Chapter 42
Korren
A couple others have come jogging after me, and I recognize their voices even though I can’t make out their faces in the smoke-smothered darkness.
“What’s going on?” Ambrose asks. “Why is Dex lost?”
“We had a fucking argument, and I ran off, and I think he tried to follow me.”
“What were you arguing about?” Garret asks.
“This stupid game of gay chicken.”
“Woah,” Garret says. “You guys really are taking this seriously, aren’t you? One of you needs to fucking give up.”
“That’s not—it’s—”
I realize I’m crying.
Fuck this.
Even though I know the others can’t see my face, I turn away, wrestling with myself.
The thing is, I’ve been lying to myself for a while here.
I’ve been pretending I can’t possibly feel anything for Dex because I’m straight, when the truth is I’ve known—probably since the first time we had sex—that this is in fact a thing I like and want.
Maybe I’ve known for longer than that.
And I’ve always been scared of letting someone into my life, but this feels extra dangerous because of how broken I was until recently. I’m getting way too dependent on having Dex in my life, and if I lose him, I don’t know if I can handle it.
Dex isn’t allowed to say he loves me. I’m fundamentally unlovable. It’s a promise he’ll never be able to keep, and I think the reason I reacted so badly earlier was because I’m terrified of the idea that I might feel the same way.
“They’re totally into each other,” Ambrose says to one of the others. “He’s losing his shit about this.”
“Because Dex is missing!” I roar.
My fault. My fucking fault.
“Boys and girls!” Chief Rhodes bellows from the direction of camp. “Get back over here!”
I stagger to my feet and start back toward camp with the others, wiping my eyes as soon as they’re looking away. I want to keep looking for Dex, but it makes more sense to organize a proper search party, which Chief Rhodes is probably doing right now.
But when we come within sight of the camp, I realize the whole crew is awake and half the tents have been disassembled.
“I’ve just got a call from headquarters,” Chief Rhodes calls to us.
“We’re abandoning this front. The firebreak is finished, so we’ve done what we came here to do, and the fire is getting too aggressive for us to fight.
It’s jumped the Chena River in a couple places, which means we need to move out right away.
Grab your gear as fast as you can and wait for the helicopter. ”
“What about Dex?” I ask in shock.
“We don’t have time to search for him. Someone else will be sent back for him once the rest of the crew is safe.”
“He’s your nephew!” Cami says in surprise. “Are you really going to abandon him?”
“He shouldn’t have wandered off. That’s on him.”
I stumble back to my tent, but instead of packing, I pull on my fireproof gear and helmet and N95 mask and the backpack with the pump setup we were using to fight the fire yesterday.
Then, with the sound of helicopter blades approaching, I start back along the river in the direction Dex vanished. The smoke is thicker than ever—no one will have seen me go.
This time, even though my lungs are tight with panic, I force myself to make a more systematic search. I zigzag back and forth covering a stretch of land that reaches fifty feet out from the riverbank, shining my headlamp through the gloom to investigate every irregularity in the ground.
Behind me, I can hear when the helicopter lands at camp, the chop-chop-chop of the rotor blades holding at a steady volume for several minutes while the crew piles in.
I pick up my pace, praying no one will try to find me, but I shouldn’t have worried—there’s a single shout of, “Korren! Dex!” and then the helicopter takes off, the sound of its blades fading within minutes.
I’m alone on the smoke-drenched riverbank. And I fucking hope Chief Rhodes was serious about a second helicopter coming to rescue Dex later, because if not, we’re both out of luck.
Somehow the seriousness of our predicament muffles some of my panic, and I’m thinking clearer than before.
I make quicker progress along the uneven ground, and then I see it—a line of fire that’s jumped the river and is smoldering an arc through the grasses on this side, low flames licking up from the ground.
Fuck. Dex wasn’t wearing any of his gear.
The line of fire isn’t wide, so I take a running jump and clear the smoldering arc. Beyond it, there are smaller fires everywhere. I can see why we’ve abandoned camp.
It’s not far past the first of the fires that I spot a large form sprawled on the grass.
My lungs are tight as I sprint toward Dex. His pants are mildly singed, but otherwise he looks unhurt, so he’s probably passed out from breathing in too much smoke.
At least, I pray that’s all it is.
I dash to his side and put a hand against his mouth. It’s hard to tell with the wind picking up, but I can feel him breathing.
“Dex,” I say urgently. “Dex.”
He groans but doesn’t wake up. So he’s not too far gone.
Fuck me. I’m crying again.
“Dex. Please. I need you to come back to me.”
I give his cheek a slap, and this time he doesn’t respond at all.
Firefighters are always trained in how to drag people bigger than them, but I don’t know how far I can get him or how useful it will be with the fire spreading fast.
