Chapter Nine #4
Jett. Then Allison. Both coughing up a storm. Jett fell over immediately onto the grass and Finn heard someone shriek from the porch.
“Finn, there are trespassers!” Allison cried. “They lit it.”
Benji ran out a few seconds later, just as disoriented as Jett and Allison, doubled over and coughing.
“Where’s Flora?!” Finn shouted at them, anger rising.
Benji turned, obviously surprised Flora wasn’t right behind him. He shook his head and then collapsed on the ground.
Without another word, Finn disappeared into the smoke.
“Flora!”
No response.
He could see very little, just a few feet down the trail.
“How could they have lost her?!” he coughed.
He pulled his shirt over his mouth and began to comb through the trails and paths. He wasn’t having any luck.
The smoke was so thick his eyes were burning and his skin was hot.
He could see the outline of burning bushes, edges of red, orange, and sparking yellow.
The acrid smell was more than enough to make a person vomit.
He had no idea where he was going really, only instinct kept him moving down the trail.
“Flora!” he shouted again, urgency rising with every passing second. “FLORA!”
He ran further, knowing his mother was likely passed out on the grass back at the house, but there was nothing that would stop him.
“Oh God, please,” he begged. “Please let me find her. Please, I can’t—”
He coughed on the smoke which filled his lungs even more than before. The hillside in the distance looked like molten lava.
The thought crossed his mind: was Flora already gone?
He was powerless.
“FLORA!!!!” he shouted again, as if this would change anything.
A few more steps forward down the trail. He couldn’t see anything now, just plumes of gray smoke and burning bushes. He had to make a choice—die or turn around and let Flora die.
“Please…” he whispered.
Finn wasn’t accustomed to answered prayers.
But just as the last “please” left his lips, he saw the outline of fingertips on the side of the trail.
Flora.
Collapsed, totally unconscious, barely breathing.
She didn’t weigh much, which was good in this instance. He carried her back up the hill, escaping the smoke and the heat, as a group of firefighters came rushing down the trail head.
“You alright?!” one of them shouted. “You want me to take her?!”
“I’m fine! I’m fine! Keep going!” Finn said, waving them forward as he pressed through the thick, acrid smoke.
Flora was still unconscious, in fact she seemed dead, but she was breathing. He’d checked.
Finn was able to get her back to the grass without passing out himself, which was a miracle. Though the sight of an unconscious Flora Fairchild and a soot-covered Finn Woodhouse was too much for Mrs. Carlisle and she passed out on the lawn, much to the shock of the entire party.
Jane rushed over and began attending to her, but Finn didn’t move away. He sat there worried Flora might never wake up. He thought maybe somehow the smoke had killed her, suffocated her to death…
And then Roman hobbled over and threw a glass of ice water on her face. “FLORA, WAKE UP!” he shouted.
“Roman!” Finn exclaimed, standing now. “What in the bloody hell—”
Flora’s eyes fluttered awake and she coughed violently several times.
“Never mind. Good job, Roman,” Finn said, putting his head in his hands. He knelt down again, his voice quieter. “Oh, thank God, Flora. You scared me to death.”
Flora groaned and closed her eyes again. “Yes, well, sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Woodhouse. You can fire me tomorrow.”
“I’ll contact HR.”
Flora smiled faintly before sighing and putting her head back on the grass in relief.
Finn looked over at where the fire department was running back and forth. The smoke was settling now. He then glanced over to the Carlisles, the Brooks, and his mother—they were still an uproar.
He sat back on his heels.
As he did, Flora reached for his hand.
She squeezed it tightly, and he felt his fingers instinctively curl around hers, locking into place as though they had always belonged that way.
She held on for a few moments—longer than necessary—before finally letting go as Allison, Jett, and Benji approached, followed closely by several members of the fire department who began fitting her with an oxygen mask.
Finn took his own mask—his lungs were burning—and walked back to the disrupted dinner party.
“Finn! You should never have run into that fire! And to do what? To save the random little girl who works here?!” Holly exclaimed, brushing his shoulder off.
“She’s not little or random,” Finn said flatly.
“I nearly had a heart attack. What were you thinking?!” Holly continued, ignoring him. “You’re Finn Woodhouse, not a fireman!”
“Oh my goodness gracious, darling,” his mother said, fanning herself. “I think I might faint next. In fact, I wish I would.”
Across the lawn, Jane was helping Flora to her feet. Roman was on his crutches near Finn, staring at his fiancé with an admiration Finn had yet to see from him.
“I made the right decision,” he said decidedly. “Jane is the best woman to ever walk this earth.”
Finn nodded faintly, glad to hear it, but wondered how long that sentiment would last. Roman’s moods were like the sun on a cloudy day, shifting constantly.
Finn turned away.
His hand was burning—not from the fire, but from where Flora had squeezed it.
She hadn’t meant anything by it, not consciously anyway.
It was a thank you, all she could manage at that moment.
But she had sent him spiraling into an abysmal tunnel of guilt and, worse, a feeling he hadn’t felt since he was fifteen when Nora Parker hugged him after a particularly stressful soccer game against the rowdy Catholic school from down the street.
All he could do was shake his hand out, as if that would help.
The fire was eventually doused, the criminals apprehended by the police department after they had outrun the fire department, and the smoke cleared. The guests did not though. Mrs. Woodhouse insisted that every person stay for health reasons, even the rogue group of twenty-somethings.
Fairchild appeared not long after, frantic at first, but relieved when Flora cracked a joke.
Flora looked back as she walked away, eyeing Finn as if they shared a secret. He’d already been watching her. Flora stared and Finn found himself staring back.
Holly stepped forward before the glance could last much longer. “Come on, Finn,” she said, firmly. “You need to get some rest and take a shower.”
Breakfast was arranged for the impromptu guests, and a police watch remained stationed at the estate until they could understand who the trespassers were.
It turned out they were paparazzi on the hunt to photograph the Woodhouse boys and their reported new love interests. Instead, they’d stumbled across Allison, Benji, Jett, and Flora and assumed—wrongly—that they had found their targets.
They’d trespassed, taken grainy photos, and then accidentally started a fire after failing to put out a cigarette. Classy.
The story broke the next day.
A fury of press followed about the Woodhouse Estate break-in and arson. People were calling Finn’s actions heroic. A gross overstatement, he thought. As though anyone wouldn’t jump in to save someone they knew.
While the press blew everything out of proportion, they had nothing on his mother.
“I want another fence put in—higher than before—and I want that entire section replanted immediately,” Mrs. Woodhouse was saying the next morning, sweeping down the hall with a group of no fewer than fifteen people trailing behind her.
“I want cameras installed everywhere. A full surveillance review. And I am seriously considering permanent armed security. This is completely unacceptable. We’re the Woodhouses, not a 7/11. ”
Finn was in his office, fielding calls.
“No, there was no structural damage to the home. We’re all fine.
There is an area of land that was burned but it will be dealt with directly.
I have the insurance company coming out here tomorrow to view it, and they will send the quote to you—Yes, Freddy, we are all fine, considering.
And keep Flora’s name out of the press at all costs. ”
Meanwhile, Roman was sitting with Jane at the pool.
“Do you think we should get married ASAP?” he asked.
“Or wait until it gets cooler? I think maybe October is the right time. That way we could have pumpkins at our wedding. I’ve always loved pumpkins.
I don’t think we should serve chicken or fish, I think we should go vegetarian. Like Finn and Flora.”