“Where are you going?”
But I was already heading out. I had to go at this a different way. There was no way that Mrs. Graham would take her attention off her son long enough to batter down her mother’s door. But I could. With the right props, anyway.
I took off for the barn.
Chapter
Thirty-Three
Once I made it back into the house, I was up the three flights of stairs so quickly I was almost shocked to find myself there. Every light was turned on, a chair overturned in the hallway, as if Mrs. Graham had tried fleetingly to beat the door down before giving up and dashing back down the stairs. I tried the handle, and, of course, it was locked. Worse, it was hot to the touch.
Fire?
That would explain a lot.
I took the ax I’d pulled from the barn and heaved it up over my head, then crashed it into the door with all my strength. I reveled in the flow of my muscles, the force I channeled up and through the ax. The world around me suddenly took on a sharper, deeper resonance, like it had in the back rooms of Descent. The crunch of the metal into the wood zipped through me with a visceral satisfaction, the growing smell of heat and something sweet, too sweet, filling my nostrils and lungs and urging me to faster and faster movement.
I was like a creature possessed—only I wasn’t, not anymore. I was me, Delia. I was alone and I was enough.
For this, anyway.
The door was heavy and old, but it was still made of wood, and the Grahams had kept their tools well-sharpened. It took only a matter of minutes for a hole to appear, large enough for me to reach inside. I turned the lock easily and pushed the door inward.
Smoke billowed out. It smelled heavy and dank, though, not like a brightly burning fire, but as if?—
Fireplace.
I ripped off my hoodie and held it over my face, then dropped to the floor, scrabbling forward. The lights were off in this room, making it impossible to see, but it didn’t take me long to find Max’s grandmother. She was on the floor by a couch, moaning Sam’s name. She seemed impossibly tiny.
The smoke seemed to press down harder as I reached for her. I heard sirens, and suddenly a great pounding noise sounded behind me. “Delia!” I heard Max shouting, from somewhere far away.
I hooked my hands under the old woman’s armpits, straining to pull her out of the room. She was wet with something that eventually stung my fingers, and I dropped her again, as gently as I could. Some sort of acid or cleaner? I couldn’t place it, so I wrapped my hands in my hoodie and hauled on her some more. For a small woman, she felt like she weighed a thousand pounds.
I was halfway to the door when I felt someone behind me, then large hands slipped beneath my armpits as the hiss of white mist burst out over top of me. I was dizzy, falling, and let myself be dragged free of the noise and soot. Wanting to stand, I reached up—and collapsed.
What felt like only seconds later, I snapped back to awareness in the front yard, disoriented by the sudden change of environment. My fingers still burned, though—a deep, bone-ache burn that felt different from the smoke damage. Holy water, I realized dimly. Grandma Kate had been soaked in it.That was significant, but my smoke-addled brain couldn’t quite figure out why.
“Sam?” I coughed.
“He’s fine, he’s good. They got him down. Take a deep breath.” The EMT had a stethoscope on my chest, and she was looking at me worriedly. “There was a lot of smoke in there. You were lucky you didn’t inhale more of it.”
“Gran—” I sat up.
“She’s out of there, too. She did inhale too much, but she’s a tough old bird.”
“Delia.” Max was at my side, looking at me as if I was a ghost, Claire beside him. She was holding his hand tightly, and he was letting her. Relief swept through me at the sight, but I didn’t know why. Then Steve squatted down beside me, and awareness crackled deep in my belly. Not romantic awareness, either—simply human. I needed humans, I was pretty sure. Lots of humans.
“I’m okay,” I croaked, peering at Max. Something was seriously wrong with my voice. My throat felt rough and scratchy. “I’m okay—your grandma, though.”
“It was the damper,” Max said, his mouth moving but his voice sounding weirdly muted. He and Steve helped me get to my feet, both of their hands dropping away faster than I wanted them to. “She’d forgotten to open it and built a fire for some reason, though it’s generally hotter than hell up in those rooms. The smoke built up before she could get the thing open and she must have passed out. Sam, disoriented, woke up in the middle of this and headed for the only exit he could see. Unfortunately, that one led straight up to the roof.”
“Oh.” That all made sense. It even seemed realistic. But Grandma Kate had an oxygen mask on her face and was being put into the ambulance, and something about that struck meas very, very bad. “She going to be okay?” I asked as the doors slammed behind her and the engine gunned.
“They think so. She’s still out, but her pulse is strong.”
“What about Sam?”
“He got his own ambulance. They think they can keep them both at the local hospital, no need to go to the city. It’s a big day in Hooperton.” Max cracked a smile, and I saw the strain on his face, the strain and relief. “Mom and Dad are on their way there now.”
