Chapter Twenty-Four #3
“She did the right thing. I mean...” I run my hand over my face and through my beard. “Damn it, I mean, she did more than just the right thing. She, she,” I stutter. “God, I’m an idiot.”
“Yup,” both Rory and Callie say in unison, popping the ‘p,’ and somehow it feels like a slap to the back of the head.
I’m a big man, but right now I feel less than two feet tall. The kind of smallness that comes from realizing I’ve been the dumbest person in the room the entire time. I scrub at my beard again, the regret over everything I’ve said to her choking me. I should have trusted her.
I sit down with my head in my hands, trying to figure out how I’m going to make this right, how to not only tell her but also show her how proud I am of her and that she’s mine. I’m beating myself up about everything when Ainsley’s startled gasp grabs my attention.
“Where’s that smoke coming from?” She points out the window and up toward the mountain where Tris and I live.
We all rush to the window. As soon as I see the dark, angry smoke rising through the peaks of the trees, my breath catches, and fear fills me to my core, but I don’t let it stop me.
Before my brain can catch up, I make a break straight out the door and for my truck.
The sound of footsteps follows behind me, and by the time I’ve got the engine started, Tom is in the passenger seat, already calling it in on his phone.
My hands tremble as I floor the truck up the driveway, images of what could be flashing through my mind.
“I need everyone, fire department, ambulance, send them to Captain Levi King’s home, now...” Tom rattles off information but pauses before looking at me. “I don’t know...” he breathes, his voice trembling slightly as he looks at me with eyes haunted by fear and the tragedy of my past.
I barely have the truck in park before I’m jumping out of it, ready to run straight into danger.
Ellie nearly knocks me over as her front paws collide with me.
She’s barking and yelping, as panicked as the rest of us.
Tris’s door is wide open, but she’s nowhere to be found.
Through the thick smoke, I can barely see that my door, the one that was closed when I left, is now wide open.
I look down at Ellie, and it all comes together.
She went in for Ellie.
She saved her.
Angry flames devour my side of the duplex, climbing hungrily as it grows. The fire roars loudly while the sounds of popping echo through the air, and the flames become stronger.
“Levi!” Tom’s hand clamps around my arm, stopping me. “You need to wait for help to arrive.”
His eyes are begging for me to listen, but I can tell he already knows that I won’t by the desperation behind them and the way that he’s still holding onto me for dear life.
“Tris!” Rory’s gut-wrenching scream cuts loudly over the hiss of the flames as she runs out of Ainsley’s car and drops to her knees.
I yank my arm from Tom and grab what I have of my firefighter gear from the back of the truck. It’s only my turnout pants and coat, but I’m not waiting one more second.
Tom tries to stop me again, but I swing around, grabbing him by the shoulders.
“I’m not losing her,” I shout, shaking him.
He must see the resolve in my eyes because he lets go.
I have to save her.
I can’t fail.
Not again.
With every step toward the house, the temperature rises until it’s nearly unbearable, but I don’t stop. I can’t. My heart is pounding, but I push my fear down, relying on instinct to propel me forward. I’m not afraid of the fire. I never have been. But the thought of losing her...
God, please let her be okay.
“Tris!” I yell, hoping she can hear me through the thundering flames, my heart sinking the longer I don’t hear an answer. “Tris!”
The porch steps are still stable, but it won’t be long until the fire spreads to them, too, if help doesn’t arrive soon. As I reach the door, a window pops, sending glass flying in my direction that I barely block, and the sound of a scream through the air.
“Tris?!” I yell, my heart clenching.
“Levi?” Her voice comes from somewhere inside. “Levi! I’m in here! I can’t—” her voice is cut off by a cough.
Fuck this.
I run straight into the fire and through the front door. Smoke fills the room, but I see her.
“Levi!” She coughs.
“I’m here, baby. I got you,” I tell her, assessing the scene.
Debris from the ceiling has fallen on top of her, pinning her in place.
I quickly move each piece with trembling hands, hoping, begging, praying that once the last of it is gone, she will be okay.
There’s a bump on the top of her forehead and a small cut that’s bleeding, but nothing appears fatal.
Pieces of debris and ashes are in her hair, and she appears disoriented, but I focus on moving every big piece until it’s safe to move her.
The ceiling continues to collapse around us, reminding me that we’re running out of time.
The sound of Christmas lights popping like popcorn kernels fills the air like a dark twisted joke, mocking me for ever believing we could be happy.
