Why does it feel like I can’t draw breath, like the fire station is tilting and darkening around me?
I’m about to pass out, I realize dimly. My hands are clammy where they’re splayed on the mat.
I try to get to my feet, but everything lurches around me, and I nearly end up falling.
Dex catches me. Of course he does.
There are wolf whistles from the others.
“I’m not gay!” I bellow at them.
Then I’m sick all over the floor.
“Shit,” Dex says. “Uncle, can I take him home?”
“You’d better get your ass back here as fast as you can, d’you understand?”
“Yes.”
Everything is hazy as Dex takes my arm and steers me to the door. The snow is starting to accumulate, and all I can see is bright white, on the ground, in the trees, blanketing the sky.
Dex helps me into the car and even buckles me in. “You all right?” he asks when he takes the driver’s seat beside me.
“It’s nothing,” I mumble, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes. “I wish the others hadn’t seen that.”
“Get home and rest. I’ll fix things with the crew.”
The car bumps sickeningly over the gravel onto the main road, and then we’re turning into Chief Rhodes’ property. I’m not sure I can walk back to the house right now. But I didn’t need to worry—Dex is gripping my arm again, and he doesn’t release me until I’m sitting down on the couch inside our cabin.
“You going to be all right?”
“’Course.” I can’t believe I broke down like that. I’m still not even sure what I was reacting to, apart from the fact that the rest of our crew has the wrong impression about us.
But the tightness around my chest is still there. I’m not through this yet.
And I know what I need to do. I need to get the hell out of this situation before it destroys me.
“Can I borrow your car while you’re at work?”
Dex gives me a hard look. “You’re in no condition to drive.”
“I’ll be fine in a few minutes. I don’t even know what happened. I just—want to look at rentals again.”
Dex is quiet for a long time.
“Yeah,” he says at last. “’Course. I get it. Here, I’ll leave the keys on the table.”
He drops his keys with a jangle of metal.
In the doorway, he pauses and looks back at me, snow swirling behind him and blowing in to settle on the floorboards.
Then he sighs and turns to trudge away, leaving me alone with my misery.
Dex
I hate leaving Korren like this. But my uncle wasn’t fucking around. He’s not giving me another chance.
I’m covered in snow by the time I wrench open the door to the fire station. I stamp off my boots and make my way warily across the room, expecting Uncle Rhodes to shout at me again.
