Through my tears was a dark, blurry shape looming over me—broad shoulders, a glint of reflective yellow, a face hidden behind a mask that made him look more like a creature than a person.
A firefighter.
The realization cracked through the fog.
Hands slid under me, lifting, and the world tilted. I gasped…a raw, broken sound.
Maybe I wasn’t going to die tonight.
Something tightened around my waist and under my arms and legs—rough fabric, like a strap. I didn’t know what he was doing, only that I was being held together, and gathered up. As if I was being kept from slipping away.
We began to move, low to the ground. He dragged me, his body shielding mine as he pulled me through the smoke. My cheek was pressed against his gear, the sound of his breathing loud and steady beside my ear.
“Hang on for me,” he said.
My vision tunneled, dark creeping in from the edges as the oxygen deprivation finally won. The world felt far away, like I was sinking under something I might not come back from.
“I’m going to keep you safe.”
The words reached me before everything went soft and quiet, and I let myself believe them as the darkness closed in.
1
Palmer
Present Day
Everythingwascomingapart,as it always did. I wasn’t sure why I let myself become a casualty every singletime, when I already knew the end would eventually come. I was never needed for long.
It felt like my heart was breaking—like someone had sunk their claws straight into muscle and sinew and was tearing me apart while I bled out all over the floor. I stared up at the ceiling, clutching a soft, stuffed toy to my chest.
It was always like this. Like I might be dying. Like the blood loss would finally be too much and I wouldn’t survive it.
Yet somehow, I always did.
I wasn’t sure whether my survival was mercy or punishment at this point.
Tears burned as I stared at the white, blank ceiling. It was the same ceiling I’d slept under for the past three years.
But I’d slept in this bed for the last time.
I blinked rapidly, fighting the sobs building in my chest. I always cried when it was time to leave and move on, but it was never helpful. It only made people uncomfortable.
I hated myself for that.
Every time I found a place to live, I promised myself to not get attached—to remember that it was never forever.
But my heart was a traitor. No matter what, it always betrayed me. I always let people get too close to my most vital organ.
I hugged the stuffed animal tighter to my chest, shuddering at the ache in my soul.
The stuffy was his—Maverick’s. He was the little boy I’d been nannying for the past three years. The special little boy who had burrowed so deep into my heart that it felt like it was shredding itself.
I wished I could keep the stuffy.
It was one of his extras. Maverick had always been a bit “difficult” to handle. At least, that was what people labeled him. His parents had hired me when he was two because they werestruggling so much with him. No daycare would take him, and he had a harder time communicating, even now.
His parents had turned to me out of desperation. Being lower middle class, they didn’t have a lot of money to spare for special-needs care. They both worked and were overwhelmed.
