Chapter 1 #2
“I don’t know. She was in the house, and I was out here.
I heard the car start, but when I ran over to it, she turned onto the street and drove away.
” I can still see it—the red taillights disappearing around the corner while I screamed for her.
I ran until my lungs burned and my legs gave out, and then I sat in the middle of the empty road and cried until I couldn’t cry anymore.
“You mean she drove off and left you here?” Damiano’s expression is full of disbelief. “I’m so sorry, Lucy. Do you know her phone number? When Dad comes out, I’ll borrow his phone, and we can call her.”
I shake my head. I don’t know her number. She changed it recently and I haven’t got the new one memorized.
“Then I guess we’ll have to call the police,” he says, with the grimace of someone who has learned to dislike cops.
I wonder if seeing a police car makes his dad’s hands clench on the steering wheel like it does my mom.
Maybe like Mom, Damiano’s father fearfully twitches aside the curtains to see who’s knocking on the front door.
“If Dad lets me,” he mutters, kicking a rock. “I’ll have to call where he can’t hear me.”
“I don’t want you to get into trouble because of me.”
He looks at me from beneath his lashes and smiles—a little cocky, a little sweet. It’s the first real smile I’ve seen from him, and it makes warmth bloom in my chest. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
I find myself smiling back at him. For the first time in two days, I don’t feel quite so alone.
He smiles wider, and then laughs, turning toward the house. “Come on, let’s go and get Lily before she—”
But Damiano’s words die in his throat. Lily is disappearing inside the house, the door closing behind her.
Damiano’s face drains of color. He takes one lurching step forward, then another. “Lily, come back out here.”
The world explodes.
A deafening roar tears the air apart. The house erupts in a ball of fire and light so bright it’s like the sun has crashed to earth. The force of the blast hits me like a physical thing, knocking the air from my lungs.
Damiano breaks into a run, his legs pumping as he races toward the house. “Lily!” he screams. “LILY!”
Damiano’s scream cuts off. I can hear more screaming from inside the house.
Heat washes over me in waves. Glass and metal rain down around us, glinting in the firelight. Something hot slices the right side of my head, a burning agony that makes white spots dance across my vision. Wet warmth streams down my neck and into my collar.
My knees buckle.
The world tilts sideways and goes dark.
Sound returns first, a high-pitched ringing that drowns out everything else. Then someone calling my name, over and over, desperate and broken.
“Lucy. Lucy. Lucy.”
Hands on me, gentle but shaking. Something soft being wound around my head—fabric, I think, but my thoughts are sluggish and confused.
“You’re okay, you’re okay, Lucy.”
I force my eyes open. My vision is blurry. Above me, Damiano’s face swims into focus.
He’s covered in soot and ash. His eyes are too wide, too bright. His hands shake as he wraps torn fabric around my head.
“You’re okay,” he keeps saying, but his voice cracks. “You’re okay.”
He gathers me up in his arms. He smells like singed fabric, smoke, and chemicals. His heart is racing so hard I can feel it against my cheek.
No one’s screaming anymore.
No one’s coming out of that burning house.
I can feel his head turning, searching. For help, maybe. For his sister, though we both know she’s gone. Everyone in that house is dead. His dad. His sister. All those scary people with strange eyes.
If it wasn’t for Damiano, I’d be dead too. I was sitting right next to those cars, and now they’re burning.
There are neighbors’ houses dotted around this place at a distance. No one comes to help us, but someone must have heard the explosion or seen the smoke, because eventually we hear sirens approaching.
Damiano picks me up in his arms and carries me out to the road. I wipe my eyes, look around, and see that the whole house is ablaze.
The firemen run past with hoses and other equipment, stopping long enough to ask us how many people are inside. Damiano pleads for them to help me, but the firemen don’t do much for us except wrap us in shiny metallic blankets and sit us on the curb to wait for the ambulance.
I hear the words meth lab explosion from the firemen in tones of disgust. There are a few glances in our direction that are pitying, but most are unfriendly. They hate meth labs, and we were playing in the backyard, so we must be bad kids.
The ambulance arrives, and I’m put onto a stretcher and loaded inside. As the ambulance sets off, I’m suddenly sick with fear that I’m all alone with strangers who are poking and prodding me, and I cry out, “Damiano?”
There’s a reassuring squeeze of my shoulder. “I’m here.”
