I spin around, looking for her, looking for the danger, but I’m too late. Krystal throws herself into me full force, knocking my body to the ground and out of the way as a tree falls, smashing into and bringing down the wall that moments ago I was standing beside.
Struggling to catch my breath from the impact of the fall, I sit up as the clouds of ash billow around us and see Krystal, half-buried beneath the rubble.
“Krystal!” I crawl across the soot-covered forest to reach her. My heart pounds louder than the fires encroaching. In less than minutes, we’ll be overtaken if we don’t move now.
“Baby! Baby, wake up!” I beg, my voice trembling with fear and desperation. As quickly as I can, I throw the broken branches andstones from the wall off of her. “Krystal, baby.” My throat starts to close, tight with emotion. “Baby, please open your eyes.”
Her eyes flutter open. “Hey, Batman.”
Relief floods through me, but it’s short-lived. “We have to move. We can’t stay here.”
I start to help her up, but she lets out a wail of pain.
“Shit. No, no, no.” Panic fills me, making my thoughts a jumbled mess when I need to focus the most. I have to get us out of here. Around us, another snap echoes. “We can’t stay here.”
“Levi.” Krystal’s voice is soft, but there’s a finality in the way she says my name that has my body shaking and my mind unraveling.
“I love you, Levi.” Taking my hand in hers, her lips tilt up in a sad smile like she’s saying goodbye. Another tree falls, but this time it’s closer, and the heat from the fire blazes hotter. “You need to go.”
“Not a chance!” I growl out. Using the shoulder carry technique, I drag her as fast as possible without hurting her any further. We barely make it ten yards before our path is cut off by rubble and debris.
“Help!” I yell in every direction, hoping that another team clearing the area will hear me over the crackling crescendo of destruction heading our way.
“Levi, please,” Krystal begs, but I’d rather die than leave her here.
I shake my head.
“You’re so stubborn.” A small laugh escapes her before it turns into coughing. She reaches for her face shroud, taking it off.
“Don’t!” I warn, brows furrowed. The smoke out here is too thick, and she knows it, so why would she risk—
My thoughts stop short when I see the blood staining her lips, a sign of internal bleeding.
“Hey, look at me.” She reaches up, holding my face in her hand. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”
“No,” I gasp, tears streaming down my face.
“I love you so much,” she says, her voice coming out in short, uneven breaths.
“I love you, baby,” I rasp, broken sobs wracking my body. “I’m getting us out of here.”
I lift her in my arms, no longer worried about the pain she’s in, if it means keeping her with me. She winces, but the sound of her shaky breaths keeps me moving. When the flames catch up to us, I barely notice as they burn through my gear. I don’t realize the sounds of agony are my own as I reach the other volunteers.
“She saved me,” I say over and over, collapsing to my knees. “Help her. Help her,” I beg, before everything goes dark.
Chapter One
Tris
I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. No. I’m more like a shot of tequila, but not the cheap stuff. I’m more like the kind you only find on the top-shelf. At least I was before my father went and got himself arrested for fraud and conspiracy.
5 months ago
I storm into my parents’ Lake House, throwing open the large carved wooden doors with force like a bat out of hell, pissed off and looking for answers.
“Mother!” I yell, the crystals from the chandelier above chime softly as the doors shut. My anger is burning its way up my neck, and I’m ready to snap. “Father!”
My heels click on the marble floors that are veined just enough to look intentional, not showy. They echo faintly off the high ceilings as I march down the hallway of my family’s two-story house. I pass the formal dining room, the one we only use for holidays, or we would if we ever happened to all be in the same place, and the library that smells faintly of leather and dust. This house has always been the more modest of our family houses, if you can call nine bedrooms and a lake view modest, but compared to the place in the Hamptons, it almost feels... quaint.
