Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
HAILEY
I never knew fire could burn a heart to ash without ever touching it.
In my dad’s arms, the devastation works its way up my chest. It expels from my lungs in a wail, but I don’t care. I’m already hurting, so I let myself imagine them—a vivid daydream that plays out in front of me.
They’re walking together through the burning wall of flames. Reed turns to Dean and quips a line that has Dean’s head tipping back. Then he wraps his arm around Dean’s shoulder and gives him my favorite smile. The one that says life’s too short without adventure. He tells Dean with a single look that this summer changed him. That he never imagined finding a friend while working on fires. That after just a few short months, he’d walk through flames for him.
Then he looks at me. As if he knows I’m waiting for him on the other side of this thing. He sees me, and it feels like coming home.
It’s just a daydream, but it’s my daydream. One where Reed is mine and there isn’t a world where we aren’t together in it. One where I’d find him in a thousand lifetimes just to love him like this.
But as daydreams do, it melts away. The red-and-orange outline of their bodies collapses into nothing. Nothing but… rain .
As if it was released with the breath I was holding, it falls from the sky. Heavy clouds, black as the ground we stand on, shed giant drops. The thick sheet smothers the heat and soaks the ground.
I swipe at the hair clinging to my face, obstructing my view. In a field of black, I make out two green tarps three hundred yards in front of us—fire shelters hugging a fallen tree.
“Reed! Dean!” I scream in their direction.
The tarps aren’t moving. Fear claws at the inside of my chest.
We sprint for them, leaping over branches and charred sagebrush.
You were too late , an anxious voice threatens.
I worked as an emergency trauma technician for three years, and I’m afraid to face what lies beneath this aluminum. I know I’ll never be able to unsee it for as long as I live.
My dad peels off to the left side of the tree, and I grip the edge of the fire shelter on the right. He’s quicker than me, whipping back the material like it’s routine. Dean’s lying there in a contorted fetal position.
I tear at the material, pulling it away from Reed’s body. He’s shaking all over, his nose pressed to the dirt. He startles when I sweep my hand across the side of his face. The rain drenches his hair as he pushes up to his knees.
“Hailey?” he croaks, and I forget all of my medical training. Without assessing potential injuries, I climb onto his lap.
“You’re okay.” I gather up the hair that’s grown longer at the nape of his neck and use it to pull him close .
Reed reaches up to tangle his fingers with mine. “You’re hurt,” he says, gripping my biceps, sliding my arms down his chest and inspecting my palms.
I’d forgotten about the cut. The blood is already clotted.
“I’m fine,” I insist. Nothing a piece of gauze can’t handle.
While he cups my hands to his chest, his head slants back. A happy chuckle makes its way out of his parted lips. “It’s… raining .” He holds out his hand, letting the drops collect in his palm. “It’s actually raining!”
It lasts no more than five seconds before his eyes flare, and he whips his head to the side. “Dean.”
I climb off his lap and we both stumble over to where he lies.
My dad is pawing at Dean’s clothing and the sprawling area around his body.
“Where is it?” He talks to himself while digging through ash.
“It’s there.” Reed points at the dilapidated heap of shattered parts that barely resembles anything electronic.
But there’s only one thing I care about, and it has nothing to do with a radio. Dean is unconscious.
“How long has he been like this?” I ask as I kneel beside him.
Reed’s eyes dart around, as if searching for something in nature that could tell time. “He was still awake when I covered him.”
I drop my ear to his nose and mouth, then tilt his head back and lift his chin with my fingertips. His jaw slackens with the movement, and I peer inside the opening.
Nothing is obstructing his airway.
“He’s still breathing but I need one of you to monitor his chest while I take his pulse and look at his leg, okay?”
“I’ll do it,” my dad says, dropping to his knees and cradling Dean’s head between them .
Reed’s pacing. “What can I do?”
“My medic kit.” I press my pointer and middle fingers against the side of Dean’s neck and count.
23… 24… 25…
It’s too slow.
30… 31… 32…
My stomach flips. A clenching seizes the hollow center as the minute mark draws to a close.
38… 39… 40 .
The contents of my stomach pitch up my windpipe and onto the ground next to me.
You were too late , it says again.
But it doesn’t matter. The numbers speak for themselves. Dean’s kidneys are failing.