His voice is rough, scraped raw. But he’s here. He didn’t leave me.
At the hospital, I know Damiano is nearby, because I hear him defiantly say, “I’m staying with her,” several times, and asking different people if I’m going to be all right.
They stick a needle in my hand. The pain in my head fades, and I think I must fall asleep.
I wake up sometime later, blinking slowly and able to see again. My face feels clean. There’s a curtain around my hospital bed. Next to me in an uncomfortable-looking chair with his head pillowed on his arm is Damiano.
He must hear me moving because his eyelashes flutter, and he sits up. There are bandages on his hands and forearms, and ash streaked through his dark curls.
“Damiano, what happened to you?”
He glances at the bandages as if he’d forgotten they’re there. “It’s just some burns. Don’t worry about me. How are you feeling?” He scoots closer to the bed and reaches for my hand.
My head is fuzzy and my mouth is dry. I put my other hand up to touch something stiff in my curls. It feels like gauze. “What happened to me?”
“Burning metal from the explosion. It cut your head, and they stitched you up. You’re dehydrated so they put you on a drip.”
“Why doesn’t my head hurt? I feel strange.”
“They gave you something to stop the pain.”
I glance around, looking for a clock. “What time is it?”
“About nine in the morning.”
“The morning! Where did you sleep?”
Damiano looks exhausted, his face gray beneath the soot, but he smiles. “Right here. You were never alone.”
My head falls back on the pillow, and tears swim in my eyes. Never alone. Two of the sweetest words I’ve ever heard. It means so much to me that he never left my side.
“Your sister…” I whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
He puts his head down on the bed. His hands clench on the blanket so hard his knuckles turn white. When he speaks, his voice is barely a whisper. “I tried to go into the house and save her, but the fire was too hot. I shouldn’t have let her leave the creek.”
“It’s all my fault,” I tell him, my voice cracking. I distracted him from looking after her by being too grateful for his attention. Too needy for his kindness. The grief in his eyes is unbearable, and I put it there.
Damiano sits up fast, swipes tears from his cheeks, and says fiercely, “It’s Dad’s fault for bringing us there.
Did you see the place where you were sitting after the explosion?
The car was on fire. You would have died as well, which is your mom’s fault for leaving you there.
You and my sister could both be dead. The only good thing that’s happened is that I saved you, and I don’t ever want to hear you say that any of this is your fault. ”
Anger blazes in Damiano’s eyes. He’s seeing that burning house all over again. Reliving those terrifying moments. His breath is coming faster and faster.
I reach out and touch his cheek, stroking my fingers over his jaw. He covers my hand with his and leans gratefully into my touch. His breathing slows. His eyes close.
“You were bleeding so much,” he whispers. “I was so scared for you. I couldn’t save Lily, but I’m so grateful you’re alive.”
There’s the sound of brisk footsteps approaching my bed, and a woman dressed in street clothes peers around the curtain.
She introduces herself as Ms. Mills from Child Protective Services.
Her blouse has a loud floral print, and she wears a navy skirt.
She smiles at us, but her smile looks pinned on.
“You two are from the explosion yesterday? We’re going to do some paperwork, and then I’ll take you to a residential facility for children. Just for a little while. It’s a very nice place.”
Her expression flickers as she says very nice place. She’s lying.
“This will be while we locate some family for you both, and they’ll come and collect you.” She’s about to take a seat on the other side of my bed when her phone rings, and she checks the screen. “I’ll be back in one moment.”
We watch her step outside the curtain and take her call.
“What’s going to happen to us?” I ask Damiano. My heart is starting to race, panic rising in my throat.
Damiano reaches for my hand again and strokes my knuckles with his thumb. “Your mom will come and get you.”
Maybe it’s the drugs, or maybe it’s Damiano holding my hand and being so kind to me, but I no longer have the strength to swallow down the words that are begging to be screamed out loud.
“Mom’s not coming for me,” I say brokenly, tears filling my eyes. “Even if she does, she’ll just leave me behind again. This isn’t the first time she’s driven off and left me.”
Damiano’s hand clenches on mine, and his mouth drops open in outrage. “She leaves you behind on purpose?”
Shame floods me from head to toe. Other parents are frantic when they lose sight of their children for even a second. There must be something horribly wrong with me because Mom enjoys leaving me behind.
“She does it to punish me when I’m too clingy, and she’s threatened a couple of times that one day she’ll never come back.”