By the time we walk back to the party, Vee looks like she’s ready to curl up on the sidewalk and go to sleep. We collect Anders and Cort, who made up sometime while we were on the beach, and if I didn’t think Vee would kill me, I’d leave them here. The last thing I need is the two of them going all Discovery Channel on my living room couch. Vee climbs onto my back, and I walk the three blocks to my apartment with her wrapped around me like a half-asleep baby monkey.
By the time I get her to my room, she’s dead weight. I sit down, letting her drop onto the bed behind me. She’s still wearing her wet clothes, and water is bleeding all over my blue comforter.
“Vee?” She’s lying motionless on the bed, her legs still dangling over the edge. I shake her lightly but she doesn’t move.Shit.
I walk out to the living room, hoping Anders and Cort are still decent. “Hey, Cort, can you come help me?” The two of them are sitting on the edge of the couch.
“You propositioning my girl, Fuller?” He’s joking, but his voice doesn’t have the same arrogant confidence it usually does.
“Definitely not.” I wave Cort over to my room. “I just needto borrow her for a second, to help Vee.” I turn to Cort. “Can you just get her undressed?” I hand her one of my shirts and a pair of boxers. “She’s soaking wet.”
Her eyes narrow and she tips her head to one side. “You’renot wet.”
“Long story. Will you please just—” I thrust the clothes at her.
Cort winks at me as she pushes past me. “I’m sure she’d rather you did it.”
“I’m not risking getting my ass kicked in the morning.”
“Probably a smart choice.” Just short of the bed, she turns back to me. “But I’ll be the one doing the ass kicking, if you screw this up.” Cort is small and dainty—barely five feet—but she seems like the kind of girl who would exact revenge. There’s this gleam in her eye that says she’ll carve her name into the side of your car if you give her a reason. Or an excuse. I grab a glass of water from the kitchen and fish the Tylenol out of a cabinet.
Cort drops back down onto my couch, which Anders has pulled out into a bed. “All set,” she says.
Vee is tucked under the covers and I crawl in, staying as far from her as I can. There’s a good chance I’ll wake her if I have a nightmare.I didn’t think this through.As much as I want her in my bed, want her closer to me more than I should, it reminds me of the last time I slept in the same bed with someone. And I’m all the more certain I’ll be waking her up when those memories inevitably invade my sleep.
***
I wake up and I can’t figure out why it’s foggy. I’m sleeping in the guest bedroom; Sienna is next to me, lying in just her tank top and panties. The covers are pushed down all around her. My vision is hazy. It’s so warm, even for March in northern California, and the strangest fog is hanging over us. It drifts towardthe bed, wrapping around me, and as I yawn it invades my lungs. I cough, harder and harder, until I’m finally awake, finally thinking, and throw the covers off of me. Everything is quiet except for a soft rushing and clicking sound.
“Sienna!” I push her roughly and she startles, disoriented. I grab her arm, pulling her off the bed with me as I make my way to the door.
“Cameron.” She pushes me away as she tumbles off the bed. “What the hell?”
I edge toward the door and touch the knob, hesitantly. I’m not sure if it’s warm or if it’s me—heated from sleep—but it doesn’t seem hot. It’s not scorching my hand but it’s definitely warm.Do I open it?Sienna is behind me, wrapped around my arm, her chest pressed up against me as I start to turn the knob, easing it open slowly. Smoke billows in thickly from the hallway and I slam the door shut as Sienna screams, pulling at my arm roughly.
I look at the nightstand, remembering that I left my cell behind when we left my room. This guest room—my sister Maggie’s old room—has a bigger bed than my tiny twin. “Give me your cell,” I say, grabbing her by the arm and pulling us both toward the window.
“It’s—it’s—I don’t have it.” She’s digging through her backpack next to the bed. “It’s in your room. It must be. Or in the kitchen?”
“Fuck.” I run to the window, unlocking it and shoving it open, letting in a gust of air. It’s windy—really windy—and it feels amazing against my hot skin.
“Cameron, the door.” Smoke is coming in heavy through the cracks, the air getting thicker and thicker with hazy gray.
Hunched low, I scramble to the door. “Give me the sheet!” I’m kneeling on the floor, the hot smoke against my bare knees, waving my hand in the air behind me. Sienna pulls at it frantically,removing the flowery yellow fabric and shoving it in my direction. I cram it under the door, filling the small crack with the soft fabric. Sienna is sobbing, her shoulders heaving up and down as she looks from the door to the window.
“Down,” I say, grabbing her hand and pulling her to the floor. She’s taking jagged breaths and I don’t know if it’s her asthma, or if she’s panicking. It’s freaking me out. I can’t remember if I’m supposed to leave the window open or closed. Air feeds fire. But the smoke. We make it back to the window and shove our heads out, feeling the cool night air invade our lungs as we gasp to take in the clean air. We’re at the back of the house, and I can see just one tiny light in the distance—the Andersons’ porch light. They live in a nearly identical home on the other side of the small river that divides our property from theirs.What time is it?We didn’t even go to bed until two.
I grab my white undershirt from the floor and hang it out the window, waving it frantically as I scream at the top of my lungs. I don’t know what to do. Do we wait? Stand here in the window until someone sees us? Or sees the fire? Do we have time for that? I lean my head out of the window, trying to get a look at the house and can see that the windows below us are glowing, casting light out onto the patio below. It looks like every light is on in the house, except these lights are dancing and snapping and hissing. The air all around is opaque with smoke.
Fuck.
“Cameron?” Sienna still has her head hanging out the window. “It’s getting hotter in here. It’s hotter, don’t you think?” Her voice is panicked. I crawl over to the door, putting my hand on it again and it’s hot to the touch.
“Put your clothes on, Sienna.” I’m already pulling my shirt over my head. “Put your shoes on. Quick.”
“Cameron?” Her voice is tiny, like a scared little kid, andI’m trying to keep calm, but I wish my parents were here. I push the wet hair off of her cheeks. We’re both drenched in sweat. I’m back in my jeans and shirt from the night before and she’s got her flowery sundress on in one quick move. She slips her pink flats on as she hangs her face out the window. “Cameron?”
I look down, surveying what’s below us, the hissing and popping of the flames filling the air. It’s almost three floors down to the ground. We’re on the second floor, but the back of the house has a walkout basement and most of the ground below us is a flagstone patio that bleeds out to the river’s edge.
