30. Blaze
BLAZE
The fire alarm blaring wakes me.
I jolt upright, not sure of what’s happening, until somebody pounds at the door.
“Blaze? If you’re in there, we have to get out!” Asch shouts.
My mouth is dry, but I get up and take one step out of bed before I realize something’s wrong.
Pandora was supposed to be with me. I look around, but there’s no sign of her. I head to the door, surprised to find it locked.
As soon as I open it, smoke floods in. I start coughing, covering my face and ducking down to escape the smoke.
Asch hands me a damp towel, similar to one he’s holding over his mouth and nose.
“What…?” I ask.
Asch shakes his head. “We have to get the fuck out of here!”
Right. Escape first, then talking.
As soon as I step out into the hall, my eyes are drawn to the fiery red blaze coming from the far end. I inhale sharply, but that’s a mistake even with the damp towel covering my face.
It’s hard to see anything. Asch and I both stay low, but the smoke keeps building and building, blocking more of our vision and air. We manage to get to the stairs, and I’m relieved to see they’re still intact.
Asch and I run down. I spot Holden cowering in one corner, and I grip his wrist to get him to move.
“Holden! Get up before the fire spreads!” I shout. The towel muffles my words.
Holden shakes his head. “I… I can’t, I’m?—”
I glance at Asch, and he nods to me before awkwardly tying the towel around his mouth and nose. I do the same, although I can already tell it’s not going to hold for long.
Asch and I grab Holden by the arms and force him upright. He coughs and keeps shaking his head. I have no idea what the issue is until I notice the dark spot on his knee-length shorts, and the puddle underneath.
He’d pissed himself in fear.
Not something to worry about now.
Asch and I drag Holden forward, and it takes a few seconds before he starts stumbling along through the smoke-filled house.
“Back door is closer,” Asch says, and I nod in agreement.
Except we turn the corner to the kitchen, and we realize our mistake. The fire is going strong here, the fire alarm from the kitchen blaring intermittently. The ceiling has collapsed, and I can see the blazing remnants of the bedroom above. I grimace and immediately turn back.
The towel around my nose starts slipping, and I inhale several lungfuls of smoke.
Shit. I start coughing, and Asch stops to look at me with concern. I shake my head and motion for us to keep moving. I can stop to breathe when we’re outside.
The smoke gets worse, and Holden’s movements get more sluggish. By the end, we’re practically dragging him along.
I never thought the frat house was this big. It should have been easy to get out, but there are more walls than I remembered, and the smoke makes my eyes tear up .
It takes forever to get outside, to stumble out the front door. Several of the other brothers are there, and they take Holden off our hands. Sirens wail in the distance.
Asch and I collapse onto the front lawn.
“Fuck. Blaze, Asch.” River jogs up to us, and he hands us both bottles of water.
I take it and drink gratefully, chugging the entire bottle. When it’s empty, I finally look around to assess the situation.
I spot Zayden talking to people and directing them farther away. He’s got a tablet out, and I hope that means he’s making a tally of everybody. I should start making calls too, but my phone is still in my bedroom, probably melted by now.
“How did this happen?” I ask, staring at the burning building.
River shakes his head. “I have no idea. I just got here. I was done with class and wanted to discuss…” He glances around. “Things. With you two.”
“I’d just gotten back, too. I was in my room when the alarm went off,” Asch says. He laughs bitterly. “Actually, on a call with my mom.”
“I was taking a nap,” I answer. “I was with…”
With Pandora. Who isn’t here.
I look around the lawn, at all the students stopping to gawk and stare at the fire. Some sorority girls, a few students I don’t recognize. But no Pandora.
What had she been wearing again? Jeans, hot pink panties. A black t-shirt, but I wasn’t paying attention to the design on it.
My heart, already racing, beats faster. Is Pandora still inside the building? But that doesn’t feel right. She wouldn’t be trapped inside. Pandora’s smarter than that.
She probably snuck out the window, like I told her to.
Had the window been open when I’d left?
I can’t remember anything.
Except Asch pounding on my door, telling me to come out.
Fuck, maybe we could have gone out the window. It hadn’t even crossed my mind. But we’d helped Holden escape. He would have been stuck in there for longer if we hadn’t gone down the stairs.
The firefighters and EMTs arrive, and they set up a triage area to check us all out. Holden ends up needing help to move, and I can see the concerned looks on the paramedics’ faces.
I go to the firefighters, to the woman shouting orders into a walkie talkie. She pauses when I approach.
