Chapter 35
Vaelor
The pan clatters against the stovetop louder than I meant it to.
“If you wake her up, I’m blaming you,” Beckett mutters from the doorway.
“Pretty sure she sleeps like the dead.” I pull open the fridge, scanning the shelves. Cheese. Bread. Some leftover chicken from yesterday. “Besides, no one’s sleeping tonight anyway.”
He doesn’t argue. None of them would.
The kitchen has that strange energy of too many people awake when they shouldn’t be.
Rane’s sitting at the table, turning an empty glass between his hands.
Locke hasn’t moved from his spot near the back door, arms crossed, watching nothing.
Kyron’s pacing the length of the counter—three steps, turn, three steps, turn—which he never does.
Trey’s leaning against the wall, jaw tight, still carrying the guilt he won’t let anyone talk him out of.
So I do what I always do. I feed them.
The butter is on the counter over by the living room doorway. I cross to grab it, already thinking about whether we have enough bread for everyone, when I smell it.
Faint. Acrid. Wrong.
I stop moving.
“Do you guys smell smoke?”
Rane snorts without looking up. “Did you burn something again?”
“No.” I set down the butter. Sniff again. Stronger now. Not kitchen smoke, not burnt food. Something chemical. Something wrong. “Seriously. Something’s burning.”
Trey pushes off the wall, crosses to stand beside me. His nostrils flare.
“Fuck.” The color drains from his face. “That’s not the stove.”
We look at each other for half a second.
Then I’m running.
The stairs vanish under my feet two at a time. The smell thickens with every step, coating my throat, stinging my eyes. By the time I hit the hallway, I can see it—smoke, gray and curling, seeping out from under Nova’s door.
“Nova!” I’m shouting before I reach it. No response. “Nova!”
The door handle. I yank my shirt over my head, wrap it around my hand. The metal is hot even through the fabric—too hot. I twist, shove, and the door flies open.
The room is on fire.
Flames climbing the curtains, eating the fabric in bright orange tongues. The rug smoldering, edges curling black. Broken glass scattered across the floor near the window, something charred and still smoking in the center of the shards. And in the middle of it all—
Nova.
In bed. Eyes closed. Not moving.
The flames are three feet from her mattress and she hasn’t moved.
No no no no—
Trey’s behind me. I feel him surge forward and throw my arm out to stop him.
“I’ve got her.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “Stay here. I might need to hand her off.”
He stops. His face is white, but he nods.
I go in.
The heat hits like a wall. It’s like walking into an oven, like the air itself is trying to push me back. I can’t breathe—smoke everywhere, filling my lungs, turning every inhale into shards of glass. I put the shirt up over my nose and mouth. It doesn’t help much.
The flames are between me and the bed, licking at the floor, spreading faster than fire should spread, like something’s feeding it. I can’t think about that. I can’t think about anything except getting to her.
I move around them. Over them. Through them when I have to.
My skin screams where the heat finds it. I don’t care. I just need to reach her.
I reach the bed.
She hasn’t moved.
I scoop her up and she’s still too light. I can’t tell if she’s breathing. I can’t think about that either. I need to get her out.
I turn back toward the door.
The flames are higher now, angrier. Trey’s silhouette wavers through the haze, and behind him I can hear the others thundering up the stairs, shouting things I can’t make out.
I move. One step. Another. The heat is unbearable, pressing in from all sides. Something crashes behind me—part of the ceiling, maybe, or the bookshelf giving way. I don’t look back. I can’t look back.
The doorway. Trey’s hands reaching out.
I don’t stop moving as I pass her to him. “Take her.”
Like it’s not the most important thing I’ve ever done.
His arms tighten around her instinctively. “Is she—”
“Get her downstairs.”
I don’t know if she’s okay. I don’t know anything. I turn back toward the room anyway.
Locke and Kyron push past me with extinguishers, disappearing into the smoke. Rane’s right behind them with wet towels, a bucket, whatever he grabbed on the way up. They’ve got it. They’ll handle it.
I make my way downstairs.
My legs don’t want to work right. I’m coughing and I can’t stop, my chest is full of smoke and feels like broken glass. One hand on the wall for balance. One foot in front of the other. That’s all I have to do.
In the living room, Trey has her on the couch.
She’s lying there, still and small, and for one terrible second I think the worst. But then I actually look at her.
She’s untouched.
The fire was everywhere. The room was an inferno. And she’s untouched. A little smoky. Some black smudged along her cheekbone, her fingers. The sleeves of her sleep shirt are singed at the edges, fabric curling brown.
But her skin beneath is smooth. Not red. Not blistered. Not even pink.
She was in the middle of that and she looks like she just took a nap in a dusty room.
“Nova.” Trey’s kneeling beside her, hands hovering like he’s afraid to touch her. “Nova, wake up. Please.”
Nothing.
“Nova.” His voice cracks.
Her eyes flutter.
She blinks once, twice, and looks up at him with an expression of sleepy confusion, brow furrowing like she’s trying to remember where she is.
“What’s going on?” Her voice is rough, groggy. “Why are you—”
She trails off. Takes in Trey’s ash-streaked face. Looks past him to me—shirtless, chest heaving, angry red marks climbing my forearms. The smell of smoke everywhere, thick enough to taste.
“Holy fuck.” Beckett’s laugh is high and relieved and not entirely sane. “Holy fuck.”
“You—” Trey’s staring at her. “Were you sleeping? That entire time?”
“Sleeping?” She pushes up on her elbows, still blinking. “What do you mean? I just closed my eyes for a second.”
“Nova.” I move closer, lower myself onto the couch beside her because I’m not sure my legs will hold me much longer. My voice comes out as a rasp. “Your room was on fire.”
She freezes.
“What?”
“Fire.” The word feels inadequate. Absurd. “Your room was on fire. I had to—the flames were everywhere, and you were just—”
I can’t finish. The image is stuck in my head and I can’t get it out. Her lying there motionless while the world burned around her.
She sits up fast, wide-eyed, suddenly fully awake, scanning the room.
“Fire? But I—” Her voice pitches up. “Where is everyone? Is everyone okay? Where’s—”
“They’re fine.” Beckett appears with a glass of water and presses it into her shaking hands. “They’re upstairs putting it out. Everyone’s fine.”
“But how did—I don’t understand—I was just—”
Water sloshes over the rim of the glass. Her hands are trembling too hard to hold it steady. I take it from her, set it on the table, and she grabs my hand like it’s a lifeline.
Her fingers are cold.
How are her fingers cold? She was in the middle of an inferno and her fingers are ice.
The smoke in her hair smells like wood and char, but it doesn’t cling to her the way it should. The way it’s clinging to me, to Trey, to everything else in this room.
“I don’t understand,” she whispers. Her grip tightens. “I don’t understand what’s happening to me.”
Neither do I.
But I hold her hand, and I don’t let go.