27. Verity
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Verity
I n my dreams I’m running.
It’s so hot my skin is being scorched by the air around me as the sun blisters down from above.
I lift my hand up over my face and squint into the distance. Rolling red desert hills surround me from every angle. I’ve been walking for eternity. My throat is screaming for water, cracked and dry, aching to the point where I can’t speak anymore.
I pull the soft white fabric up over my face, but it does nothing to block out the heat of the sun above me. I’m trapped here, but I don’t remember how I got here.
I’m scared, but I don’t know which way to go. Everywhere I’ve walked so far is just more sand. More hills. More painful, blistering heat.
My skin is burnt and red and my body is ready to quit.
I can’t stop though. If I stop I will die. I’ve got to keep moving.
But my feet are too heavy to lift, and when I look down, I see the sand wrapping around my legs - I’m in a sink hole. The sand is reaching up to embrace me in its fiery tomb.
I’m too hot.
I have to get away. But there isn’t anywhere to go.
The sand sucks me deeper into the ground and the more I fight the quicker I sink.
It’s up around my throat and I’m twisting, lifting my head, trying to take one last breath of air.
Terror has taken over.
I’m about to die. There is no escape. My mind knows it, even though my body is desperate to fight until the last second.
It’s inevitable. My death.
But I don’t want to die.
I scream.
But when I open my mouth sand pours down my throat, straight into my lungs.
Red, hot, desert sand that seers my insides and wraps around my outsides like a clay furnace, roasting against my skin.
I wake up choking on imaginary desert sand, gagging and heaving to get it out of my throat. The more I breathe in the worse it gets.
Sitting up on the bed I realize the air is thick with grey smoke.
It’s not sand I’m choking on.
Its smoke.
I roll off the bed and land with a thud on the floor.
My head hurts. I can feel a throbbing point in my temple where that asshole punched me unconscious, but right now it seems like the least of my worries.
As I scoot underneath the bed, I try to remember what happened, but I can’t figure out why the entire room is engulfed in smoke.
The door is still closed. Where is everyone? Why didn’t the guards let me out of here?
I leopard crawl across the floor to the door, rolling onto my back I kick against it and shouting for whoever is there to let me out. No one answers and the door doesn’t budge.
Reaching up I push the food slot open to look through, but the brass metal is so hot it burns my skin and I wince, yanking my hand back to my side.
“Fuck.” I say breathlessly.
If I can make it to the window, I can try to break the glass.
I need air.
I’m so desperate for air.
My eyes are watering so much I can barely see the surrounding room.
I crawl out from the door towards the window and heat from above scorches down on me. It’s too hot. I’m too scared.
I’m going to die here.
For a moment I’m frozen in place and waiting for death. Paralyzed by the inevitable.
Fuck that. I’m won’t give up like that.
Rufino is coming for me. I know he is. All I have to do is survive until he does.
I belly crawl towards the window, but half way across the carpet a massive explosion sounds from somewhere nearby. I let out an ear-piercing scream of fear and rage. Determination to live and the terror of dying.
Part of the ceiling caves in and flames spread across the dry plaster.
I roll onto my back and look up at the water stained dragon, being licked by beautiful orange tongues, devoured piece by piece and turning black.
Destruction.
Beautiful, unrestrained destruction.
And soon my body will meet the same fate.
There will be nothing left of me to find. Nothing but a charred outline of who I once was.
I roll back onto my stomach and start crawling towards the window again.
Another part of the ceiling caves in and a chunk of plaster falls to the ground, landing right next to me. I roll away from me, gasping in fright and letting out another death wrenching scream.
I’m hit with a coughing fit when dry, hot smoke streams into my lungs.
Inch by inch I won’t give up, I’ll keep going.
My fingers tear into the carpet as I pull myself forward. But my body is giving up. It’s like quick sand.
I’m too heavy to move and I no long have enough air to breathe.
I’m right beneath the window. It’s right there.
Please, Verity. You’re stronger than this. You can do this.
Get up.
Grab the chair.
Throw it at the glass.
My eyes squeeze shut, and my panicked thoughts run wild.
Focus.
One thought.
One plan.
Nothing else matters but that.
I push myself up onto my knees and it feels like I’m trying to lift the weight of the world on my shoulders. I have to fight my own instincts. The ones telling me to take deeper breaths. To gasp and flood my lungs with life - because it won’t be life. It will be certain death.
Lifting my t-shirt up over my mouth the thin fabric does nothing to ease the burn of the smoke. My mouth tastes like smoke. My lips are charred and cracked. My skin feels like it’s melting off my body.
I reach out to grab the chair, sitting on my haunches to stay low from the flames above my head.
I pick the chair up with great effort and holding my breath I swing it towards the window with every ounce of energy I have left inside me.
It thumps against the glass and ricochets back at me.
But the glass doesn’t shatter.
It doesn’t even crack.
I’m lying on my back again and this time I can’t get up. My body no longer responds when I tell it to fight.
Another piece of the ceiling caves in and lands on the bed where I was lying unconscious only moments ago.
I’m going to die in here.
And all I can think about is him.
I’m so sorry, my beautiful Viking. I’m so that I couldn’t see you again. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to fight these flames.
I roll onto my side, trying to get closer to the wall beneath the window.
But this is it. This is as close as I’m getting.
I can’t move anymore.
I can’t even breathe.
“Rufino.” A dry, cracked whisper flaking off my lips. But I want the last thing I hear to be his name. “Rufino.” I say again, but it doesn’t even sound like a word anymore.