34. Dylan
Chapter 34
Dylan
M y head is pounding, my throat feels like I swallowed a bag of glass and I can feel the flow of oxygen being pumped into my nose by the little plastic cannula.
And I smell like I bathed in a campfire.
Fire.
Jake.
My eyes spring open to find Cassie and my dad talking to a nurse.
“Jake,” I manage to whisper, but it comes out more like “hay”.
Cassie’s eyes whip to me and she’s instantly by my side, holding my hand.
“Dylan! Shh, don’t try to talk yet.”
Fuck that.
“Shake,” I try Jake’s name again, but I can’t get the goddamn “j” to work.
“Shh,” my sister says, holding a plastic cup to my lips.
Why won’t she tell me where Jake is?
I raise my hand to bat the cup away. “Jake?” I finally manage to say, but it comes out ragged and exhausts me and hurts like fucking hell.
My sister shares a look with the nurse who purses her lips, but finally nods, and my sister starts talking.
“Jake’s currently undergoing hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Phoenix got you out and two of the guys from the other truck went back in for Jake, but he was already unconscious. They suspect carbon monoxide poisoning and are trying to clean his blood.”
He’s alive. That’s what I’m choosing to focus on…although focus is a bit of stretch at the moment. I’m still a little dizzy, but the thing that is most notably absent, are any burns.
“Shop?” I ask, overcome with the need to sleep.
My dad steps into view, shaking his head solemnly. “We lost everything.”
Figures, right as I’d thought there might be a chance for us to hold on to it after all, it all goes up in flames.
But who locked me in? And why?
My body pulls me under before I can voice any of this.
I’m in and out of sleep several more times. I have no idea how long I’ve been here or what day it is. I’m startled awake by someone frantically yelling my name. It’s a scratchy whisper-yell and it makes my own throat hurt again.
“DYLAN!”
I do my best to sit up. I still don’t have much of a voice so I bang my plastic water tumbler on the bedrail to get Jake’s attention. Even raspy and broken I’d know his voice. The desperation in it has me choking on a sob.
When he turns the corner into my room, the sight startles me. His hair is a mess, his eyes are bloodshot, his lips are dry and split, and he’s in a hospital gown, pulling a rolling I.V. bag with him.
A nurse comes in the door right behind him. “Mr. Ellington, you need to get back into bed,” she nags. “And please stop trying to speak.”
I flip my covers open and pat the space next to me.
“Are you hurt?” he rasps, completely ignoring the woman as he climbs into bed next to me.
I shake my head because talking still hurts like a son of a bitch.
Jake’s hands are all over my face, neck, and chest. While he explores my body, I kiss his forehead and place my cheek against his face.
“Maybe we should give them a second,” my sister says, uncrossing her legs and heading for the door, my dad right behind her.
The nurse looks pissed. “Mr. Ellington needs to get back into bed.”
“He’s in bed,” Cassie argues. “And trust me when I tell you that not even death could keep these two apart. So, you’re wasting your time and breath. In fact, you might as well just move Jake in here and free up his room for someone else because now that he’s found Dylan, he won’t be leaving my brother’s side.”
The nurse looks like she’s about to argue, but I catch her eye over Jake’s shoulder and shake my head, pulling him closer.
“Fine, but you two had better get a pen and paper because neither of you should be talking right now."
I flash her a grin and a thumbs up.
Of course, as soon as she’s gone, Jake starts talking.
“I was so worried. I woke up and no one would tell me where you were. I didn’t know if you’d gotten out.”
“You saved my life.”
“I had those fucking doors installed. I almost ended your life!” His whisper is vehement and the self-loathing is evident.
“The door wasn’t the problem, the fact that it was locked, was.”
“But you could have taken a hammer to a regular door and gotten out. Can you ever forgive me?”
“It’s not your fault,” I tell him, my throat tearing open anew. I rub his back and he places his head on my shoulder, his hand splayed across my heart. I kiss the top of his head and with him curled into me, we both fall asleep one more time while our bodies try to fight their way back to normal.
A few hours later, knuckles wrapping on the door wake us both.
None other than office Dowdy steps into my room.
Wanting to appear slightly more put-together than I currently feel, I ring the nurse and ask Officer Dowdy to give us a minute.
“Can you please track down a toothbrush and toothpaste?”
“Oh, one for me too, please?” Jake whispers.
Because our vitals are looking better, the nurse doesn’t balk when we want to shower and put on the real clothes my sister brought us from the house, but she does tell us for the tenth time, “Fine. But you have to stop talking or I’ll have the doctor sew your mouths shut.”
Although it feels like days, we find out we’ve only been here a little over thirty hours and apparently, the officers were notified as soon as we were stable.
Reentering our room, moving slowly, but feeling much more human after my shower, Jake and I sit side-by-side on the small couch. My dad and sister come back into the room with fresh cups of coffee and take the hard plastic chairs on the opposite side of the room.
Officer Dowdy looks uncomfortable. “I had hoped I could speak with you alone,” he says to me.
“My mind’s still a little cloudy. I’ll need their help,” I tell him calmly, still trying to keep my sentences short. I grip Jake’s hand tighter, silently communicating that I still don’t trust this guy.
An annoyed look flashes across Officer Dowdy’s face, but he nods once and flips open his notebook.
“What can you tell me about the events before the fire?”
“Officer,” our nurse starts, coming into the room, “these gentlemen need to stay silent. Please keep this brief.” She then hands whiteboards and markers to Dylan and I. “Use these. If I hear a single peep out of either of you, it’s going to get ugly.”
Over the next hour, me, my dad, Cassie, and Jake take turns answering questions. Jake and I use the whiteboards like good patients.
Officer Dowdy seems particularly interested in my sister since she was the last one in the office, but he doesn’t understand the bond Cassie and I share.
“You’re wasting your time,” I snap aloud when he keeps hammering Cassie, waiting to see if her story changes.
Once we’ve answered all his questions, my dad pipes up one more time. “Dyl, the cameras.”
My dad’s statement piques the cop’s attention.
“I’m not sure how much help those cameras will be since the computer downloading the images was melted during the fire, but I’ll take anything you have.”
Jake’s voice gains strength. “That’s all we have for now. We’ll be in touch.”
As soon as the officer leaves, my dad pulls up the office cameras on his phone. All the images that transmitted before the ceiling collapsed and destroyed the cameras survived. We pull them up and scour them one by one.
Shortly after Cassie grabs her purse, we watch her go out back and get into her SUV. I’m still visible on the shop cameras going over Mr. Jenkins’ M3, completely unaware of the hooded figure now on the office cameras who has locked the door, and is dousing absolutely everything in gasoline just on the other side of the wall.
Jake’s hand squeezes mine and I know he’s thinking about what would’ve happened if he hadn’t gotten there in time.
“What the fuck?” Cassie and I say in unison. But when I look at Jake, he’s paler than a ghost.