Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
MARLOWE
Something’s wrong. Someone is screaming.
It creeps into my sleep at first—the high-pitched sound, then an acrid, bitter bite that burns at the back of my throat. My lungs tighten. I cough once, then again, harder, and sit up.
It’s pitch black and the smoke alarm is screeching.
I blink, disoriented, trying to clear the fog in my head, but it’s not just in my head.
It’s everywhere.
Smoke.
Thick and choking. The air feels heavy in my mouth, like I’m trying to breathe through ash. I fumble for the lamp, my hands shaking, knocking over my water glass in the process.
The light flicks on—and the room is swallowed by it.
Billowing, black smoke curling out from under the door, hanging low above the floor, coiling around my legs as I throw back the blanket and cough so hard I almost gag.
Panic slams into me like a fist.
I can’t see the fire, but I can smell it. I can feel the heat growing on all sides of me.
I yank my hoodie off the bedpost and press the sleeve to my mouth and nose, trying to suck air through the cotton as I crouch low. My eyes sting, my throat feels raw, and I can barely see two feet in front of me.
I grab my phone from the nightstand. The screen lights up through the haze, faint and flickering.
4:02 a.m.
Of course it’s four in the goddamn morning.
My fingers are slick, trembling, and I mess up the passcode twice before it finally unlocks. I hit the phone icon and try to dial 911, but I hit the wrong numbers.
I try again. My breathing’s ragged.
Come on, come on.
I finally hit call and press it to my ear as I stumble to the bedroom door. The smoke’s thicker now, curling around me like something alive.
I press the back of my hand to the doorknob.
It’s not hot.
Wait.
The thought hits me like a bolt through the smoke.
Damian.
Is he here?
Was he in bed?
I spin around, heart pounding, and stumble back to the mattress, patting the blankets like I’ll find him curled inside them if I just reach fast enough. But it’s empty.
He didn’t come back.
He never texted. Never called.
I stand there for one second too long, coughing so hard it doubles me over. My lungs scream. My eyes won’t stop watering.
“911, what’s your emergency?” the dispatcher asks, calm and detached like she’s not on the other end of someone’s nightmare.
I cough hard into the phone, the sound ragged and tearing through my throat. I try to speak, but nothing comes out at first—just air and panic and more coughing.
“Ma’am? Can you tell me what’s happening?”
“I—” I choke out. “There’s… smoke. Fire. I can’t see.”
My voice cracks. I bend over, hacking again, trying to breathe through the makeshift mask of my hoodie.
“What’s your address?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, focus hard, and finally manage to say it. Street. Apartment number. Floor.
The dispatcher repeats it back. “Okay, we’ve dispatched a unit. Stay on the line if you can.”
“Hurry,” I rasp. “Please.”
I don’t wait for a response. I tuck the phone against my chest, wrap my arms around it, and force myself back to the door, taking the hoodie and wrapping it around my head, tying the sleeves tight across my face until it covers both my mouth and nose.
I don’t know if it’ll help. Probably won’t. But it’s something.
I can barely see. My chest is a furnace. Every breath feels like I’m swallowing broken glass.
I reach for the knob again, twist it, and throw the door open.
Smoke hits me like a wave.
Hot. Blinding. Alive.
It pours into the room, thick and black and swallowing everything.
I stagger back, eyes wide, heart slamming in my chest.
Neve.
Oh God, Neve.
She’s in the spare room. My pulse spikes again, pure adrenaline slicing through the fog in my brain.
I move through the hallway, bent low, one arm outstretched to feel the wall, the other clutching the phone to my chest. The drywall is warm beneath my fingers. The smoke is so thick now it feels like I’m walking through water—heavy and choking.
When I reach the spare room, I start banging on the door with the flat of my hand. “Neve!” I cough. “Neve, wake up!”
No answer.
I twist the knob and shove it open.
The room is dim, hazy, but I can still make out the shape of her curled up on the bed under a blanket, unmoving.
