Chapter 7 #2
I could already hear sirens in the distance, getting closer, their wail cutting through the night.
The other residents gathered on the sidewalk across the street, watching the building burn.
Mrs. Rhode was crying, her hands covered her mouth as her shoulders shook.
The college students looked stunned, wrapped in blankets someone had brought out from somewhere, their faces pale with shock.
Mr. Hansen had his arm around his wife, both of them stared at the flames with expressions of disbelief.
I stood apart from them, hugging myself against the cold that was starting to penetrate through the shock and adrenaline. My feet were numb now and my hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold my phone. The thin t-shirt and flannel pants offered no protection against the February night.
The fire trucks arrived in a blur of red lights and noise and organized chaos. Three trucks, maybe four, I couldn't count through the tears and smoke. Firefighters swarmed the building in their heavy gear, attaching hoses to hydrants, shouting instructions to each other over the roar of the fire.
A paramedic in navy blue appeared at my side, seeming to materialize out of nowhere. She wrapped a metallic emergency blanket around my shoulders, the kind that crinkled when you moved and reflected body heat back onto you.
“Ma'am, you need to come with me. We need to check you for smoke inhalation—”
“I'm fine.” The words were automatic, defensive. “I'm not hurt.”
“Ma'am, you were in a burning building. Protocol requires that you be evaluated—”
“I said I'm fine.” I pulled the blanket tighter and moved away, my feet protesting every step, back to my spot on the sidewalk where I could see the building.
Where I could watch everything I owned burn to ash.
I pulled out my phone again, my fingers so numb now I could barely work the cracked screen. I called Anna without thinking about the time, without caring that it was after two in the morning. She was the one person I knew I could rely on right now.
She answered on the second ring, her voice thick with sleep and confusion. “Harper? Harper, what's wrong? Are you okay?”
“Anna.” My voice cracked, and suddenly I was crying, the tears hot against my cold cheeks. “My apartment’s on fire. Everything—it's all gone.”
“What? Where are you? Are you hurt?” I could hear rustling, the sound of her moving, urgency replacing the sleepiness in her voice.
“I'm okay. I'm outside. The fire department is here.” I couldn't stop shaking. Cold or shock, I wasn't sure which. Probably both. “Anna, everything I had was in there. Everything.”
“I'm coming.” Her voice was fierce now, protective in that way that I had never heard coming from her. “Stay where you are. I'm getting Jaxon and we're coming right now.”
“It's after two in the morning—”
“I don't care. We're coming.” I heard Anna's muffled voice talking to Jaxon, urgent and quick, his deeper voice responding. “And Harper? I'm calling Connor.”
“No, I'm fine, he doesn't need to—”
“Harper, stop. He'd want to know. He'd be furious if we didn't tell him.” More muffled voices, the sound of movement. “We'll be there in forty minutes. Just hold on, okay? We're coming.”
She hung up before I could argue.
I stood on the sidewalk, wrapped in my crinkly emergency blanket, watching firefighters battle the blaze that had been my home. Watching smoke and flame destroy the last shreds of my independence. Watching my already precarious life collapse completely.
This can't be real. This has to be a nightmare.
However, the cold concrete under my bare feet was real. The smell of smoke and burning wood that clung to my hair and skin was real. The tears streaming down my face were real.
This was actually happening.
Anna and Jaxon arrived forty-three minutes later, I watched the time tick by on my cracked phone screen, counting each minute like it mattered. Like focusing on numbers could keep me from completely falling apart.
Anna was in sweatpants and one of Jaxon's hoodies that swallowed her small frame. Her blonde hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, and she had no makeup on. I hadn't seen her look this disheveled since Daniel had attacked her and Jaxon at the ranch.
She took one look at me and pulled me into a fierce hug that made me gasp.
“Oh my god, Harper. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I'm fine. I'm—” My voice cracked. The dam I'd been holding back broke completely. “Everything's gone, Anna.”
“I know, Harper, I know. But you're alive. That's what matters.” She pulled back to look at my face, her hands on my shoulders, her blue eyes searching mine with an intensity that said she was cataloging every injury. “Come here. Sit down before you fall down.”
She guided me to the back of an ambulance where the paramedic from earlier had given up trying to get me inside and just left the doors open. I sank onto the cold metal floor, my legs giving out with relief at not having to hold me up anymore.
My ankles throbbed where I'd landed on the roof.
Now that the adrenaline was fading, I could feel a dozen other aches and pains making themselves known.
My throat burned from the smoke, my hands were scraped raw from scrambling across shingles, and blood dried and crusted around the cuts.
My feet were so cold they'd gone past pain into numbness.
Jaxon appeared with another blanket from his Jeep. A thick fleece that smelled like coffee and something outdoorsy. He wrapped it around me over the emergency blanket with gentle hands.
“The fire marshal is going to want to talk to you.” His voice was gentle, careful, like he was talking to a spooked animal. “You feel up to that?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but headlights appeared down the street before I could. A truck, driving fast. Too fast for the residential street, the engine roaring.
Connor's truck.
He pulled up near the fire trucks with a screech of brakes, barely throwing it in park before he was out. His eyes scanned the crowd of residents and emergency workers until they found me.
Then he was moving. Crossing the distance in long strides, his expression was a mixture of relief, fury and fear that I'd never seen on his face before.
“Harper.”
He pulled me off the ambulance floor and into his arms before I could speak, before I could process that he was here. He held me so tight I could barely breathe, his arms like iron bands around me. I felt him shaking. Or maybe that was me.
Maybe it was both of us.
“You're okay.” His voice was rough against my hair, breaking on the words. “You're okay. Thank God you're okay.”
I pressed my face into his chest and finally let myself completely fall apart.