Nathan sprints down the street barefoot, in a hoodie and boxers, eyes wide with horror.
Neighbors flood out of their buildings in bathrobes and coats, phones in hand—filming, pointing, covering their mouths.
The firetrucks come racing down the block, lights flashing red and blue, painting the street in panic.
And still—my name, over and over.
Nathan reaches me first.
But he’s not the one I want to see.
Not the one Ineed.
I grab Neve by the arm, fingers digging in.
“Damian?” My voice cracks. “Where’s Damian?”
She shakes her head, coughing hard into her sleeve. “I—I don’t think he came home.”
My knees buckle. The smoke still clings to everything, inside and out. We’re both coughing, our clothes streaked with soot, our hands shaking.
An ambulance pulls up to the curb, and suddenly Nathan’s beside us, guiding, rushing, too many hands on me at once.
“Come on,” he says, voice too calm for what’s happening. “You need oxygen.”
I can’t breathe properly. My chest heaves, but it never feels full. My heart thuds—like it’s trying to claw its way out of me.
I’m lifted onto the gurney before I realize I’ve collapsed. An EMT straps the oxygen mask around my head. Cold, clean air hits my lungs and burns, but it’s better. It’ssomething.
People are talking.
A woman crouches next to me, her lips moving fast, but I can’t make out the words. The ringing in my ears won’t stop. The fire still crackles behind us, red reflecting in all the windows across the street.
Nathan is holding my hand. His palm is warm. Grounding. His left eye is swollen, blooming purple, the skin around it puffy and raw. His lip is split, and there’s a bruise along his jaw, dark and angry.
But all I can think is?—
Why is he here?
I lift the oxygen mask off my face, just enough to get the words out again.
“Where’s Damian?” I ask, my voice thin and desperate.
But no one answers me.
Not Nathan. Not the EMTs. Not Neve, who’s coughing into an oxygen mask of her own a few feet away, eyes glazed and distant.
They’re all moving around us—voices overlapping, hands pressing things to my chest, checking my vitals, asking questions I can’t process.
My body starts to go cold. Not from the air. Not from shock.
It’s something else. Something deeper.
Like my nerves are shutting down one by one.
I suck in another breath through the mask, eyes scanning the chaos, the smoke still trailing into the night, the flashing lights bouncing off glass and wet pavement.
And that’s when I see him.
