Pain screamed through me and the feeling of the carpet against my cheek disappeared. My first thought was to struggle, but my body couldn’t obey my mind. I felt movement, I felt the solidness of someone’s chest, and I could have sworn I heard the sound of a man’s voice.
“Hang on,” he said.
The shattering of glass and the splintering of wood didn’t wake me from the fog that settled over my brain. The scream of pain at my back, the extreme burning and melting that made a cry rip from my throat still wasn’t enough to get my eyes to open.
And then I could hear the piercing wail of sirens, the faraway shouts of men, and the muffled yell of one who was much closer.
I really thought heaven would be more peaceful.
And then I was sailing through the air, the solid wall of whatever held me ripped away. I plunged downward, and with a great slap, I hit water, the icy cold droplets a major shock to my overheated system.
My eyes sprang wide; water invaded them as I tried to make sense of what was happening. I thought I was burning. But now I was… drowning.
The water was dark and it pulled me lower and lower into its depths. I looked up. The surface rippled and glowed orange. I almost died up there. But I would die down here now.
I wanted to swim. My arms, they hurt so badly, but they wanted to push upward, to help me break the surface toward the oxygen my body so desperately needed.
But I was still tied to a chair.
The chair hit the ground—a solid, cold surface—as my hair floated out around me and bubbles discharged from my nose and mouth.
It wasn’t hot here.
It wasn’t loud, but eerily quiet.
It was a different kind of death, but death all the same.
The ripples in the water grew and the chair began to rock. I heard the plunge of something else coming into the water and I looked up. Through the strands of my wayward hair, I saw him again. My hero. His powerful arms pushed through the water in three great stokes. He reached out and grabbed me beneath the shoulder, towing me upward toward the bright surface.
When my head cleared the water, my lungs automatically sucked in blissful air. It hurt so bad, but it was the kind of pain I had to endure. Another cough racked my body, and as I wheezed, the man towing me and my chair through the water said, “Keep breathing. Just keep breathing.”
And then I was being lifted from the water, the chair placed on the cement as I coughed and wheezed and greedily sucked in air.
“Ma’am,” someone was saying. “Ma’am, can you hear me? Are you all right?”
I looked up, blinking the water out of my eyes, but my vision was still blurry. I tried to speak, but all I could manage was another cough.
The ropes around my wrists were tugged, and I cried out. The pain was so intense that I thought I would pass out right there.
“Stay with me,” a calm voice said from behind. It was the same voice that instructed me to keep breathing.
When my arms were free, I sagged forward. The pain splintering through me was too much to bear. And then there were hands at my ankles; I heard the knife against the rope. When I was completely untied, my body fell forward, sliding off the chair and toward the ground.
But he was there.
I slid right into his arms, my body completely boneless.
A low curse slipped from his lips as he yelled for a medic. Yeah, a medic. That seemed like a good idea. I hurt. I hurt all over.
I cried out when he shifted me in his arms, bringing me closer to his chest. I pressed my face against him. He was wet, but his clothes were scratchy against my cheek. I tried to look at him; I opened my eyes and tilted back my head. I caught a flash of dark hair and light eyes, but then my vision faded out, pain took over, and I passed out.
2
The problem with passing out is that upon awakening, you had to face the pain of whatever caused you to pass out in the first place all over again. Okay, so the pain wasn’t as bad as it was before, and I figured that was in large part due to the IV sticking out of the back of my hand. I wish they had a pain pill for that because IVs hurt.
I blinked, trying to focus and look around the room. I was in a private room, which was nice. The walls were sterile white; there was a curtain pushed open around the bed and a TV mounted to the wall. The blankets that covered me to my waist were no nonsense and kind of scratchy. Not at all like my pillows and bedding at home.
Home.
The thought brought up a surge of panic. I looked down at my wrists, which were wrapped in layers of white gauze that wound down around the base of my thumbs and then back up again.
Burned.
I was burned.
Images from what happened assaulted me. The match, the fire, the fear. I shifted, wanting to get away from the memories, and a lock of hair slid onto my cheek. It smelled like smoke.
The memory of almost choking to death on smoke made a sound tear from the back of my throat. The monitor off to my right began to beep, and I looked up, the sound helping a little to bring me back to reality.
I was safe.
There was no fire here.
There was no man standing in the shadows with a match.
The door to my room opened and a nurse bustled in. She smiled when she saw me looking at her. “Ah, you’re awake. I’ll get the doctor.” She pressed a couple buttons on the monitor, and the rapid beeping stopped; then she hurried from the room.
There was a dull ache in my shoulder and my skin felt tight everywhere, like it got wet and I was thrown in the dryer, which caused it to shrink around my body. I glanced down at the bandages around my wrists again and wondered how good the drugs they had me on were. As in, how bad was this going to hurt later when I wasn’t taking as much medicine?
I glanced at the water pitcher next to the bed, wondering if there was any water in it. My throat felt so dry, like I hadn’t had any water in days… How long had I been lying here?
I stretched out my arm, reaching for the pitcher, but I didn’t make it very far because every single muscle in my arm and back groaned in protest. But instead of flopping my arm back down, I sat frozen, staring at the red burn on my right hand. The skin was completely crimson, like I stuck my hand out a window and let it roast an entire day in the hot southern sun.
I got burned in the fire.
My brain seemed to be working extra slow because that was just now becoming clear. The bandages obviously hadn’t been enough of an indicator. And the fact that my wrists were bandaged and my hands were not but were still red… Well, that was very telling. Those burns must be worse.
The door to my room opened again. I glanced up expecting a doctor in a white lab coat, carrying a chart. But it wasn’t a doctor. It wasn’t a kind-faced nurse either.