Chapter 21 #3
I sprint to the doorway, pulling my shirt untucked to cover my mouth and nose. I wish I hadn’t left my suit coat at my tío’s house. I get to the doors, and ash already billows in the air. Between that and the heat, my eyes sting like someone poured bleach into them.
I focus on the colors of the flames and which ways they move. I’m no pyro, but fire fascinates me. It’s a living, breathing thing with a mind of its own. But if you watch closely, it’ll tell you what it’s thinking.
There’s no way Vita and I will escape unscathed, but I see a path. We just have to take it now. There’s no chance to free Cosima.
“Vita! Come!”
She’s been watching me. She doesn’t shift her focus, not even for a moment. She doesn’t give her tía a second glance. She bolts to me, the phone still in her hand. I hear her mother’s screams as she approaches.
“End the call, chica.”
“No!”
Both women scream at me, but I ignore them. I pluck the phone from her hand and end the call. The betrayal on Vita’s face breaks my heart.
“Do you want your mother to watch?”
Vita inhales a shuddering breath as she shakes her head. She knows I mean if we get trapped in this furnace and die where we fall.
“Tuck your hair into your shirt and pull up as much as you can to cover your face without exposing all of your torso.”
Once she’s done that, I wrap my arm around her shoulders and press down until we’re as close to the floor as we can get without waddling.
I scan the area, knowing our path has already changed in just the couple moments it took Vita to get to me.
I guide her, and she never hesitates, switching course when we have to.
I slide my arm down to her waist, covering the exposed skin at her lower back as best I can.
I slap at embers that keep attaching to my trousers.
“Jandro!”
She grabs my shirt in the front and back, tugging me as hard as she can.
I barely avoid the chunk of ceiling that lands where I was standing only a second ago.
It catches my right trouser leg on fire.
I smack at flames, but I only burn my hand.
There’s not enough room for me to stop, drop, and roll.
My leg hurts, but we have no choice. We have to press on.
“Alej—”
Vita splutters too much to speak. I pull her along with me as I hobble. Fortunately, the rest of me doesn’t catch on fire. Small moth-bite-like holes form in the material, and the heat singes some hair on my leg, but it doesn’t travel higher.
Welp. There goes my perfection.
I’ll definitely have scars that won’t add to my manly intrigue.
These random and ridiculous thoughts sustain me.
I can’t lose my shit. I don’t have that luxury if I want Vita and me to survive.
I pull her in front of me and shield her with my body when the path gets too narrow for us to walk side by side.
“Daddy!”
“Keep going, chica.”
The pain’s making me lightheaded, and dark spots dance around the edges of my vision.
My lungs feel like they’re burning as badly as my legs.
My shirt’s doing nothing to protect me from the soot.
I stumble, and fortunately, Vita keeps me upright.
With each step, I’m leaning on her more until I fear my weight will knock her to the floor and crush her.
“Stay with me, Daddy. We’re almost there. Come on.”
A jagged piece of metal catches my cheek, nearly slicing and burning it.
I push my left arm up and knock it away, singeing that arm while I’m at it.
Everywhere hurts. My body screams for me to stop, to rest, to just let go.
But then I feel Vita moving in front of me.
If I give up and give in, then there’s no one to protect her.
I swore I would. I’ll protect her from the grave if I have to.
We make it outside, and she practically drags me away from the building.
We’re coughing as we sink to our knees. When she looks at me, I can tell it’s tears filling her eyes, not just them watering from the heat and polluted air.
She dives at me and pushes me onto my stomach, whooshing the little air in my lungs out through my mouth.
She lifts my shirt, and the cooler night air only makes it worse.
“Fuck, Jandro. I need to get you to a hospital now.”
“Just home. Our doc can—”
“No! You need a burn unit.”
I don’t have it in me to argue with her since she’s right. We avoid hospitals like the plague. Too many questions, but I know my limitations.
“Chica, O positive, December seventeenth, tonsillectomy when I was twelve, and appendectomy when I was nineteen.”
I rattle off my social security number, not that I believe she’ll remember. I convey the vital information she’ll need and tell her she’ll find my insurance card in my wallet.
She pulls the phone from where I tucked it down the front of her pants. I rattle off my father’s number as she dials.
“Matáis? Oh, thank God. Alejandro’s hurt. He needs a hospital, but I don’t know where we are. Can you ping his tracker?”
She has the phone on speaker, and it’s a good thing, or my father’s voice would’ve burst her eardrum.
“Alejo! Alejo!”
“Sí, papá.”
“Háblame. ?Qué pasó?” Talk to me. What happened?
“Fuego.” Fire.
“?Qué tan gravemente herido estás?” How badly are you hurt?
I look up at Vita as she pulls a knife from my pocket and cuts away at my shirt.
I don’t remember when I put them away, but I did.
They’re such a part of me—like a limb or an organ—that I only notice when I don’t have them—which is pretty much only when I’m in the shower or in bed. Then they’re on the bedside table.
“Yo—”
I cough too hard to continue; I’m not sure what I was going to say.
Fortunately, Vita speaks Spanish, so she continues in that.
I know she understands that in this crisis, both Papá and I reverted to the language we’re most comfortable in.
I grew up speaking English and Spanish equally, not realizing they were different languages until I reached preschool. But Papá’s first language was Spanish.
“We have to get Jandro to a hospital. He needs a burn unit. Can I call an ambulance?”
“If you believe it’s that bad, then yes. Alejo?”
“Yes, Papá.”
“Your tracker just came back up. We lost you five hours ago. You’re just outside Yonkers.”
I can only imagine the panic my family’s been in.
“Mamá?”
“I hear her. She’s coming.”
Just as my father finishes speaking, it’s my mom’s turn to practically burst an eardrum.
“Frijolito!”
Little bean. Apparently, she’s been calling me that since her first ultrasound because I looked like a tiny bean in the grainy image.
“Sí, Mamá.”
Just like with my papá, her first language was Spanish. They both grew up in Colombia and didn’t move to the States until college. We continue in that, and I don’t have to think as hard.
“What hurts, little bean?”
“Everything.”
“Catalina, I need to get off the phone to call the ambulance. As soon as they’re here, and I know where they’re taking us, I’ll call back. I’m sorry, but we have to hang up.”
“We understand. We’ll meet you wherever you go. The SUVs are waiting.”
They’ll need at least four seven-seater SUVs to get them all here along with the guards they’ll bring.
If they flew from the regional airport in Queens to Yonkers, it’d be about ten minutes.
However, the time it would take to get the plane ready would be a waste.
Plus, they’d need mine to accommodate everyone when they add Vita and me.
I can’t believe I’m thinking straight enough to consider any of this or to have followed along with the conversation.
But the distraction’s the only thing that’s keeping me from howling in pain.
Nothing has ever hurt as badly as it does now.
I’ve had broken ribs, punctured lungs, bruised kidneys, bone bruises, stab wounds, and bullet holes.
This shit right now is for the fucking birds.
Now that I’m not trying to downplay things for my parents, my mind’s growing fuzzy.
I’m so exhausted that all I want to do is close my eyes and nap.
Vita’s squeezing my hand, telling me to stay awake as she dials 911.
I don’t have it in me anymore. I hear her speaking to the dispatcher, but it’s like she’s miles away.
“Hello? I need an ambulance. My husband’s been badly burned in an explosion… I’m not from here. I don’t know where we are.”
Husband? When’d I get promoted?