Chapter 7
HARPER
Iwas choking on air.
For a single, confused moment, I thought I was still dreaming. That thick, acrid smell that made my nose burn and my throat close couldn't be real. It had to be part of the nightmare I'd been having about drowning and darkness and invisible hands pulling me under.
Then I coughed.
Once, then again, my lungs protested trying to pull in clean air that wouldn't come. My throat burned like I'd swallowed razor blades and my eyes stung even though they were closed, tears forming automatically against the irritation.
Smoke.
My eyes flew open.
The bedroom was hazy. Thin wisps of gray drifted across the ceiling, illuminated by the streetlight filtering through my curtains. Not thick enough to be terrifying yet, but enough to be wrong.
Very, very wrong.
I sat up, my heart starting to race, adrenaline flooding my system even before my conscious mind had fully processed what was happening. The air tasted wrong. Felt wrong. Too hot, too thick, too acrid.
My bedroom door was closed, a habit from childhood that might have just saved my life. I threw back the covers, the air was no longer cold, and it hit my bare arms, raising goosebumps as I stumbled to the door on legs that didn’t want to operate correctly.
I pressed my palm flat against the wood to check for heat like I'd learned in some long-ago fire safety class during elementary school.
Check the door for heat before opening it. If it's hot, find another way out.
Warm. Not hot, but warm. Warmer than it should be, heat seeping through the wood against my palm.
Oh god.
I grabbed my phone from the nightstand with my free hand and yanked open the bedroom door.
Heat and smoke hit me like a physical wall, blasting against my face so abruptly that I stumbled back a step. My lungs seized, refusing to draw in the poisonous air.
My living room was engulfed.
Flames crawled up the far wall where my small thrift-store couch sat, orange and yellow and horrifyingly bright in the darkness.
The fire was already consuming the coffee table, the curtains I'd hung myself, spreading across the ceiling in a way that didn't make sense, that looked wrong, that moved too fast for a normal fire.
The smoke was thick and black here, rolling toward me in waves. I couldn't see more than a few feet in front of me, couldn't see the front door through the wall of gray and black that filled my apartment.
My apartment is on fire.
For one long moment, I froze. Pure terror locking my muscles, my brain screaming that this couldn't be happening, that I needed to do something, but I didn't know what. The heat was intensifying, causing sweat to break out across my skin.
Why isn't the smoke alarm going off?
I looked up at the ceiling through the haze and saw it. The smoke detector was hanging uselessly from its mount, the plastic cover dangling open like a broken jaw.
Silent. It should be screaming. The entire building should be screaming but I didn’t have time to think about that. I needed to move, to get out.
The front door was across the living room, past the fire.
I couldn't go that way. The flames were already too high and too hot, blocking any path through.
But there was a window in my bedroom. I was on the second floor, but there was a roof over the first-floor entrance below it. If I could get to it—
Another cough wracked my body, this one painful enough to double me over. I realized I was breathing in smoke with every breath, my lungs burning with each inhale. I needed to get low, needed to—
The window. Go. Now.
I slammed the bedroom door shut to buy myself seconds, and ran to the window on legs that felt disconnected from my body, clumsy with panic and lack of oxygen.
My fingers fumbled with the lock. It was old and painted over multiple times by landlords or tenants who didn't care and stuck from years of disuse. I hadn't opened this window since I'd moved in two years ago because of it and I'd never bothered forcing it.
The smoke started to seep under the door already, curling across my floor in gray tendrils. I could hear crackling from the living room. Loud. Getting louder. The fire was spreading too fast, eating through my apartment like it was hungry.
Come on, come on, open.
The lock finally gave with a screech of metal on metal that hurt my ears. I shoved the window open with all my strength, and cold February air rushed in like salvation. Beautiful and clean and shocking after the heat and smoke that had been choking me.
I stuck my head out, gasping, my lungs grateful for oxygen that didn't burn going down. My throat was raw, my chest aching, but the cold air felt like the most wonderful thing I'd ever experienced.
Below me, maybe six feet down, was the slanted roof over the first-floor entrance. And below that, another eight feet to the grass next to the sidewalk.
I could do this. I had to do this.
