he reinforced his station bag with extra changes of clothes and snacks to keep on hand since the weather promised one doozy of a shift.
Before he left, he had pinned me against the door and kissed me like it was our last. Like he was taking every opportunity he could to keep me in this madness.
Jack had asked me to ride out the storm in his house, but I couldn’t. Even without him there, I could feel his body around me in the bed. I could taste his kiss with every lick of my lips. I could hear his provocative groans in each creak of the house against the wind. Every time I opened my eyes, I saw a piece of him lingering around me. I could smell his scent with every breath.
So I ran through the torrent and slipped back into the safety of my house.
But the moment I set foot inside, it was the same song and dance.
Jack filled my every sense. His shoes were just inside my door. His t-shirts were in my drawers. His protein powder was on the kitchen counter.
When had my house become ours?
The house wasn’t even mine. I had to stop calling it that. It wasn’t and it never would be.
Instead of tinkering with little things on the to-do list, or combing through my manuscript to clean up errors and plot holes, I climbed into the widow’s watch and sat, hugging my knees to my chest.
The whip of rain against my face grounded me to reality instead of letting the gloom carry me away on the gales. Rain puddled beneath me, so I stood and gripped the railing.
For once, I felt like both Aurora Archer and Aurora Whitlock —staring down a storm from the peak of her castle.
It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t mine.
While everyone was enjoying a rainy day inside, I couldn’t be bothered to take shelter. Reality was a tough pill to swallow, and Jack wasn’t making it any easier. I had felt numb ever since that email with the offer had appeared. Being consumed by the flippant attitude of the universe was the only thing that made me feel anything.
Letting the wind fill my lungs was easier than breathing on my own because he had made that impossible.
My hair stood on end as a prickling buzz flooded my skin. The sky cracked like a whip as a bolt of lightning stabbed the beach like a sword. The flash was so bright and the explosion was so loud that it nearly knocked me on my ass.
“Holy shit,” I whispered as I wiped the raindrops from my face.
The prickle was back, making the hairs on my arm dance. I hurried inside and yanked the glass doors closed just in time to see the strike from the safety of the house. The downpour was muffled, but the thunderous unrest was still clear as day as it shook the house.
I wanted to run out there. I wanted to sprint onto the beach and get as close as I could. It was exhilarating to watch. Absolutely unreal.
I was fascinated, but I wasn’t stupid. I grabbed a pen and my plotting notebook and dipped into one of the upstairs bedrooms that had a window with a clear view of the charcoal clouds clashing over the ocean. My damp wrist soaked the paper as I scribbled down notions of every sense that was heightened as the glory and gravity of how small I was rained down around me.
Sonder.
Two more lightning strikes shook the house, rattling the sparse furniture in the bedrooms on the second floor. The girls had been gracious enough to suffer through air mattresses again since there was no use in replacing the bed mattresses for a house that wasn’t mine. A sharp draft made the door slam on its own, then BOOM .
“Jesus,” I hissed as I covered my ears and crouched forward. It sounded like a bomb had exploded over the house.
I clutched my notebook to my chest as another earth-shattering explosion, followed by a brilliant flash of light, made the earth below me quake.
The acrid tinge of smoke began to prick at my nose.
Did lightning smell like smoke? Did it smell like anything at all?
Something metal rattled as it rolled across the pitched roof. I peered out the window and watched the weather vane fall with a clatter.
Shit.
The storm currently fucking the coast wasn’t a hurricane, but damn, did it seem like one. Then again, we didn’t have hurricanes in Colorado . What did I know?
Worry warred in my gut at the thought of Jack out in the mess. They were safe, right? This was a normal day at the office for him.
I tried to convince myself that he was probably just hanging out in the rec room at the station, waiting for a cat to get stuck in a tree, but I couldn’t get that nauseating acid to settle in my stomach.
Another ear-shattering explosion shook the house as lightning cracked like an electrified whip. That one sounded like it was right on top of the roof. I didn’t even see the lance hit the beach.
The smell of chlorine and pennies permeated the house, but it was quickly overpowered by burning plastic and charcoal.
Something wasn’t right.
I watched in horror as ghastly wisps of translucent smoke curled around the ceiling.
No.
Pulses of heat began to radiate from the walls and floor. No , no, no.
I heard the first unearthly hiss and crack creeping through the house like a predator. Then , the flash.
Walls I had worked so hard to clean, prime, and paint glowed as flames emerged from inside them like the dead crawling out of their graves and coming back to life.
I was frozen, paralyzed between fight or flight. There was no way I could fight this. I needed to get out. But forcing my body out of that trepidation was impossible. My feet had been nailed to the floor, forcing me to watch in abject horror as paint began to curl and peel off the wall like the house was sloughing off dead skin.
The squeeze of my lungs as I gasped for breath was a wake-up call. Smoke snaked beneath the door. I rushed over and yanked it open, only to be met by a barrage of flames between me and the stairs.
That was stupid.
I slammed the door closed as I started to rack my brain for all the little fire safety lessons we had learned in school. Fire liked oxygen. Less oxygen, less fire. Then again, the same was true for people.