My heart lurches.
“Neve!” I scream, stumbling inside.
Neve jerks upright, coughing hard, eyes wide and wild. “What—what’s happening?” she gasps, already pulling the blanket off, panic sharpening her voice.
“There’s a fire,” I shout back, my own voice hoarse and broken. “I called 911, but we have to go. Now.”
She swings her legs over the bed, coughing again, harder this time.
She stumbles toward the dresser. The smoke alarm blares above us, shrill and piercing, a jagged scream that splits through the chaos like it's coming from inside my skull. It’s relentless—high-pitched, metallic, deafening.
Each pulse of it feels like it’s pushing the panic higher, faster, louder.
“Get a shirt!” I yell. “Wrap it around your mouth and nose—hurry!”
She nods frantically, grabbing an old sweatshirt and tying the arms around her face, her movements clumsy with fear.
The smoke pours in now, thicker, meaner. It coils around our legs and blurs the edges of everything.
“We need to stay low,” I say, already dropping to my knees.
We crawl into the hallway on all fours, hands scraping the floor, the hoodie around my face damp with sweat and smoke. Every inch forward feels like a mile. My lungs are screaming.
Neve’s right behind me, coughing into the crook of her elbow.
We reach the front door ahead.
I reach out—
“Shit,” I hiss, yanking my hand back. The metal handle is scalding. Too hot to touch.
Neve looks at me, eyes wide, waiting.
I shake my head. “Too hot. We can’t go that way.”
Her panic spikes. I see it in the way her chest heaves behind the shirt wrapped around her mouth.
“Back,” I shout, coughing. “We have to go back—to the fire escape.”
She doesn’t question it. Just nods and turns with me.
This time, we don’t crawl.
We run.
The smoke is thick, heavy, clinging to every inch of skin. I feel it inside me now, deep and raw, like it’s etched into my lungs. But I don’t stop. We sprint to the end of the hallway, where the small window above the radiator waits.
I unlatch it with shaking fingers and shove it open. Smoke rushes out like a breath being released. We both lean into the opening, gulping at the fresh air. I push Neve’s shoulders. “Go,” I rasp. “Out.”
She clambers through, her foot slipping once on the ledge, and I grab her arm and steady her before she can fall. Then she’s out, crouched on the metal grating of the fire escape.
A loud crash erupts behind us as a bookshelf—engulfed in flames—topples to the floor, sending a wave of heat rolling through the apartment and out the window.
Thick, black smoke pours out like a living thing, curling around us, choking the sky.
I cough and grip the fire escape railing with trembling fingers, trying to focus.
There’s a man already on the fire escape.
I don’t know where he came from—he’s just there, reaching for Neve, steadying her as she climbs through the broken window. “You’re safe now! It’s okay, I’ve got you!” he shouts, voice low and firm, cutting through the chaos like an anchor.
The smoke swirls thick around his face, masking every feature in shifting gray.
I can’t make him out—just the shape of him, tall and broad-shouldered, moving with a strange calm as he turns to help me next.
His black t-shirt clings to his chest, damp with sweat, and as he reaches for me, I catch a glimpse of something across his chest—a faded motorcycle logo and, just above it, what looks like the words Cross & Sons.
But my eyes are too watery to be sure—burning from the smoke, stinging so bad everything blurs.
“Come on,” he says. “The ladder’s down. I’ll go first and guide you.”
He climbs ahead, tests each step, then turns and offers his hand as we descend. The metal creaks under our combined weight, hot and groaning, but we keep going.
My feet hit the bottom rung just as the building releases another deep, groaning wail from within—like it’s mourning itself.
We hit the pavement and stumble back, just as a blast of heat ripples out the window above us.
Neve grabs my hand. I cough, bent over, trying to catch my breath. Neve tugs my arm, and we take off running, coughing, hacking, tripping our way around to the front of the building.
