Chapter 46
Tad
Ten Years Ago
Debris falls all around me as my oxygen alarm rings out into the quickly dwindling space. Thick black smoke cloaks my face and robs me of my sense of direction, and a heat unlike I’ve ever felt licks at me from every bearing.
Water sprays on me in waves, droplets splattering across my mask through the cloud of smoke and rendering me even more useless.
A sooty paste coats the clear surface, smearing badly when I try to rub at it with my glove.
I swallow, choking on an airlessness as the tank strapped to my back depletes, but I won’t be deterred.
I rip off the mask and toss it aside, sinking to the floor to find any bit of clean air I can.
Hands pull at my legs as I try to crawl forward, and my lungs get heavier and heavier by the millisecond.
I hold my breath, but after a minute or two of very slow progress forward, the edges of my consciousness start to fade.
My brain feels thick, my decision-making officially gone.
I collapse to the floor, using every vestige of control I have left to submit myself to God himself.
I’m not going to make it. Abigail, Lucy, me—none of us are going to make it out alive.
I hug the floor, memories of Abigail and Lucy and me at the kitchen table over the weekend filtering into my sluggish mind. I see Abby’s smile and hear Lucy’s laugh and feel the warmth of their hugs as they pile into my lap and rain kisses all over my face.
My skin tingles, and my heart slows.
And then, in one peaceful moment, it’s all over.
…
“Tad!”
A voice slams through the ringing in my ears as a strip of white light cuts across my eyes. I flinch, coughing hard enough to split my ribs open, air tearing down my throat like glass while someone tugs and stabs at my arm, dragging me back into full, panicked consciousness.
“Abby!” I yell, shoving at the person at my arm and struggling to sit up.
“Easy, Tad. Easy.”
My head turns toward the voice, and through the blur, I see Randy. His helmet is off, his face is soot-streaked, and his eyes are bloodshot and wet. His turnout gear is half unbuckled, the reflective tape warped and blackened.
“Take a deep breath, Tad.” His eyes meet mine, blocking the light in severe shadow. His hand puts weight on my shoulder, pinning me down.
“Abby—” My voice breaks. I grab desperately at his arms. “Where’s Abby? Where’s Lucy?”
My cry is broken. My questions, statements.
I know where they are. I know.
And he doesn’t answer. His mouth opens, closes, but he can’t look me in the eye because he fucking knows too.
“It’s okay, brother,” he whispers, his voice clogged with emotion. “It’s going to be okay.”
The ambulance rocks beneath us, siren wailing into the air.
Oxygen hisses from the mask hovering near my face, and the sharp scent of antiseptic cuts through the smoke still clinging to my skin.
A paramedic leans over me, latex gloves squeaking against my arm as they reach for the IV, but I shove them away.
“Where are they, Randy?” I demand, louder now and a sob strangling my lungs. “Where are they?”
I want him to say it. I want him to tell me what I already know to be true. But fuck, I want him to tell a different fucking version. I want him to tell me a fucking miracle occurred. I want him to tell me that Abby and Lucy made it out.
But he doesn’t. Because he can’t. Because he fucking can’t.
Because everything that was important to me—everything I loved and cared about, my entire fucking world—is gone.
“No. No. No.” I shake my head, a violent yell breaking free from a hell within me I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. “Nooo!”
“It’s okay,” Randy says again, his words a hollow, deceitful weep of his own. “It’s gonna be okay.”
It’s not going to be okay. It’s never going to be okay. We both know it.
Because Abigail and Lucy are gone. But because of my brother, I’m still here.
I should be with them. The three of us should be together.
“Nooo!” I cry again, fighting their holds with the intent of jumping out of this fucking ambulance and running straight back into the fire and letting it take me. Randy pins me again, and I just catch his nod to the paramedic at my side before it all goes black again.
A temporary peace from a permanent kind of pain—one I’ll never recover from.