Torched Promises (Ember Hollow Romance #5)

Prologue

Palmer

Seven Years Ago

The air hurt. A stinging, acrid smell invaded my dreams until it wrapped around my throat and choked me.

My eyes flew open, and watered almost immediately. Something was wrong.

Everything was wrong.

It was hard to orient myself, to think through the pain of my surroundings attacking me. A muffled wailing pressed against my ears. I turned my head, searching my dorm room for anything to help this all make sense, but tears were already streaking down my face. Everything was dark and foggy.

No, not foggy.

With a jolt of adrenaline, it snapped into place.

I tore off the noise-canceling headphones I’d fallen asleep wearing and winced as the screeching alarm assaulted my senses at full volume.

Fire.

I rolled off my bed onto the floor, grabbing for the sweatshirt I’d discarded there earlier. The heat sank in and sweat prickled, but I slipped on the hoodie anyway, covering what skin I could. There wasn’t time to find pants, though.

My dorm room darkened by the second, the smoke like a storm cloud descending upon the space where I slept. I pulled my sweatshirt up over my mouth, but it did little to keep out the horrible stench of burning chemicals and smoke. I wiped at my eyes, but that didn’t help either.

I glanced toward the only window in the room. The building was old and it didn’t open all the way, but the urge to breathe in a lung full of clean air almost made me crawl over to it.

I decided not to.

I had no idea how long the alarm had been going off, and it was getting hotter by the moment. The smoke grew more dense, even with my door shut. But if I stayed here, I would be trapped.

The stairs.

I needed to get to the stairs. This room was three stories up, and even if I smashed that window open, I wouldn’t be able to get out. The fall would kill me.

My entire body was coated in sweat. My heart rammed the cage of my ribs so hard it hurt. I reached for the half-full bottle of water on my nightstand and poured it over my head. I didn’t know if it would help anything, but I wanted any relief from the burning and radiating heat.

Blinking through the droplets of water clinging to my lashes, I crawled.

The knob was warm when I touched it, but not hot. I paused a beat, glancing back to the window one last time before I gritted my teeth and opened the door.

A rush of heat and smoke poured in, and my lungs spasmed. A fit of coughing hit me, followed by a wave of pure fear.

The stairs. Get to the stairs.

I peered out into the hall, but even low to the ground there was barely any visibility. The smoke was thick and black, smothering out all light and air.

There was no sound but the blaring alarm and the crackling and popping of the fire eating away at the building. But there were no flames—only smoke.

I had no idea where everyone else on the floor had gone. It felt like I was the last person left in the universe as I crawled out of my room.

Though I couldn’t see, I had traveled this hall countless times. I knew by memory where the stairway was. It wasn’t far from my room. At least, it had never seemed far before. But as I crawled, my chest pressed to the floor, it might have been a world away.

The smoke thickened with every inch I managed, and I squeezed my eyes shut. They were worthless anyway. Tears slipped from between my lashes as the floor beneath me grew hotter, too, scalding my skin.

I pulled my sleeves over my hands to protect them, trying to lean most of my weight on my forearms. I couldn’t ruin my hands. If I ruined them, I was basically worthless.

Almost there. I had to be almost there…

My head bumped something solid. I gasped, and then coughed so hard my stomach ached.

I lifted my arm and pressed it to the solid object in front of me.

A wall. I had hit a fucking wall.

I tried to open my eyes, but the smoke was too much. It was like someone had splashed them with alcohol, and I couldn’t see through the darkness anyway.

There shouldn’t be a wall here. I shifted closer to it, but it was burning. Heat rolled from it in waves so intense I had no idea how it wasn’t up in flames. Despite that, I kept my forearm against it, feeling for any sign of the door to the stairwell.

I crawled along the wall. My arm burned, but I couldn’t stop. I had to find the door.

My lungs burned too. Aching for air instead of the toxic cloud forcing itself down my throat.

My knees were on fire. My shorts gave no protection against the scorching floor.

It wasn’t until the first wave of dizziness hit me that I froze.

I had no idea how long I’d been crawling through the hall, but it felt like an age. The wall was still solid at my side, no sign of the door.

My insides were raw as I fought for another breath.

It was too late to go back to my room. Even though I would’ve been trapped, the thought of clean air through that window sounded so much better than this.

I had no idea where I was.

The truth draped itself over me like a heavy blanket of dread.

I couldn’t see. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even breathe. I was pretty sure my skin was burning and there was nothing, nothing I could do about it.

I’d made a mistake.

It was so clear to me now how direly I had messed up.

I slid down, my arms no longer able to support me. The scalding floor greeted me, and I turned on my side, tucking my hands protectively under my armpits even though it was pointless.

There was a good chance I was going to die.

This wasn’t the first time I’d thought about dying, but it was the first time I had no control over it. There was literally nothing I could do.

An unnerving feeling of acceptance trickled over me. Or maybe it was the consciousness slipping away. I wasn’t as scared as I’d thought I’d be.

Maybe it was for the best.

I struggled for another lungful, barely able to inhale through the fumes and the heat.

My mind had started to drift away when I heard it. It was something that I recognized.

Another voice.

I thought it might be in my head at first—my brain misfiring as it shut itself down—but then something touched me.

A hand.

I flinched weakly, a broken sound leaving my throat as pressure closed around my arm. The voice came again, closer this time. It was distorted and muffled, like coming from behind something thick and heavy.

I couldn’t understand the words at first, just the shape of them. Reassurance was threaded through the sound.

My eyelids fluttered open.

Through my tears was a dark, blurry shape looming over me—broad shoulders, a glint of reflective yellow, a face hidden behind a mask that made him look more like a creature than a person.

A firefighter.

The realization cracked through the fog.

Hands slid under me, lifting, and the world tilted. I gasped…a raw, broken sound.

Maybe I wasn’t going to die tonight.

Something tightened around my waist and under my arms and legs—rough fabric, like a strap. I didn’t know what he was doing, only that I was being held together, and gathered up. As if I was being kept from slipping away.

We began to move, low to the ground. He dragged me, his body shielding mine as he pulled me through the smoke. My cheek was pressed against his gear, the sound of his breathing loud and steady beside my ear.

“Hang on for me,” he said.

My vision tunneled, dark creeping in from the edges as the oxygen deprivation finally won. The world felt far away, like I was sinking under something I might not come back from.

“I’m going to keep you safe.”

The words reached me before everything went soft and quiet, and I let myself believe them as the darkness closed in.