That’s when I see it. The first floor, my bakery, is engulfed in fire. Flames pour from the windows, black smoke pumping into the sky like something unholy. The sign is barely visible behind the wall of fire, the glass shattered, the heart of everything I built gone.
I fall to my knees.
The sob breaks out of me before I can stop it. My stomach clenches, and I vomit onto the sidewalk. It burns coming up, acid and smoke and wine.
And then I cry.
Neve grabs me by the arms and pulls me up. “Come on,” she chokes out, voice ragged. “We have to move.”
She drags me across the street, our bodies shaking, skin streaked with soot and tears. I stumble, still coughing, and then—
Boom.
The explosion hits like a punch to the face. A massive fireball erupts from the top floor—our floor—lighting up the night like it’s noon. The blast of heat slams into us, windows shatter, the ground trembles underfoot. I throw my arms up over my head as sparks of glass rain down across the street.
“Oh my God,” Neve whispers.
That… was our apartment.
We were just up there.
Sirens scream closer now, echoing off the buildings like a warning, but it’s all background noise because suddenly I hear it—my name, being shouted through the chaos.
“Marlowe!”
I turn, disoriented, vision swimming.
Nathan sprints down the street barefoot, in a hoodie and boxers, eyes wide with horror.
Neighbors flood out of their buildings in bathrobes and coats, phones in hand—filming, pointing, covering their mouths.
The firetrucks come racing down the block, lights flashing red and blue, painting the street in panic.
And still—my name, over and over.
Nathan reaches me first.
But he’s not the one I want to see.
Not the one I need.
I grab Neve by the arm, fingers digging in.
“Damian?” My voice cracks. “Where’s Damian?”
She shakes her head, coughing hard into her sleeve. “I—I don’t think he came home.”
My knees buckle. The smoke still clings to everything, inside and out. We’re both coughing, our clothes streaked with soot, our hands shaking.
An ambulance pulls up to the curb, and suddenly Nathan’s beside us, guiding, rushing, too many hands on me at once.
“Come on,” he says, voice too calm for what’s happening. “You need oxygen.”
I can’t breathe properly. My chest heaves, but it never feels full. My heart thuds—like it’s trying to claw its way out of me.
I’m lifted onto the gurney before I realize I’ve collapsed. An EMT straps the oxygen mask around my head. Cold, clean air hits my lungs and burns, but it’s better. It’s something.
People are talking.
A woman crouches next to me, her lips moving fast, but I can’t make out the words. The ringing in my ears won’t stop. The fire still crackles behind us, red reflecting in all the windows across the street.
Nathan is holding my hand. His palm is warm. Grounding. His left eye is swollen, blooming purple, the skin around it puffy and raw. His lip is split, and there’s a bruise along his jaw, dark and angry.
But all I can think is—
Why is he here?
I lift the oxygen mask off my face, just enough to get the words out again.
“Where’s Damian?” I ask, my voice thin and desperate.
But no one answers me.
Not Nathan. Not the EMTs. Not Neve, who’s coughing into an oxygen mask of her own a few feet away, eyes glazed and distant.
They’re all moving around us—voices overlapping, hands pressing things to my chest, checking my vitals, asking questions I can’t process.
My body starts to go cold. Not from the air. Not from shock.
It’s something else. Something deeper.
Like my nerves are shutting down one by one.
I suck in another breath through the mask, eyes scanning the chaos, the smoke still trailing into the night, the flashing lights bouncing off glass and wet pavement.
And that’s when I see him.
Standing just beyond the crowd of neighbors and first-responders, half-shadowed by the flashing red strobes.
Tall. Still.
His eyes fixed right on me.
That man. The one that was on the fire escape.
He’s the one I’ve seen at the bakery over and over again. The black shirt he’s wearing sticks to him like a second skin—but the words are clear now: Cross & Sons, stamped above a faded motorcycle logo.
My heart stops.
He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t move.
Just stares.
Straight at me.