Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
CHRISTINE
The firefighters are working away, but their hose doesn’t seem to be doing much. I stare at the orange flames climbing higher and higher toward the sky, eating away the home I spent months trying to build.
And I feel absolutely nothing.
Paramedics poke and prod at me and force an oxygen mask onto my face, and my eyes lock on Casey as a few more do the same to him. Fletcher hovers around us both with his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes bloodshot and almost manic as his gaze darts between me and Casey.
“You checked the back of his throat?” he asks the paramedic with Casey.
The man looks like he’s barely holding on to his patience. “Yes?—”
“And he doesn’t need to be intubated?”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“You’re absolutely sure?” Fletcher pushes.
“Sir, let me do my job?—”
“He inhaled a lot of smoke?—”
“And his airway is clear,” snaps the paramedic.
Fletcher opens his mouth, and I lower the mask from my face before he can say whatever he’s preparing for.
“Fletch,” I rasp.
His eyes snap to me, and he hurries over. “Hey. How are you feeling?” He looks up at the medic behind me. “Is she okay?”
“She’ll be fine,” says the woman like she’s bracing for the same interrogation her colleague got.
I smile a little and wrap my fingers around his wrist. “Leave the poor paramedics alone.”
His lips flatten into a tight line. “I’m just checking.”
“I know.” My eyes flick between his, and my eyebrows tug together. “How did you know? How did you get here so fast?”
He lets out the heaviest sigh I’ve ever heard, kneels in front of me, and roughs a hand through his hair. When he meets my eyes again, the pain in his is breathtaking. He wets his lips, but before he can speak, two firefighters burst through the front door with a body slung over the larger man’s shoulders.
“We’ve got another one!”
My head snaps up as the paramedic behind me takes off at a run toward the lawn.
Another…who else was in the house?
Fletcher pushes to his feet like he wants to go to them, but he stops after a single step as the firefighter hands the person off to the medics.
Is that…?
“Jacks,” he breathes.
Jacks? When did she—why was she—? Oh God, is she?—?
The paramedics put her on a stretcher, but she’s not moving. I can see the burns on her arms from here, and my stomach twists. They put an oxygen mask on her though, so she must be alive.
I look up at Fletcher…but he isn’t going to her.
He’s standing frozen on the lawn, his face ashen.
“Fletcher,” I say gently. “We’re okay. You can go with her.”
When he turns to me, anguish rolls like waves behind his eyes, and he shakes his head. “You don’t understand,” he rasps. “Chris—I—I think she did this.”