Page 48 of Who The Hell Are You?

The said device vibrates against my thigh so with a sigh, I pull the doomed thing out hoping to see Miles name, but it's Grace. Again.

Grace : Casper I don't know what to do! Someone's set fire to the decorations in the kitchen and I can't put it out!

Fuck! Miles.

Luckily I'm already on the same street. Leaving my car here, I run in the opposite direction I came, sprinting like a mad man to reach her student house. A fucking fire?!

Fuck what if he's in there.

“Fuck!” I grunt, calves burning from how hard I'm pushing myself to get there quicker. The cold air burns my skin as it hits, shocking each breath I try to take, but I'm panicked at the idea of Miles being trapped in a house on fire. I'm terrified at the idea of a house full of drunk people and no one is thinking straight. She's probably only text me because I had mentioned over summer completing my health and safety course for the farm, which involved fire safety. I was also first aid trained–shit, what if people were hurt and that's why she'd text?

I can see a large crowd of people ahead spilled out onto her front garden and the road, but my eyes don't find a tall blonde anywhere. Not slowing down, I find his name in my phone and call Miles, the ringing puncturing my worst fears over and over, the longer it keeps ringing. I hang up and ring him again, letting the phone dangle from my fingers as I dive straight into the chaos. I still can’t see him, but the stench of burning is so strong that the people closest to the house are starting to cough and cover their faces. A dark bloom of smoke hits the downstairs window in the kitchen, and through the break is a crackle of orange. No one is coming out of the house so I have to assume everyone is out on the grass, so where is Miles?

“Casper?”

Someone says my name and I turn to find Teddy, his face pale and his makeup smudged. I don’t even let him speak, before I grab his shoulder, continuing to look around. “Where is Miles?”

He doesn’t answer and my head snaps to him. My panic must be apparent, because he starts to shake and scrambles to get his phone out of his pocket. I look down at my own, still unanswered and start to ring his number again.

“I-I don’t k-know. He went out, but I assumed he would meet me here.”

Fuck no.

Pressing the phone to my ear, I look over his head and finally see another familiar face; Grace. She’s crying into her housemate Millie’s shoulder who is on the phone, both trembling and staring at the storm of dark smoke coming out of their house.

“Keep ringing Miles!” I thrust my phone into Teddy’s hand, leaving him there to push through the crowd to get to the girls. “Grace! Have you seen Miles? Is he here?”

She whips around to look over the crowd, reaching out a hand to embrace me, but I stay bouncing on my feet, ready to plunge into the house if I have to. “Oh Casper, I didn’t know what to do! Some idiot tried to light a cigarette over the cooker and set the bunting on fire! Fire engines are on their way, but I can’t–”

“Grace, is Miles here?” I cut her off, a new fear chilling me to my core. What if the gas is still on?

“I-I don’t know! I asked Teddy to invite the usual crowd, but I didn’t send out individual texts.”

“You both need to get everyone to stand on the street, maybe cross the road too.” I tell them, urging them to start moving and tell everyone to get off the grass. There are a few guys here, but none of them are as tall and blonde as Miles. He’s not out here in the front garden, so I start scanning windows, going around the house to the side where the tall oak gently presses against the upstairs bathroom window. I ignore Grace's bedroom below, ignore the feeling of being pressed into that tree by a hard body, because to my horror I can see two palms pressed against the frosted glass of the bathroom, and it’s not budging.

I don’t think about it, I just act.

Stepping back a few steps, I take my jacket off, before taking a running jump at the tree and manage to grasp the first low branch. Pulling myself up until I can rest my foot on the branch to make sure it can take my weight, I use the tension in my body to lift myself fully up and balance against the thick trunk. I hear a few gasps below and someone shouts for me to get down, but I push everyone else out of my thoughts. If Miles is in that bathroom, there is nothing I won’t do to get him out. Climbing the tree using the bigger branches to support me, I manage to get directly opposite the window. I wobble a little, but resting one hand against the branch above me, I take hold of the old window by the decaying wood at the bottom and try to push it up. It doesn’t budge, so I hit the glass and shout to whoever is in the bathroom.

“Push the window up after three!”

I see the shadows of two figures–a guy and I assume a small woman, who on my count, pushes at the window when I do too, but we don’t get it to open.

“It’s stuck!” She shouts, and I think it’s Faye.

“Is Miles in there with you!?”

“No! It’s Mason. Miles didn’t come to the party! I thought he was with you.” She shouts again, whilst Mason gives the window another pull up but it does nothing.

“Stand back!” I shout, before leaning back on the thicker part of the branch, before I start to kick out at the window. I’m wearing trainers, but the window is so old that the wood immediately splinters. I can’t get a good kick at the top where the latch might be stuck, but the window may have also swelled with the heat from downstairs. I can tell there is smoke wafting into the room they’re in, so I don’t hesitate to kick again and again, even when pain lances up my right leg.

Another kick makes the glass crack into a cobweb of shards and if I wasn’t in such a panicked frenzy, I probably wouldn’t do what I do next. I lean forward so one hand rests against the brick of the house, and punch the window. Repeatedly. The adrenaline must make me feel numb, because I barely feel it until a hole breaks and smoke starts to seep out slowly. Lifting my foot, I kick and the hole gets bigger.

“Is there anything in there to break the rest? Get a towel too!” I shout into the bathroom, seeing Mason appear with a small bin. He hits the glass from the inside and the rest falls forward in increments.

Faye appears with towels in her arms, coughing into them. “Put the towels over the sill.” She does as I instruct, and her boyfriend doesn’t hesitate to take her by the waist and lift her through the window to me. Making sure my footing is solid on the branch, I balance whilst holding onto the side of the house, letting her scale across me until she is holding onto the trunk of the tree.

“Oh my god, Faye!” Grace cries from below, and two guys step forward in a rush to help her get down the tree.