Windows continue to blow out as the heat rises, but I keep lifting off pieces, determined to get us both out of here alive.
Finally, I pull off the last piece from her and breathe a sigh of relief when underneath, there’s no visible injury.
“I love you so much,” she says, her voice coming out in short, uneven breaths from the smoke inhalation.
“I love you, baby,” I say, the echoes of my past threatening to paralyze me with the fear of losing her. “I’m getting us out of here.”
I lift her in my arms and head back toward the door as the flames reach closer and her coughs grow more incessant.
Hope begins to fill me as I step with her out the door until our weight sends us through the boards of the porch.
We fall through until my legs hit the ground, trapping me between the boards with no leverage to get out.
Tris remains lifted in my arms but too weak to help herself, leaving us both helpless as the flames grow closer.
“Levi,” she coughs, her eyes glassy as she looks into mine.
Before I can yell, bodies come charging toward us through the smoke. Chief, Billy, and Mark, fully geared up, move quickly as Angela, Maria, and the rest of the Turtle Bay Fire Department battle the flames.
“I got her,” Chief says, like he knows that nothing else matters to me but her.
“Save her! She needs oxygen. Check her throat,” I yell as he lifts her from me and takes her toward the flashing red lights of the ambulance.
Every possibility, everything that can still go wrong runs through my mind, making it hard to focus, but the relief that floods me as he takes her away from the fire, away from danger, makes me dizzy.
“Levi,” Billy yells. “Focus, man. We gotta get you out. Jump on three!”
“One.” Billy tucks his arm under my armpit.
“Two.” Mark does the same.
“Three.” I jump.
The guys pull me through the broken boards and help get me to safety. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I’m running toward Tris, who’s already hooked up to oxygen and on a stretcher being pulled into the back of the ambulance.
“Levi!” Chiefs voice calls out, demanding and full of power, unlike I’ve ever heard from him before, causing me to pause. “Oxygen!”
I nod.
“Tom!” I yell, searching for him.
“I got it, go!” he shouts, already behind the wheel of my truck with Ellie in the passenger seat.
I make a beeline for the ambulance, hopping in right before the EMT swings the door shut and we take off for the hospital. She checks me quickly, shining a light down my throat for soot or inflammation before clearing me and handing me my own oxygen mask.
Outside, the sirens wail, but here the sound is muffled. My heart is hammering in my ears. It’s almost too much, but the panic that used to swallow me is held at bay by my need to be strong for Tris, to stay present with her and not let my own feelings take over.
I reach for Tris’s hand, and her eyes blink open, slowly adjusting to the light.
“Levi?” Her voice is weak, but according to the vital signs monitor, her heart rate is strong, and her oxygen levels are rising.
“Levi?”
“We’re almost to the hospital, you’ll be okay.”
“Ellie?!” she gasps, trying to sit up, and I finally lose it.
My chest feels like it’s cracked wide open, and I choke on a sob. Tears stream down my face, and I lean my forehead against her stomach, tightening my grip on her hand.
“I’m so sorry,” she cries. “I tried to save her. She wouldn’t come out. I had to go in and grab her. I thought—”
“Ellie is fine,” I cut her off.
She searches my face, confused.
“Tris, I almost lost you.” Silent tears continue to fall from my eyes like a faucet that has no idea how to turn off, but I don’t care.
She’s alive.
A small smile slowly forms on her lips. “That will never happen. Besides,” she pauses, lifting her hand to my face, “I knew you’d save me.”
I remove my oxygen mask temporarily to kiss her hand before putting it back on.
“I’m sorry you lost your home,” she says softly as the ambulance parks at the hospital.
I blink at her a few times before a laugh bubbles out of me.
“What’s so funny?” she asks, rolling her eyes in such typical Tris fashion that it only makes my smile grow wider.
“Baby,” I say, removing my oxygen mask and putting it down beside me. “You are my home.”
Her eyes grow glassy as she blinks up at me, nodding.
“I’m sorry it took a whole fire for you to realize that, but,” I grin, raising a brow, “I’m not surprised that’s what it takes to render you speechless.”
She gasps, her eyebrows dipping before laughter cracks into coughing.
Her gaze locks on mine, raw and unfiltered, full of trust that squeezes that organ in my chest that fully belongs to her.
“You’ll be okay,” I whisper, and for a moment, the world outside the ambulance doesn’t exist.
It’s only her and me.
My home, and my redemption.