I was alone.
For the first time in my life, I was really, truly alone.
***
I sat in the back of the ambulance, the scratchy wool blanket doing nothing to stop the shaking. Pickle was pressed against my chest, wrapped up in my hoodie like a burrito of trauma. Her ears twitched at every siren wail, but she didn’t move otherwise—only blinked up at me, weirdly calm for a creature who normally tried to murder me with her bare claws.
“Who would’ve thought, huh?” My voice broke. I swiped at my face with the back of my hand, snot and ash and tears smeared across my skin. “In the end, it’s just me and you, kid.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out like a sob. My whole body folded inward as I clutched the damn cat tighter. I couldn’t stop crying. Couldn’t stop seeing it—that second floor crashing in. Couldn’t stop hearing the fire roar like it was alive and taking everything I loved with it.
A red blur whizzed past the paramedics, and before I could blink, the screaming started.
“My bar! That’s my bar!” Magnolia’s voice tore through the smoke. “Oh my god—my cat! Please, someone, my cat’s still in there!”
She latched onto the nearest firefighter, shaking his arm like she could drag him inside with her, hair flying every which way, eyes blown wide with panic.
I shot to my feet so fast that Pickle nearly tumbled out of my arms. “Magnolia?”
Her eyes snapped to mine.
She froze.
I froze.
And then we were moving—crashing together halfway like neither of us could stand another second apart. I dropped the cat—she let out a noise of pure betrayal but didn’t budge—and wrapped her up tighter than I’d ever held anyone in my life.
“You’re alive,” I rasped, my face buried in her curls.
“So are you,” she whispered, her voice shredded from smoke and screaming.
“I thought I lost you. I thought I was…” The rest broke apart in my throat.
We clung to each other in the freezing night, smoke still clawing at the sky behind us, the bar smoldering at our backs, the world still on fire—but she was here. And so was I.
Lee came sprinting up from the far side of the block—barefoot, half-dressed, all panic and purpose. His curls were smashed flat on one side, like he’d rolled straight out of bed and hadn’t stopped running since.
His hand found the small of Magnolia’s back the second he reached her, steadying her where she clung to me. She softened under his touch, her trembling easing as she turned toward him. For a heartbeat, her eyes lifted to his, and something unspoken passed between them before she folded into his chest.
“Where’s my brother?” he demanded, voice rough.
Before I could answer, Pickle came launching out of nowhere and scrambled up Lee’s bare chest like a feral mountain climber with claws.
“Jesus Christ,” he hissed, catching her awkwardly. “This cat has nine lives and no boundaries.”
He glanced up at me over the cat’s fur, his expression flickering—relief first, then fury, then raw concern. He passed Pickle back into my arms, gentler than I expected.
“Charlie. Where’s Dane? Magnolia said she left him in the office when she…” His voice trailed, eyes snapping back to her before he forced the words out. “Before she came to see me.”
I shook my head, still holding onto Magnolia’s arm like she might slip straight back into the flames if I let go, completely ignoring the bomb he’d just dropped. “I don’t know, Lee. I tried. I tried looking downstairs, but the smoke—it was too thick.”
The words scraped out of my throat like gravel. My voice cracked again, and this time, I didn’t stop the tears. “I found Pickle in the stairwell between the bar and the apartment. I thought—” I pulled Magnolia tighter and said, again, “I thought you were dead. I thought I was alone. I thought you left me.”
Magnolia made a broken sound in her throat and hugged me back with everything she had.
Lee stood there, grief and confusion twisting his face, his arms hanging useless at his sides. For once, he had no words, no easy quip—only that haunted look in his eyes that said he understood. We’d all lost something big.
Maybe not each other, but something.
