Beth
Beth
The paramedic shakes his head from side to side and shouts something at a colleague as he crouches over the body.
‘No!’
It felt like a shout, but her voice is hoarse from screaming, and so it’s barely a croak.
‘Are they giving up? They can’t!’ She stares up at Nick. He’s watching the paramedic, as horrified as she is.
Surely he can do something? Surely he can make this go away?
But he just shakes his head. Turns to her simply, and looks her right in the eyes.
‘You should have let me go back in,’ he says, and then his voice cracks. ‘Why the hell did you stop me? I could have done something. You should have let me!’
He pushes her away and stalks off into the darkness.
‘Nick!’ she screams with everything she has left. ‘Nick, please. Come back!’
She chases after him, yanking his arm and pulling him back.
‘Where are you going? What are you doing?’
‘She’s dead,’ he says, his voice a low growl, tears rolling down his face. ‘Anna. She’s dead.’
She shakes her head. No.
‘You don’t know that. How can you know that? They’re taking her to hospital. She’ll be OK. It might not even be her…’
‘I saw her! I saw them! I saw the look in their eyes.’
But his anger dissipates and he pulls her towards him, crushing her so tightly she can barely breathe but she’s grateful for his embrace, for the fact that his anger has gone, that he’s no longer cross with her. No longer blaming her.
‘It’s not true,’ she sobs. ‘It can’t be true.’
‘I should have gone back in,’ he snarls, into her hair.
‘But it wouldn’t have helped!’
Somehow even as she says the words, knowing that they are absolutely true, she’s aware that it will make no difference.
That it won’t matter that the situation was desperate, or that Nick going back into the building would have only made things worse.
Even though they both know that, it won’t matter because of who he is. This is Nick, who makes things better. Nick, who saves people. People like her.
Nick, who runs towards a disaster, and not away from it.
She’s known him for barely two months and yet she knows that this is who he is. This is the person he believes himself to be, and after tonight, he will feel that he has let himself down. He will feel that way for the rest of his life, no matter what happens to him.
And it’s her fault.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says, but his face is a mask and she’s not sure he’s even heard her. ‘I’m sorry I stopped you from trying.’
He pulls away slightly, and takes her face in his hands. And then he kisses her, so hard it hurts. She doesn’t like it.
‘Thank God you weren’t inside,’ he says. ‘Thank God I gave you that stupid record. Thank God you found it. Thank God we went out.’
‘The record…’ she says. ‘I left it in my room.’
He closes his eyes. When he opens them again they flash with anger.
‘For Christ’s sake! It doesn’t matter. It’s just a thing. A piece of vinyl. Things don’t matter, Beth. They don’t matter at all. Do you understand me? Tell me you understand me.’
She nods, confused. She doesn’t understand the ferocity with which he delivers these statements. But she knows he’s right. Nothing matters. Nothing matters if people have died tonight.
She buries herself in his arms again, the adrenaline making her feel unstable and nauseous.
‘What do we do now?’ she whispers.
As though the universe is answering her question, she feels a hand on her back. An unfamiliar voice is firm in her ear.
‘You kids need to get to the union building,’ the voice says. ‘We need to clear the area. It’s not safe for you to be here.’
She looks up. Another member of the police. A man this time. Older, with a downturned mouth.
‘It was our flat,’ she says, quietly. ‘Our flat was where the fire was.’
The policeman looks at her.
‘We can’t be sure where the fire started yet,’ he says. ‘It’s difficult when there’s so much smoke. You need to move away. It’s not safe.’
She turns. They are the only students left. The others have vanished, sucked into the union building.
The blue lights from the fire engines are still flashing, lighting up the scene, but several of the ambulances have gone. She didn’t even notice them leave. Has one of them taken Anna?
‘Now,’ the policeman repeats, his voice firmer this time. He gives them a gentle push. ‘Make your way to the union. We’ll be updating everyone there.’
Nick nods. Beth is relieved that he’s no longer crying.
‘There’s nothing either of you could have done,’ the policeman says, as though reading her mind. ‘Just so you know that. You did the right thing by getting out and staying out.’
The blue light from the fire engine flashes round again, lighting up Nick’s face for the briefest moment. His jaw tenses in response to the policeman’s comment.
Surely he will believe the police? she thinks. Surely he will know that to have gone back inside would have been madness?
‘There are false alarms all the time in this building,’ Nick says, angrily. ‘No one takes them seriously enough. Someone should have done something. The building was never safe!’
But the policeman just pushes them on.
Beth takes Nick’s hand and they walk towards the union in silence. Where is Rosa?
Anna can’t be dead. She doesn’t believe it.
She knows how it goes, she has already planned for it somewhere in her heart. Your university friends are the sort of friends you keep forever, whether you have anything in common or not. You experience something so unique that it bonds you, whether you like it or not.
When she was a child, she had pet rabbits. The breeder told her that to help them bond, she should put them in a cardboard box together and get her mother to drive around in the car with them. Their fear and confusion at the situation would ensure they bonded for life.
It seemed cruel and her mother refused to do it, but it makes sense. Going through something like that – going through something like this – means part of you fuses with the other, whether you like it or not.
And now, she has no idea where they are. If they are even alive.