The heat hits like a wall. It’s like walking into an oven, like the air itself is trying to push me back. I can’t breathe—smoke everywhere, filling my lungs, turning every inhale into shards of glass. I put the shirt up over my nose and mouth. It doesn’t help much.
The flames are between me and the bed, licking at the floor, spreading faster than fire should spread, like something’s feeding it. I can’t think about that. I can’t think about anything except getting to her.
I move around them. Over them. Through them when I have to.
My skin screams where the heat finds it. I don’t care. I just need to reach her.
I reach the bed.
She hasn’t moved.
I scoop her up and she’s still too light. I can’t tell if she’s breathing. I can’t think about that either. I need to get her out.
I turn back toward the door.
The flames are higher now, angrier. Trey’s silhouette wavers through the haze, and behind him I can hear the others thundering up the stairs, shouting things I can’t make out.
I move. One step. Another. The heat is unbearable, pressing in from all sides. Something crashes behind me—part of the ceiling, maybe, or the bookshelf giving way. I don’t look back. I can’t look back.
The doorway. Trey’s hands reaching out.
I don’t stop moving as I pass her to him. “Take her.”
Like it’s not the most important thing I’ve ever done.
His arms tighten around her instinctively. “Is she—”
“Get her downstairs.”
I don’t know if she’s okay. I don’t know anything. I turn back toward the room anyway.
Locke and Kyron push past me with extinguishers, disappearing into the smoke. Rane’s right behind them with wet towels, a bucket, whatever he grabbed on the way up. They’ve got it. They’ll handle it.
I make my way downstairs.
My legs don’t want to work right. I’m coughing and I can’t stop, my chest is full of smoke and feels like broken glass. One hand on the wall for balance. One foot in front of the other. That’s all I have to do.
In the living room, Trey has her on the couch.
She’s lying there, still and small, and for one terrible second I think the worst. But then I actually look at her.
She’s untouched.
The fire was everywhere. The room was an inferno. And she’s untouched. A little smoky. Some black smudged along her cheekbone, herfingers. The sleeves of her sleep shirt are singed at the edges, fabric curling brown.
But her skin beneath is smooth. Not red. Not blistered. Not even pink.
She was in the middle of that and she looks like she just took a nap in a dusty room.
“Nova.” Trey’s kneeling beside her, hands hovering like he’s afraid to touch her. “Nova, wake up. Please.”
Nothing.
“Nova.” His voice cracks.
Her eyes flutter.
She blinks once, twice, and looks up at him with an expression of sleepy confusion, brow furrowing like she’s trying to remember where she is.