“My… my girlfriend might still be inside,” I say, after a bout of coughing.
The fire captain gives me a concerned look. “You should get checked out by the EMTs.”
“I’m fine,” I say, even though I’m probably not. “But Pandora?—”
“Pandora? That’s your girlfriend?”
I nod. “Yeah. I mean, maybe she’s there.
She was in the room with me, but she was gone when I woke up.
I don’t know how long we were napping. Maybe she went to the bathroom.
Or maybe she left. I don’t know. I don’t see her out here.
She’s white. Average height, like you. Long brown hair. Wearing jeans and a black t-shirt.”
The fire captain grimaces. “Okay, I’ll tell my crew to keep an eye out for her. Now go get checked out. You sound like you inhaled quite a bit of smoke.”
I take a step backward, and I’m surprised to find River and Asch there.
“Pandora was with you?” River asks in a strange tone.
“Yeah. She wanted to…” I start coughing again. “She wanted to fuck. And said you should stop the hot-and-cold thing.”
Asch looks between us. “You really should get checked out, Blaze,” he says, and for all that he’s worried about me, I’m not the only one coughing and looking rough around the edges. “If she was gone when you woke up, I doubt she was in there.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll call her.”
“Give me that,” River says, grabbing Asch’s phone before he can do more than unlock the screen .
Asch, covering his mouth as he starts to cough again, doesn’t protest as River taps a few times until the line starts ringing.
No response.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to talk to Asch,” I say. “Call her from your phone, River.”
River hands Asch’s phone back to him, grabbing his own. “I don’t think she’s going to pick up for me.” He pauses, then says, “Then again, she’s been trying to text me.”
He hits the call button, but this time, it doesn’t even ring. It goes straight to voicemail.
“Hey! If you’re River, I’ll call you back. If you’re Blaze, why are you even entertaining a voicemail, just come chase me down. If you’re Asch, send me a dickpic. Everybody else, fuck off.”
“When do you think she recorded that?” Asch asks, coughing again. “Fuck. Come on, let’s get checked out.”
He takes my wrist and pulls me to the triage zone. River follows us, scowling at his phone.
“Is it new? I’ve never listened to her voice mail before,” I say. I’d have laughed if I’d heard it, and probably sent her a dickpic of my own to see what her reaction was.
“She always answers when I call,” River says, shaking his head. “I don’t know.” He exhales slowly. “But she’s not in there,” he says with more confidence than I feel.
“Are you sure ?” Asch asks.
River nods. “She?—”
The paramedic clears his throat. “Sir?” He gestures to Asch first, and Asch lets himself be led away.
River turns to me. “She’s safe. She’s reckless, but she’s all about the number one: herself.”
“About herself?” I furrow my brow. “She stabbed Declan because of that chick. The one we found passed out in Zayden’s bed at the welcoming party. I think her name was Carly.”
River frowns, but he shakes his head. “I still don’t think she’s in there, Blaze.”
“Probably. I told her she had to sneak out.” I laugh, but that turns into another cough. “I said she should sneak out the window, and she replied that she was always planning to. She did know she was banned.”
“Then we have to assume she did. I’ll keep trying to get in touch with her, but…” River suddenly stops, his expression abruptly shuttering.
“What?” I ask.
“She wouldn’t have,” he says, but it’s like he’s speaking to himself.
I want to ask what he’s talking about, but Asch returns, then it’s my turn with the paramedic and the oxygen tank. They check me all over—and notice some of the marks Pandora left on me—but otherwise declare me fine to leave.
“Just take it easy, and don’t go near smoke or vapes for a while,” the paramedic says.
I laugh, because the last thing I want to do now is jump into another fire, and I’m probably going to destroy any vape I see for the foreseeable future.
I return to Asch and River. Zayden is there too, with somebody from the school administration.
“Please, for tonight, we need everyone to stay here,” the woman is saying.
“We’ll contact your parents or anyone you need, and the school doctors will be on hand to continue to give medical attention.
” She spots me and turns away from Zayden.
“Mr. Bouchard, good. All the fraternity members who lived here will be placed in the gym overnight, just until we’ve got everything sorted and we know who’s accounted for and who’s missing. ”
It sounds like a pain, but I don’t have the energy to argue. “Yeah, okay.”
I somehow end up leaning against River as we all pile into a shuttle to the gym. I don’t point out that River doesn’t technically live at the Kappa Alpha house.