Chapter 26 Adam
ADAM
Smoke curls into the apartment doorway where Daisy and I stand together, her hand tight in mine.
"Adam—" She reaches for me, and I grab her arm, assessing. She's standing, she's conscious, she's talking. The smoke is thickening by the second, gray tendrils curling up through the floorboards.
"We're going out the front," I say. "Now."
"Chaucer—"
"I'll come back for him. You first."
"The stairs—"
"Are still clear." I can see them from here, smoke rising, but no visible flame yet. The fire's at the back, somewhere near the storage area, and the front of the building hasn't caught. "We have to move."
She doesn't argue. That's how I know she's scared.
When she stumbles, I lift her over my shoulder and carry her down, my eyes stinging, my lungs burning.
The bookstore is chaos: smoke everywhere, the crackle of flames somewhere behind the shelves, orange light flickering against the far wall.
But the front door is right there, and the stairs held, and Daisy is holding on.
We burst onto the sidewalk. I carry Daisy across the street, set her down, and call 911 with the address before turning toward the shop.
"Stay here," I say. "I mean it. Do not move."
"Adam, you can't—"
But I'm already going back.
The smoke is worse now. I can barely see, and each breath feels like swallowing glass. I drop low, where the air is marginally clearer, and scan the chaos. There. By the front register. A gray streak of fur, cowering behind a display.
"Chaucer." My voice comes out as a croak. "Come here, buddy. Come on."
The cat bolts: not toward me, but toward the front door, survival instincts kicking in. I lunge and catch him around the middle, claws raking my forearm. He yowls, thrashing, but I hold on. And then I see the box.
It's right there, just inside the front door, the temporary storage area where Daisy moved her mother's things during the basement repairs.
Annie's books. The paperbacks with the blue ink annotations and the dog-eared pages.
We brought them up on the night of the flood; Daisy kept them here while the basement repairs dragged on.
The fire hasn't reached the front yet. The box is maybe ten feet away.
I think about our baby, who will never meet their grandmother.
I shove Chaucer into the crook of one arm and grab the box with the other, staggering toward the door. The heat is building, the smoke is everywhere, and my lungs are screaming, but the threshold is right there (three steps, two steps, one) I'm outside.
I make it across the street on pure adrenaline, sitting hard on the curb next to Daisy. Chaucer rockets out of my grip and into her lap, a sooty, furious ball of outrage. The box lands at her feet with a thump.
"Your mom's books," I gasp. "They were… right by the door… I couldn't—"
Daisy stares at me. Then at the box. Then back at me.
"Your eyebrows," she says.
I reach up to touch my face. My fingers come away with soot, and there's a strange singed smell that I'm realizing is coming from my own head.
"Are they gone?"
"They're... present. Mostly." She's crying, I realize. Laughing and crying at the same time. "You absolute idiot. You complete and total—"
"I had time. The front wasn't—" A coughing fit cuts me off, deep and rattling. "I had time."
"You could have died!"
"I didn't."
"That's not the point!"
I want to argue, but another cough tears through me, and Daisy's expression shifts from furious to terrified.
"We need to call them again," she says. "We need—"
"Calling back." I have my phone out, fingers clumsy on the screen.
The call connects, and I force my voice steady enough to give the address, to say fire, bookstore, send everyone.
The operator tells me the units dispatched after my first call are already en route.
This time I tell her we have both inhaled smoke.
I hang up and pull Daisy against me, box and cat and all. She's shaking. I'm shaking. Chaucer is making a sound somewhere between a growl and a whimper. And across the street, Nell's bookstore is burning.
"Oh god," Daisy whispers. "Nell's livelihood. Her whole… everything she's built—"
"Insurance," I say, but the word feels hollow. Insurance doesn’t replace eight years of work. Insurance doesn't rebuild a dream.
"She's going to be devastated."
"I know." I hold Daisy tighter. "We'll help her. Whatever she needs."
Fire trucks are screaming down the street now, red lights painting the buildings in emergency strobe.
Firefighters pour out, unrolling hoses, shouting orders.
Someone drapes a blanket around Daisy's shoulders.
Someone else presses a water bottle into my hands and starts asking me questions about smoke inhalation.
I'm answering on autopilot when I see it.
A figure. Moving in the alley beside the store.
Dark clothes. Hood pulled up. Moving fast.
Moving away.
"Stay here," I tell Daisy.
"Adam—"
But I'm already running.
The figure hears me coming and breaks into a sprint.
They're fast (darting through the alley, knocking over trash cans, using the chaos of the fire as cover) but I'm gaining.
My lungs are burning, each breath a knife in my chest, but I push through it.
I get close enough to grab the hood. The fabric tears in my grip.
The figure stumbles, twists, and for one second we're face to face.
Dark hair. Familiar features twisted with panic.
