10 Everleigh You Again—Jonah Kagen #2
My gaze stops on the bed. Covers tossed back, an empty shell where my body was curled up. And the ugly patchwork quilt that’s starting to smell like me after the nights I’ve spent cowering under it.
A cocoon.
Snatching it off the bed, fabric bunches in my arms as I haul the large quilt into the en suite bathroom. My hands shake on the bundle, cold shower water attacking my head where I shove the quilt inside to soak it through.
Fabric folds become dead weight in my arms, creating a dripping heap. My only choice is to haphazardly wrap the quilt around me, relying on adrenaline to take the brunt of its sodden weight.
With two deep breaths, I brace to step back out into the hallway. Calm. Just like Sterling taught me.
One. Two. Three. Four.
I have to do this.
One. Two. Three. Four.
That final clean breath is expunged in a whoosh when fiery walls climb high around me. The tavern’s hallway is alight, writhing with flames and smoke, a dance of destruction spitting fury in all directions.
Holding the soaked quilt edge to cover my mouth and nose offers some relief. The heat is unbearable. Odd spatters of water pour from a collection of sprinklers, but it barely impacts the fire devouring my route to safety.
Each terrified step beckons me deeper into a pit of hell. Squinting through streaming tears, I can see enough to know the fire is crawling up the walls and ceiling, latching on to anything flammable to spread farther.
It captures the edges of the quilt and creates a low smoulder. My lifeline won’t survive for long. Already water is turning into steaming-hot vapours that scald my skin. All I can do is grit my teeth against the pain.
The journey to reach downstairs seems to stretch on endlessly, each step slowed to a hesitant crawl through magma. With breathing impossible, I focus on Sterling’s cool, calm voice reciting instructions in my head.
One. Two. Three. Four.
My tiny pants serve to smoke out what remains of my clear airways. An aggressive cough almost knocks me off my feet and down the stairs, the force of it causing my bones to quake.
Move, Ever.
One. Two. Three. Four.
By the time I’ve reached the ground floor, razor blades have set up home in my chest cavity. Internal lava spreads and melts. The fire is worse down here, covering every surface, destroying furniture, mirrors, and decor alike.
Burning fuel chokes my blood oxygen, making even panting impossible. The entire floor reeks of it. Shoulders hunched, I scrub tears from my eyes, then crouch to escape the heat and smoke, keeping the quilt pulled over my head.
Shattered glass slices into my bare hands where it litters the carpet. But the stabs fail to match the agony in my lungs. All I can do is crawl towards the rear exit, panting as little as possible without passing out altogether.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Black smoke metastasises to obscure my path to safety. I can’t see a single inch in front of me. Sobbing, the pain from my smouldering cocoon and limbs being chewed by debris keeps me anchored in consciousness when all I want to do is curl up.
Then something ruptures and shatters above me, creating fatal daggers that tear through the smoke. A slash across my cheekbone makes me cry out. I duck my head, feeling blindly through the pub’s corridor.
I can’t do this.
I’m not strong enough.
Lord knows, I want to be. If I were brave, life might not have assigned me this final tragedy. The hapless victim snuffed out before she could start to make something of herself. So close to freedom . . . but still so far.
Christopher will revel in this; his secrets going up in flames along with the woman he could never quite sculpt into his perfect specimen. He’ll soak up the sympathy, a social vampire feeding on my demise and using it to climb higher up the ladder.
This is his victory dance.
Again, I’ve failed.
The weight of the world bears down on me. Every moment I’ve wasted pretending to be someone I’m not. A life spent kowtowing to that monster and his abuse. Eden might not be real . . . but she’s the realest person I’ve ever allowed myself to be.
She’s who I want to be.
My strength fades fast, but I will myself to crawl onwards in a feat of desperation. The smoke is an oppressive force, snuffing out oxygen and replacing it with noxious ash. Without a full breath, my energy wanes.
When the last of my will drains away, I hunch into myself. My oxygen-starved brain notes the sound of shouting and sirens in a vague, detached sense. Illusionary. A cruel hallucination that only serves to twist the knife.
More crashing.
The frantic thud of footsteps.
Roaring, ravenous flames.
Feeling movement around me, the world starts to slip away. Someone’s hands on me can’t be real. It’s another taunt. The desperate act of a dying brain. But the agony of being jostled—that’s real. Excruciatingly so.
