My vision goes first. It's black and bleak, and it feels like I've been hit by a Mack truck.
My ears ring, and there's no pain. Justpressure.
I feel my pulse thudding in my right temple, hard and fast.
My fingers twitch, trying to find Julian, but I think I'm on my back.
"Ju…lian…"
My mouth tastes like copper.
"Julian…" I try again, fighting for consciousness like it's the last thing I'll ever do, because it might be. "Ju?—"
The pain hits all at once, and my stomach heaves at the force of it.
It's burning and aching and fuckingsearing.
When I reach up with a half-dead arm to touch the side of my face, my fingers find something wet. Soft. Wrong.
I gag.
"Fuck, Atticus!"
It's Eli. I know it's him, even though the flutter of movement over me is stained red and blurry as he removes his jacket and beats at something on my leg.
What is that smell?
I know that smell.
Burning flesh.
I try to get up, but the world spins violently, and my body is too heavy.
"No, stay there. Don't move," Eli shouts.
"Ju…lian…"
A knot forms between his brows.
I try to point toward the house, and my blood chills when his heartrending scream cuts through the roar of flames.
"Florence!"
It gives me the strength I need to move.
"Go!" I shout at Eli. "Go!"
A girlish scream from the nurse behind me precedes Ellie coming to my side, sniffing around me as I dig my hands into the ground to get stable enough to push up onto my knees, then my feet.
"S'okay," I slur as the world tips and the tiny nurse tries to catch me before I can fall.
I latch onto her arm to keep my footing, trying to blink through the red blur in my vision.
Ellie pushes her nose against a gnarly burn in my leg, and I hiss in pain.
"Where's Julian?" the nurse asks in a panic.
"No!" we hear him roar, and I limp forward to find Elijah dragging his father away from the flaming carcass of the house.
