A crash sounds in the hallway, wood splintering and glass shattering.Flames lick under the door now, tiny tongues tasting the floor, curious and eager.Sweat drips down my back, my night shirt clinging to my skin.My heartbeat rattles in my ears like a frantic drum.
I grab the bedsheet and yank, tearing off a strip with shaking hands.I shove it under the crack at the bottom of the door because that’s what you’re supposed to do, right?Block the smoke.Block the death.Pretend a strip of cotton can hold back hell.
“Call out if you can hear me!”A voice booms from somewhere beyond the inferno.
For a second I wonder if I’ve started hallucinating.I wouldn’t be shocked in the least.My brain’s been through enough over the years to justify snapping like a dry twig.
“Fire department!”the same voice shouts again, deeper this time, closer.“Call out if you can hear me!”
The sound breaks something inside me and hope surges.
“I’m here!”My throat burns, words scraping like sandpaper.“Bedroom!I...”A painful cough cuts off my words for a moment.“I’m in the bedroom!”
Something slams against the door.Once.Twice.A third time.
The frame gives, wood splintering as the door is forced open, and then the room explodes with heat.The sheet I jammed down ignites instantly, like it’s insulted I ever thought it could help.
Flames are everywhere.And then, he is too.
He bursts into the room through a cloud of smoke and glowing embers, all heavy gear and dark silhouette and impossible power.For a second he looks like something from a myth, some warrior pulled straight from the fire itself.Helmet, mask, and broad shoulders that fill the doorway.A body built to block the world.
My lungs seize when he turns and finds me.
I don’t know how I know he’s looking at me, I can barely see his face behind the mask, but I do.The air shifts.Attention has weight, and all of his lands square on me.
“Hey!”he says, voice muffled but warm.Steady and grounding.Not like my ex’s, which was always sharp and cruel.This one is like molasses and thunder all at once.“I’ve got you, all right?Stay low.Don’t stand.Don’t run.”
Run.As if my chubby ass is sprinting anywhere right now.
I nod instead, because words are failing me spectacularly.I must look like hell, hair sticking to my cheeks, soot streaks everywhere, mascara probably smeared halfway down my face like a depressed raccoon from the tears I can’t seem to contain.
He doesn’t hesitate.He moves like someone who’s done this a thousand times and hates that he has.In two strides he’s in front of me.Then strong arms slide under me like I weigh absolutely nothing, like my thick thighs and soft stomach and all the parts I’ve been conditioned to hate are not obstacles, not burdens, just part of me.Just a person worth saving.
He lifts me.
I gasp and automatically cling to him, fingers curling into his turnout jacket.He smells like smoke and some sharp-clean detergent, like danger and safety at the same time.His chest is solid against mine, and for the first time since the fire started, I can breathe, not well, but enough.
“You’re doing great,” he says, voice low by my ear as he turns and shields my body with his.“Keep your head against my neck.Keep your eyes closed if you can.It’ll be less disorienting.”
“I’m...”My voice cracks.“I’m heavy.”
It slips out before I can stop it.
Of all the things to say while being carried through a burning house, that is what my traumatized brain comes up with.Not thank you.Not save me.Not even a dignified scream.
Nope.
Hi.My home is on fire and my insecurity would still like to speak.
He huffs a sound that might be a laugh if the situation weren’t so dire.“You’re alive,” he shoots back instantly.“That’s all I give a damn about.”
Something in my chest stutters at his words.
Heat surges behind us as he backs through the doorway, turning his body over mine so the flames can lick at him instead of me.Every muscle in his arms flexes as he adjusts his grip, like I weigh exactly what I do and he still doesn’t care.
The world becomes noise and light and smoke.
There’s shouting somewhere, other firefighters, radios crackling, and boots thundering across my floors.My home, the one I worked my ass off to buy after leaving my ex, is dying around me, and I don’t have the luxury of mourning it yet.
