It’s just from smoke. The fire.
My fingertips go numb, and my pulse kicks up.
It’s thumping so hard that I feel it in my neck. The back of my throat.
Fuck, no. Nononono.
The cough that rakes over my raw tonsils leaves me gasping for air and clutching my chest.
Everythinghurts.
It’s not supposed to hurt.
“Fuck,” I rasp out as I get my knees beneath me, my forehead against the thin mattress. The pressure makes my face feel like I’m buried, the weight on my back increasing even though there’s nothing there.
I know there’s nothing there.
Wheezing squeezes its way out of my chest, leaving trails of saliva across the sheets with each hack I do my best to tamper.
Each breath makes it worse andfuck, I just want to pass out.
Except I can’t.
Emmett.
I work myself upright and instantly regret it.
Pain shoots through nearly every part of my body, and I cry out.
He was a mess when I left.
I’m panting as I pat around my pockets for my phone and come up empty-handed.
Hatley was with him, right?
Guilt washes over me fast and hard.
I don’t even know if Hat found him.
What if …
I squeeze my eyes shut and rub at them hard enough to see spots behind my lids. When they refocus, the light in the room has changed and it’s somehow darker. The shadows appear deeper. The blackness around the edges of night dense andhiding something.
I clutch at my chest but there’s no shirt to grab onto and for a moment, I’ve never felt barer. Exposed.
Scanning the room with darting eyes, I ignore the way my mind tells me how many things are hiding in the spaces I can’t see and instead focus on what Ican.
Six bunks.
A duffle.
The closet door and the stairs leading down into the house.
A rug that looks like the floor of an arcade between them.
Messy beds.
I can’t tell if all of them have been slept in or not but judging by the lump in the lower one in the far back corner, someone is there now.
