“What’s going on?” Her voice is rough, groggy. “Why are you—”
She trails off. Takes in Trey’s ash-streaked face. Looks past him to me—shirtless, chest heaving, angry red marks climbing my forearms. The smell of smoke everywhere, thick enough to taste.
“Holy fuck.” Beckett’s laugh is high and relieved and not entirely sane. “Holyfuck.”
“You—” Trey’s staring at her. “Were yousleeping? That entire time?”
“Sleeping?” She pushes up on her elbows, still blinking. “What do you mean? I just closed my eyes for a second.”
“Nova.” I move closer, lower myself onto the couch beside her because I’m not sure my legs will hold me much longer. My voice comes out as a rasp. “Your room was on fire.”
She freezes.
“What?”
“Fire.” The word feels inadequate. Absurd. “Your room was on fire. I had to—the flames were everywhere, and you were just—”
I can’t finish. The image is stuck in my head and I can’t get it out. Her lying there motionless while the world burned around her.
She sits up fast, wide-eyed, suddenly fully awake, scanning the room.
“Fire? But I—” Her voice pitches up. “Where is everyone? Is everyone okay? Where’s—”
“They’re fine.” Beckett appears with a glass of water and presses it into her shaking hands. “They’re upstairs putting it out. Everyone’s fine.”
“But how did—I don’t understand—I was just—”
Water sloshes over the rim of the glass. Her hands are trembling too hard to hold it steady. I take it from her, set it on the table, and she grabs my hand like it’s a lifeline.
Her fingers are cold.
How are her fingers cold? She was in the middle of an inferno and her fingers are ice.
The smoke in her hair smells like wood and char, but it doesn’t cling to her the way it should. The way it’s clinging to me, to Trey, to everything else in this room.
“I don’t understand,” she whispers. Her grip tightens. “I don’t understand what’s happening to me.”
Neither do I.
But I hold her hand, and I don’t let go.
Chapter 36
Nova
They bring me to the kitchen like I’m made of glass.
I’m not complaining. The couch was fine, but sitting there with Vaelor hovering and Trey still coughing and Beckett watching me like I might spontaneously combust felt wrong. At least in the kitchen there’s something to do—somewhere to look that isn’t three faces trying not to show how scared they still are.
Vaelor’s already at the stove. Of course he is. The man just ran into a burning room and he’s making food like nothing happened, except now there’s more of it. Eggs cracking, bread in the toaster, bacon starting to sizzle.
That’s when I see his arms.
Angry red marks climbing from his wrists to his elbows, the skin tight and shiny in places. Burns. From the fire. From saving me.
My stomach drops.
“Vaelor—”
