Chapter 33
“Help!” I screamed, my voice raw from both my cries and the excessive smoke I’d inhaled while lying on the stage floor. “Help me!”
But no one was coming. I knew that with chilling certainty. I was alone, waiting for my body to be eaten by the flames.
The fire didn’t start like they did in movies. There was no sudden explosion, no dramatic imagery of flames licking up the walls. It began quietly, insidiously—an acrid smell that cut through the familiar scent of rosin and sweat and old velvet curtains.
At first, I thought something had blown, an old lightbulb or something. It was a historic theatre, and nothing in the main area seemed to be out of order. But then, someone in the scene shop screamed.
Smoke poured in from the wings, thick and gray, curling along the ceiling like a living thing. The music cut out mid-measure, the abrupt silence somehow louder than the orchestra ever was.
“Fire!” someone shouted.
The word cracked the room open.
Everything happened at once after that. Dancers bolted in every direction, slippers skidding against the stage, bodies colliding as panic took over. Madame Germaine was yelling, voices overlapping, chaos swallowing every attempt at order.
“Come on! To the exit!” Raphael shouted, grabbing my hand and guiding me to safety.
I ran with him, my feet burning from my pointe shoes. My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was trying to escape my chest. Smoke burned my eyes. I coughed, the movement making my throat tighten. Ash rained down like snow, clinging to my costume, tangling in my hair.
We didn’t make it far.
Crack!
The sound split the air above us. Wood snapped, something giving way. I barely had time to look up and let go of Raphael’s hand before a part of the grand set broke loose and fell to the ground.
Pain exploded through my body as I hit the floor, and the breath was knocked clean out of me. Something heavy pinned my legs, pressing into my ribs. I screamed, the sound swallowed immediately by the roar of the fire.
“Eva!” Raphael yelled, dropping beside me. He tried to lift the beam, his face reddening with strain. But the wood didn’t move, not even when I tried to help him lift it. “I… I can’t—”
“It’s okay,” I gasped. Smoke filled my lungs, every breath shallow and sharp. “Go. Get help.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
But I wouldn’t let him die with me. “You have to. Please.”
Another crash echoed through the theater, closer this time. Raphael hesitated, terror written all over his face.
“Go,” I whispered, nodding to the door.
“I’ll come back,” he promised, his voice breaking. “I swear.”
Then he was gone, disappearing into the smoke. And I knew that no matter how noble Raphael was, he would be breaking that promise. The firefighters would never let him back in, and that was if he didn’t collapse as soon as he escaped. These moments were probably my last.
Flames darted out from the growing wreckage, licking at my skin before deciding they liked the taste of me. The heat became unbearable, the air thick and choking me. My vision blurred, spots dancing in front of my eyes.
I tried to move, to push the weight off me, but my body shook uselessly beneath it. I’d never lifted weights a day in my life, a decision I was regretting now.
I was regretting a lot of things. But the biggest was how my relationship with Alek had ended.
There were so many things I should have said, so many things I should have done differently. I’d wasted so many moments by being afraid of who I truly was inside, denying the part of me that belonged to him. But I should have gone to him, I should have run after him and told him I loved him sooner.
It hurt knowing that I’d finally been brave. That I’d chosen him, yet I hadn’t even gotten the chance to tell him how I felt. He would never know how sure I was about him, about us. I was ready to burn my old life down to stand beside him.
And now I was burning alone.
Tears streamed down my cheeks, mixing with ash.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to no one. To Jules. To Alek. To myself. “For everything.”
My eyelids fluttered, the world dimming. The heat and smoke began to finally pull me under—
“EVANGELINE!” a deep voice roared into the dark.
At first, I thought it was my mind fracturing, smoke playing tricks on me. But then I heard it again.
“EVANGELINE!”
My heart stuttered. Either I was just hearing things or…
Or he had come for me.
“Evangeline! I can feel you here, baby, where are you?” Alek shouted.
“I-I’m over h-here,” I croaked, forcing my eyes open so I could try to see him. They stung, but I kept them open, coughing several times until I was sure I was going to throw up from the force.
The smoke was slowly suffocating me. Every breath brought me less and less relief, the ashen taste settling on my tongue.
I spotted a large shadow across the stage, swiftly moving toward me. It solidified into a man wrapped in smoke and flame. Alek’s face was streaked with soot, and his eyes were wild and glowing like an angel of death.
He dropped to his knees beside me, hands already gripping the fallen beam.
“I’ve got you,” he said, voice raw. “I’ve got you, solnyshka.”
I tried to help him, but my movements were weak. I wasn’t sure how he was going to get it off of me when Raphael couldn’t even make it move, and he’d inhaled far less smoke than Alek probably had in his search for me.
But Alek rolled up his sleeves, exposing forearms I’d thought about many hours late into the night, and shoved the set piece off of me like it weighed nothing. His arms were around me a second later, crushing me to his chest while I tried to breathe through the pain in my body.
“You’re okay,” he breathed, his body trembling. He whispered the words over and over like he was trying to convince himself more than me. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
I clutched his shirt as a thick sob escaped me. My body curled into him like he was the only real thing left in this world, the only thing standing between me and death.
“I love you,” I whispered. I cupped his cheek with a soot-covered hand. I wanted to kiss him so badly, but I knew this wasn’t the time, not when the set was collapsing around us and we risked becoming trapped. “I thought I lost you. I thought I ruined everything.”
He pressed his forehead to mine as the smoke swirled around us. “Never,” he said fiercely. “I would burn this world to ash before I let it take you from me. Because I love you, Evangeline. And I will stop at nothing to give you the happily ever after you deserve.”
Alek scooped me up into his arms, holding me tight as he turned toward the exit.
He must have been able to see better than I could, or he knew his way around the theatre better from studying the blueprints so much, because his steps were swift and sure as he led me to safety.
The flames roared behind us like they were angry he’d stolen me back.
The cold, late winter air hit me like a ton of bricks as we escaped the burning building.
We were suddenly rushed by a swarm of people—firefighters, paramedics, other dancers.
I spotted Madame Germaine’s stern but worried gaze amongst the crowd, and I even thought I saw the auburn locks and brown eyes that belonged to my brother.
But all of my attention was on the man holding me.
I turned to face him, looking up into his dark blue eyes. They looked like sapphires, only more beautiful.
They were the last thing I saw before everything went black.