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“Stay with me, Ivy,” Alistair yells. He rips the tape from my mouth.
“Alistair,” I say, then, “Jamie. Jamie.”
There’s another man, and another.
Henderson. Lucky.
Lucky carries Jamie out.
“Lorna’s upstairs,” I choke out. Henderson nods and sprints up the stairs, disappearing into the smoke.
Alistair has cut my bindings and is lifting me up, cradling me against his huge chest. I feel like a sleepy child in his arms. He’s so strong. His chest is bare, and then I realize it’s because he’s wrapped his shirt around my face to filter the worst of the smoke.
Something big falls in our way, blocking our exit. It’s burning so bright that I can’t tell what it is. A bookcase, maybe. Alistair kicks it, trying to dislodge it from the doorway. He kicks and kicks, and starts to cough. He roars, then kicks it one last time, making it fall flat so that he can walk over the flames to get us out. We get through the front doorway and we’re outside. He tears the shirt from my face so that I can haul the fresh air into my burning lungs. The shock of cold air makes me cough and cough.
Alistair looks around. “Henderson?” he asks Lucky, who’s attending to Jamie.
Lucky shakes his head.
Alistair lays me down on the snow and runs back inside.
No, I want to shout after him. No!! But all I can do is cough so much that I vomit.
Charcoal-colored smoke is billowing out of the front doorway now, and I can see flames upstairs.
No, no, no, I wail inside my head.
I’m not thinking clearly. I try to stand, to go back inside to find Alistair, but I stumble and Lucky grabs me. I turn to him, frantic, pleading.
“Let me go,” I whisper, but he won’t. He holds on to me even though I kick and scream with the last of my energy.
Lucky pulls me back into the snow and covers me with his body just as the house bursts into flames. There’s an explosion of heat.
“NOOOO!” I scream into the snow I’m lying on, my vocal cords shredded. Mouth full of blood, I spit it out onto the white ground. My tooth is there. An afterthought.
Alistair! I’m absolutely crushed by my grief. I’ve never felt anything like this before. My breaths are jagged, my limbs won’t obey my commands. All I can do is pull myself up to my knees as if in prayer, and choke on my tears. All the love I’m capable of twists into such an intense, dark grief that I can’t bear it. I can’t live with this pain. I wish I had died in the fire.
A cracking sound from next door makes me look up from my despair. I blink, trying to clear my vision of what I’m sure is a fantasy, because I see Alistair and Henderson coming out of the neighbor’s house, having broken the door down. Henderson has Lorna over his shoulder. I can’t tell if she’s alive, but seeing them cuts through my anguish and I’m able to stand. Alistair sweeps me off my feet, hugging me, as anxious for me to be okay as I am for him. I start crying again; I can’t help it. The sobs rack my whole body. I weep and weep into his chest as he holds me tight. I cry until there is nothing left—not a tear, nor a gasp. He lets me just empty myself into him. So solid and steadfast when I need him most.
The fire truck and ambulance arrive, but it’s all just noise in the background. I can’t feel anything but my intense love for Alistair. He already had my heart, but now I owe him my life.
Snow and sirens. Paramedics in high-vis uniforms. Flashing lights. There’s a noisy silver blanket wrapped around me, and people try to pull me away into the ambulance. I refuse.
Gently, Alistair says, “You need to go to the hospital.”
“No,” I croak. “No.”
I’m not leaving him. No way. I’ll never leave him again.
He hears me without me having to say a word. He takes my face in his hands. His touch is so tender I feel faint. He looks at my bruising, and my bloodshot eyes, trying to figure out how bad my injuries are. The vest had stopped Jeff’s bullet. I think he’s going to offer to come in the ambulance with me, but instead he whispers: “Who did this to you?”
I lock eyes with him. He knows exactly who it was, but he needs to hear it from me.
I know that if I say his name out loud, I’ll be signing his death warrant.
“Who did this to you?” he asks again, this time allowing some of his anger into his voice. There’s a hint of a growl in his throat. Our eyes don’t leave one another.
“Jeff,” I reply. “Jeffrey Bates.”