Kendra.
She wrenches free, and something clatters to the ground, her phone, knocked loose in the struggle. I reach for her but another cough doubles me over, my body finally rebelling against the smoke I've inhaled. By the time I straighten up, she's gone.
"Sir!" A police officer is running toward me, flashlight beam cutting through the dark. "Sir, are you okay? We need you to—"
"There was a woman," I gasp out. "Kendra Pace. Dark hair, running from the scene. She went—" I point toward the maze of back alleys. "She dropped her phone. Right there."
The officer shouts something into his radio, and suddenly there are more of them, fanning out into the darkness. I sag against the alley wall, trying to catch my breath that keeps dissolving into coughs.
"We need to get you medical attention, sir."
"I need to get back to my wife."
"Sir—"
"She's pregnant." The words come out raw. "Six weeks. She was in that building. She needs to be checked out, and I'm not leaving her alone."
The officer hesitates, then nods. "We'll escort you back. But you're getting looked at too."
I don't argue. I don't have the breath to argue.
When I make it back to Daisy, she's still on the curb, Chaucer clutched to her chest, the box of her mother's books at her feet. A paramedic is checking her vitals, and she looks up at me with wild eyes.
"Did you—"
"I saw her. Kendra. She dropped her phone and ran. The officers are looking."
"Kendra?" Daisy's voice goes high with disbelief. "She did this?"
Before I can answer, a police cruiser pulls up to the curb. The officer gets out, and she's not alone. Kendra is in handcuffs.
They must have found her fast: two blocks away, the officer said on the radio, just sitting in a parked car watching the flames. She's not fighting, not struggling. She's walking toward us like she's in a trance, her eyes fixed on me with an intensity that makes my skin crawl.
"Adam." She says my name like it costs her something. "I did this for you. I did this for us."
I feel Daisy go rigid beside me.
"She doesn't appreciate you," Kendra continues, her voice rising. "She doesn't deserve you. But I do. I've always known we could be good together, if you would just—"
"That's enough." The officer's voice is sharp. "Ma'am, you need to stop talking."
"He knows," Kendra insists. "He knows what we have. He feels it too, he just won't admit—"
"She gets a lawyer," I say flatly. I don't look at her. I can't look at her. "Whatever she has to say, she can say it to her lawyer."
I turn my back on her, blocking out her voice, her face, everything about her. Daisy is pale and shaking, and I pull her into my arms, careful of the cat still clutched between us.
"Mr. Smith." The paramedic's voice cuts through. "We need to transport your wife to the hospital. Smoke inhalation, and given her condition—"
"Her condition?" Daisy asks.
"Ma'am, when did you last see your OB? Your blood pressure is elevated and we want to make sure—"
"I'm six weeks pregnant," Daisy says, and her voice cracks. "Is the baby—"
"That's what we want to check. It's precautionary. But we should go now."
I help Daisy into the ambulance, climbing in after her. Someone takes Chaucer, one of the officers, promising to get him to a neighbor. Someone else secures the box of books in the back. Daisy grabs my hand as the doors close.
"Your eyebrows really are singed," she says.
"They'll grow back."
"You look ridiculous."
"I know." I kiss her forehead, tasting smoke and tears. "I know."
The ambulance pulls away, lights flashing, and I don't let go of her hand.
The hospital is bright and cold and smells like antiseptic. They put Daisy in a room with monitors and machines, and a young doctor runs another ultrasound while I pace the floor.
"There it is," the doctor says, turning the screen so we can see the tiny flicker.
There. Movement, small and steady on the monitor.
"There is cardiac activity, and what I can see is reassuring," he continues. "We'll keep monitoring Daisy after the smoke exposure. This scan can't tell us everything, but it is good news."
Daisy's whole body sags with relief. "You're sure?"
"I can tell you what we see right now," he says gently. "And we'll keep checking."
When he's gone, I pull a chair up beside Daisy's bed and take her hand. She looks exhausted: soot still in her hair, dark circles under her eyes, a scratch on her arm from Chaucer's panic. She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
"Nell called," Daisy says quietly. "While you were talking to the detective. The insurance will cover most of the damage, but she's devastated. That store was her dream."
"We'll help her rebuild."
"Adam—"
"Whatever she needs. Money, contractors, inventory. Whatever it takes."
Daisy studies me for a long moment. "You really mean that."
"That store brought you back to me." I lift her hand to my lips. "I owe it everything."
She laughs, watery but real. "You're ridiculous."
"I'm in love."
"Same thing."
We sit in silence for a while, the machines beeping softly around us. Through the window, I can see the first hints of dawn painting the sky pink and gold.
"Adam?"
"Yeah?"
"There’s something I need to tell you." She reaches for the oxygen mask. "But not with this on."
"I can wait."
"I know," she says. "That’s the thing."