Don’t think about that. Just think about the next step.
If I let myself get derailed with the magnitude of this fucking huge crisis, I won’t be able to keep going.
Get Dex past the line of fire. That’s all I need to think about right now.
First I strip off my flame-resistant coat and roll Dex onto it, securing it around his shoulders, so he doesn’t catch on fire as we cross the smoldering stretch of ground. Then I pull out a length of rope that’s tied up with my pump kit and tie his wrists so I can drag him.
It’s not a nice business. His wrists are going to get rubbed raw, and he’ll be smashed against any rocks hiding in the tussocks. But right now I don’t have any other options.
As I dig in my heels and start dragging him toward the arc of burning grass that’s creeping toward camp, I’m praying my own shirt won’t go up in flames now that I’m not wearing a coat. If something happens to me, there’s no fucking way anyone is getting to us in time.
Step by step, I haul Dex over the tussocks. If he were awake, I’d have us walk through the river, but it’s deep right near camp and I can’t manage the current with an unconscious body in tow.
At least I’ve got my panic under control. Even though there are flames licking close to my boots and the smoke is thick enough to suffocate me, I’m handling it.
Because Dex is too fucking important to lose.
By the time we reach the solid line of fire, my arms feel like they’re about to rip out of their sockets. The actual flames are only covering a stretch of a couple feet, but the grass behind them is smoldering, and I know it will be hot enough to ignite fabric.
Even though each delay is painful, I drop the rope and pump water from a nearby marshy patch onto the smoldering charred patch, trying to clear a patch wide enough for Dex to cross safely.
As quickly as I’m working, the flames are creeping in ahead of the area I’m spraying. The smoke is thicker than ever, and I’m starting to feel lightheaded, so I finally abandon my attempt.
Instead I drape one of Dex’s arms behind my neck and haul him onto my shoulders. I take a staggering step forward, then another. It’s all I can do to keep my legs from buckling beneath me, but I can do this. I have to.
Stepping on the patch of damp ashes, I stagger up to the line of fire and past, onto a stretch of unsinged grass. The wind is blowing from across the river, lifting the smoke away from the ground, so I feel like I can breathe properly again.
I carry Dex as far as I can manage, giving us a head start on the spreading fire. Then, my legs and arms shaking, I drop to my knees and let him slide back to the ground.
It doesn’t take long to drag him the final distance back to camp. Our tent is still standing where we left it, and someone’s dropped a shirt in their rush to evacuate, but otherwise there’s no sign that our crew was here less than an hour ago.
I fucking hope the helicopter is planning to come here. I don’t have any way to contact Chief Rhodes, and I don’t even know if this is a safe landing place any longer.
I pull one of the sleeping mats out of our tent and nudge Dex onto it, and then I kneel beside him, hoping like hell that I haven’t hurt him worse than he already was. I had to assume he didn’t have a spinal injury, because there’s no gentle way to move someone in a situation like this.
“Dex,” I mutter. “You’d better be okay.”
My hands are shaking again, and this time it’s not from exhaustion.
I look him over just for something to do, and that’s when I notice that his pants are singed near the cuff.
When I roll them up, I realize he’s got a nasty burn on his ankle, the flesh raw and blistering.
There isn’t much I can do about it with the limited first-aid supplies I have on me, so I leave it, the crushing feeling of uselessness settling on me again.
Why the fuck did I run off into the smoke like that? I should’ve known Dex would follow me.
I should’ve talked to him like an adult.
He’d just told me he loved me. No matter how I felt, he didn’t deserve to have me react that way.
It feels like hours pass, but it can’t have been that long, because the fire hasn’t reached us. At last I hear the distant chop-chop-chop of an approaching helicopter. I think I’m imagining it at first, but soon it’s close enough there’s no mistaking it.
Someone is leaning out of an open door holding a spotlight that’s scanning the ground, so I jump to my feet and wave my arms around, shouting, “We’re over here!”
For an agonizing moment, it seems like they’re going to pass us by.
Then the beam falls on Dex’s prone form.
The helicopter turns and angles down to land right beside us. It’s a much smaller one than we rode out to the fire in the first place, and it’s just two people flying in it—the pilot and the man with the searchlight.
“Are you Dex Oritz and Korren Ross?” the man shouts over the sound of the blades, jumping down to the grass.
“Yes!” I shout back. “Dex is unconscious! Can you help me lift him? I think he breathed in too much smoke.”
The pilot unbuckles herself and fetches a stretcher, which she lowers to us before climbing down to help. We strap Dex on and lift him into the back of the helicopter, where he’s secured down.
Then we’re lifting off again, the fires around us glowing a threatening orange through the curtains of smoke.