Page 120 of Kaine

Chapter Forty-Six

HER

I don’t know what burnsmore, my eyes, my arms, my legs, or my lungs.

I don’t even know if I’m moving at this point. I think I am, but it all looks the same, feels the same.

Suddenly, I hear the sound of footsteps and someone yanking me to my feet.

“Miss! You’re okay, we’re just going to get you outside.”

“Please. Help,” I gasp.

“Is there anyone else in there?”

“I don’t know... I didn’t see anyone.” A cough wracks through my body and I’m dragged by my arms for a few seconds and it’s suddenly bright.

“JADE!” I feel myself lifted onto something, probably an ambulance stretcher but I’m not sure. A mask covers my mouth and nose obstructing my views and I can barely see through my burning, teary eyes.

“Oh, Jade, thank God you’re alright.” There’s a pat on my shoulder and I struggle to turn my head. It’s Harriet. I try to smile, but not much is under my control at this point.

“Did Kaine save you?” I think I hear her ask through the fog, but my brain isn’t clear.

“Kaine? He’s here?” I say, my voice smothered by the oxygen mask.

“What? I can’t understand you, honey.”

I try to pull at the mask, but she won’t let me. I sit up batting her hands away. “I asked if Kaine is here?”

There’s a crinkling of her forehead and she turns pale. “It wasn’t him who pulled you out?”

“No, it was a fireman.”

“Oh my God, he went in there to save you, I’m sure of it.”

I wrench the mask off my face, swallowing down a cough so I can yell. “He won’t leave if he thinks I’m in there!”

“I know!”

“Go! Go tell someone!” I scream, the tearing in my throat a distant second to the fear rising in me, concern for Kaine.

I watch her run to the group of firemen standing by the entrance, and struggle to slide off the gurney. I stumble a little but find my feet after a few seconds. I reach Harriet, coming up behind her, as she argues, “He’s definitely in there.”

“No, ma’am, he tried but then when we said no, he just left.”

“No! He wouldn’t leave,” she insists, her voice desperate. “He thinks my friend, his girlfriend is in there. When he didn’t see her out here, he said he would go in, and you don’t know him, he’ll go in.”

“Miss,” one of them says, their eyes flicking over to me as I lean on Harriet.

I drag breath into my lungs. “Please. Listen to me. I will bet my life on it, if you don’t go in there and find him, I will,” I threaten, with every intention of following through.

He crunches up his face and turns to the fireman standing next to him.

“We’ve got some guys in there now, but they might not know to look for him, so we’ll send someone in now.”

Harriet helps me to the ground, as I feel a small sense of hope that they’ll find him.

There’s suddenly a loud crack and the sky fills with glass as the one of the old stained glass windows explodes, scattering the ground with tiny coloured fragments.