I darted to the closet and yanked it open. The drop cloth we had used to cover the perimeter of the floor while we were painting was heavy, but I dragged it out and shoved it under the door to block the smoke. Sure , it was spattered with flammable paint, but something was better than nothing. The pop and roar of flames steadily grew louder as the fire drowned out the rain.
I flipped the lock on the window and pushed, but it wouldn’t rise. The damn thing was stuck. I tried again, bracing my feet and shoving with my entire body. Not even a creak or flinch.
“Come on, come on, come on,” I muttered.
Talking to myself was a stupid thing to do. Smoke filled my lungs. I stumbled backward, coughing and wheezing. My knees hit the floor as the smoke ascended to the ceiling.
Pressure built behind my eyes as my body tried to cry, but couldn’t. It was fucking hot.
I clawed my way back up to the window and tried to shove it open, but it was no use. The window wasn’t moving. Even if I did manage to get it open, it would let air in, growing the blaze. I was three floors high. There was no way I could survive the jump. Falling into the sand dunes from this height would feel like landing on concrete. My phone was downstairs. That was, if it wasn’t a molten pile of metal yet.
Jack’s house was empty, and the summertimers renting the property on the other side probably weren’t outside to see the fire.
My head swam as the acrid taste of smoldering dreams coated my tongue.
This house was all I had. It was supposed to be my way out. I had an offer on it.
I had worked so hard to climb out of rock bottom, and now this? This is how it ended? Trapped , alone, and struggling to breathe?
The tears started to fall, though I didn’t know how long they’d last against the heat.
My head swam as I curled on the floor with my rain-dampened shirt pulled over my nose and mouth.
Between the storm clouds and smoke, it was nearly dark. The house creaked and trembled like the death rattle was being exhaled from her lungs.
The floor beneath me shook in a steady thump, thump, thump. Glass exploded, probably from the pressure or heat. I covered my head, just in case my window did the same.
But it didn’t.
I had been so scared to tell Jack how I really felt about him. I was scared because I was going to take that offer and walk away from the best man I had ever known just because my stubbornness was pushing me to be right rather than happy.
This was it.
He would find my body mixed with the bones of this house. My name would join Lucas’s on the list of people who loved and were loved by Jack Wharton . Maybe it was for the best. I couldn’t survive knowing that I was one of two names that had stripped Jack of his ability to let love in.
I sobbed as the world turned upside down and I began to levitate.
“Breathe, baby. Breathe .”
I tried to open my eyes to find the voice, but the air stung with ash and venom.
“Careful with her. That’s my girl.”
“10-4. Taking her down to EMS . Get out before it comes down.”
Red and white flashed in tandem with the orange as I floated. Was this what dying was like?
“It’s not hot anymore,” I murmured as I floated in the grogginess between conscious and unconscious. “ That’s nice.”
I tumbled in the ether, crashing through the haze of dream-like clouds and landing on my back. Something hard pressed against my mouth. My eyelids were opened against my will, and a harsh light bit into my vision. The wind tunnel of roaring flames settled into the pitter-pat of steady summer rain.
It felt good.
Cleansing.
My lungs seized as I broke into a coughing fit. I opened my eyes and watched as chaos swirled around in a blur. Lights flashed and sirens blared. Radios chirped with chatter.
Gloved hands were on me, gently laying me back on what I realized was a stretcher. I felt the sharp prick of a needle as someone started an IV .
“Aurora!” a deep voice bellowed.
I peered through heavy lashes as a firefighter pushed through the crowd and ran to me.
He yanked his helmet off, and my heart sank.
Drew.
“Shit,” he said under his breath. “ How bad is she?”
“Looks like she got lucky. My guess is just smoke inhalation. No burns. We’re taking her to Morehead to get checked out.”
“Jack?” I rasped into the oxygen mask.
Drew’s face was grim. “ He’s on primary search. Found you, got you out through one of the bedroom windows, and handed you off to the ladder crew. Should be out in a minute.”
He froze when orders to evacuate the structure crackled over every radio in the vicinity. All at once, the driver engineers laid on the horns of each engine, sounding them off in short warning blasts. The sound was deafening, rattling my bones. I clasped my hands over my ears as the noise shook me to my core.
Jack was still in there.
A loud crack echoed across the rain-soaked beach, and I watched in horror as the roof collapsed.
I tried to scream, but my lungs didn’t have the capacity.
Flames roared high, soaring into the heavens as everything I had worked to save came crumbling down.
The piercing siren of another fire engine ripping down the street added to the chaos.
The crowd parted as heavy boots clobbered against the driveway.
I knew it was him. I knew the rhythm of his footsteps. I had listened to them all summer long.
Jack was drenched. I didn’t know if it was rain or sweat or both. There was a matching fire in his eyes as his sprint turned into a bolt.
“Be patient with him,” Drew said. “ He’s about to be overbearing.”
Jack stuffed his breathing apparatus and helmet into Drew’s waiting hands, yanked his gloves off, and cupped my cheeks.
I wasn’t surprised in the slightest that he didn’t take my oxygen mask off to kiss me. It was Jack after all.
Instead, he kissed my soot-streaked temple and whispered, “ I love you.”
And then I was floating again.