My own cries echo in my eardrums. Something strong closes around me. Jaws of death carved from sweat-slicked muscle. But . . . no. That can’t be right. Hell wouldn’t send an avenging angel to lift me from this lair.
Fingers prise the smouldering duvet from over me. I squint through bleary vision, a halo of almighty flames framing the face not of an angel . . . but something far more sinister.
“N-N-No,” my raw voice chokes out.
If I had the strength to move, I’d tear free from Christopher’s arms braced around me. He’s pristine, almost sparkling, an ethereal light glowing from hair so pale it resembles crisp snowfall.
“Everleigh.” His lips curve around my name. “I missed you.”
Please . . . no . . .
Only evil could hide behind perceptive midnight flecks that radiate empathy and professional warmth for the rest of the world. He fooled them all so expertly.
“Here to save you from yourself, dear wife. Again.”
Pain tears through me as I’m lifted from the smoking carpet and cradled tight. Cassidy’s pub has been swallowed whole by the blaze, encapsulating us in a towering ring of fire.
Curled against Christopher’s chest, the world narrows. My line of sight sizzles and contracts until darkness takes charge. The smoke grows thicker, and soon, nothing but ash remains.
Then, nothing.
A wondrous abyss where pain ceases to exist.
It’s the kind of numb haze my blessed sedatives used to provide. I kept a stash hidden in my wardrobe. It cost a pretty penny to get the prescription filled off the books. I know Christopher used his credentials to monitor my medical records, so I had to be careful.
On the nights I could no longer tolerate his bullying or constant hatred, I popped two little white pills and let myself float. The void became my sole retreat from the misery of being his wife. It gave me freedom. Control.
Then the drugs wore off.
And I’d resort to seeking pain instead of numbing it.
An icy needle pierces the blackness, shedding the first beams of light into my mental prison cell. With it comes voices—loud, high-pitched voices. Barking orders. Questions hurled like bullets and invocations of raw fear.
“Ms. Coles? Eden?”
When something wrenches my eyelid open, I hear myself rasp a cry. Bright light scorches my eyeball. One. Then the other. The after-image fills my retinas until the blur clears long enough to see what appears to be a paramedic braced over me.
“Eden? Can you hear me?”
Mouth full of smoke, I couldn’t confirm if I tried.
“It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
My bones ache like the collapsing ruins of Cassidy’s pub. I can just see it aglow with smoking embers behind the paramedic. Old beams and hunks of wood crumble to ash, removing any evidence of the place I’ve temporarily called home.
We’re stationed at a safe enough distance, but the raging fire still pumps heat and smoke. It clings to every inch of my skin. I don’t want to look down at myself. The relentless, ebbing pain reveals enough of my injuries.
“Breathe for me, Eden. Nice and deep now.”
A clear mask is positioned over my face. The flowing oxygen tastes like blood and soot, causing the searing in my chest to kick up a notch.
“You’re going to be okay, ma’am.”
Voices crow all around me. Attempting to move my head feels like shifting a lead weight, but I search for the monster who pulled me from that wreckage.
I hope he’s dead.
“Remain still, Eden. The firefighters are doing their job. No one else was hurt, and your friend is receiving treatment with my colleague.”
Two careful hands press on my shoulders, easing me back onto the ambulance bed. I ignore the paramedic tutting in disapproval and continue searching, already cooking up a plan to flee even if I have to carry my scorched limbs one at a time. I won’t give Christopher the chance to take me.
There.
Wait a minute . . .
A smoke-stained figure rests in the rear of another ambulance. Shoulders hunched. Fellow oxygen mask in place. He’s hardly recognisable through thick black ash, fresh blood, and multiple bustling paramedics fussing around him.
Relief and shock would bowl me over if I wasn’t already splayed out, arms and legs unresponsive. My mind audibly frays with a mental snap. It isn’t Christopher who pulled me out. He . . . was never here.
It was a mirage.
Instead of malice-filled midnight orbs, two glassy icicles the hue of thawing permafrost refuse to leave me. His face is covered in crimson, pouring profusely from a slice in his forehead, soaking into shaved hair and old burn scars on clear display to the medics.
Fletcher.
He saved my life.