I climbed onto the windowsill, my bare feet recoiling against the icy metal of the window frame as I lowered myself down along the outside wall, hanging on by the frame.
I could hear the fire getting closer, feel the temperature rising as flames ate through the door.
Sweat ran down my back despite the freezing air hitting me from behind.
I looked down at the roof below gauging the distance.
Probably three feet now between the roof and my feet as I hung here.
All I had to do was drop down onto it, I could do that.
People fell from this kind of height all the time if they rode horses, I’d seen Connor before and he jumped right back up.
I let go.
The impact with the roof knocked the air from my lungs in a painful whoosh that left me gasping.
My ankles screamed in protest, sharp pain shooting up my shins.
My hands scraped against rough shingles as I tried to catch myself, skin tearing, the rough tar embedding in my palms. But nothing felt broken. Nothing was stopping me from moving.
I scrambled to my feet on the slanted surface, coughing, my whole body shaking from adrenaline, cold and terror that was threatening to overwhelm me completely.
And then I looked back at my apartment window.
Smoke was pouring out now. Thick and black, billowing into the night sky like some kind of dark signal. Orange light flickered from inside, brighter now, angrier, illuminating the smoke from within.
I moved to the edge of the roof on shaking legs and looked down at the ground. Eight feet, not terrible. I could—
Behind me, glass shattered with a sound like the world breaking apart.
I flinched, crying out as I spun around to see flames bursting through my bedroom window, reaching toward the sky like grasping fingers. The curtains were burning, the frame was burning, and I could see fire spreading up towards the roof.
Move now.
I sat on the edge, my legs dangled over open air and my heart was pounding so hard I thought it might break my ribs. The ground suddenly looked very far away.
I mimicked what I did before and found purchase on the edge of the roof and grabbed it so that I could dangle myself down until I let go.
The landing was harder this time. My knees buckled on impact and pain shot up my legs as I fell forward onto my hands and knees. My palms scraped against concrete, adding new pain to the cuts from the shingles. The cold of the sidewalk bit through my thin pajama pants.
But I was down. I was on the ground.
I was safe. Relatively.
I stumbled away from the building on bare feet that screamed in protest against the freezing concrete, putting distance between me and the flames. Ten feet. Twenty. Thirty. My feet were already going numb, sharp pebbles and debris cutting into the soles with each step.
Only then did I let myself look back.
The whole building was burning. My second-floor unit was the worst, flames crawling out through multiple windows now, but the fire was spreading to the other apartments.
I could see lights turning on in the units that weren't engulfed yet and hear shouting, confused and panicked.
People started stumbling outside in pajamas and bare feet just like me.
Mrs. Rhode from the first floor, her white hair wild around her face, clutched a photo album to her chest. The college students from the unit next to mine carried a cat carrier with a cat yowling inside.
Mr. Hansen from the ground floor corner unit helped his wife down the front steps, both of them moving slowly, too slowly.
My hands were shaking as I pulled out my phone. Miracle of miracles, it had survived both jumps. The screen had a new crack added to the corner of it, but it still worked as I swiped my thumb across it and dialed 911 with trembling hands.
“911, what's your emergency?”
“Fire.” My voice came out hoarse, raw from smoke and fear. “There's a fire. My apartment building at—” I rattled off the address, the numbers coming automatically even though my brain felt sluggish “Multiple units. Everyone's getting out but it's spreading fast.”
“The fire department is on the way, ma'am. Are you in a safe location?”
“Yes. I'm outside. I'm—” I looked down at myself. Pajamas. Bare feet on the cold concrete, already going numb, bleeding from small cuts. No jacket. No shoes. Nothing but my phone and the clothes I'd been sleeping in. “I'm outside.”
“Good. Stay on the line with me, help is coming. Can you tell me if everyone got out of the building?”
I looked around, counting heads through the smoke and darkness and the tears that were starting to blur my vision. “I think so. I see at least six people. I don't know how many units were occupied—”
“That's okay. The fire department will do a sweep when they arrive. Are you injured?”
“No. I'm…I'm fine.”
Liar.
What did it matter? My feet were bleeding and my hands were scraped raw and my lungs burned and my throat felt like I'd swallowed broken glass. But I was alive. That had to count for something.