Page 116 of Where I Should’ve Been

And he doesn’t answer. His mouth opens, closes, but he can’t look me in the eye because he fucking knows too.

“It’s okay, brother,” he whispers, his voice clogged with emotion. “It’s going to be okay.”

The ambulance rocks beneath us, siren wailing into the air. Oxygen hisses from the mask hovering near my face, and the sharp scent of antiseptic cuts through the smoke still clinging to my skin. A paramedic leans over me, latex gloves squeaking against my arm as they reach for the IV, but I shove them away.

“Where are they, Randy?” I demand, louder now and a sob strangling my lungs. “Where are they?”

I want him to say it. I want him to tell me what I already know to be true. But fuck, I want him to tell a different fucking version. I want him to tell me a fucking miracle occurred. I want him to tell me that Abby and Lucy made it out.

But he doesn’t. Because he can’t. Because he fucking can’t.

Because everything that was important to me—everything I loved and cared about, my entire fucking world—is gone.

“No. No. No.” I shake my head, a violent yell breaking free from a hell within me I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. “Nooo!”

“It’s okay,” Randy says again, his words a hollow, deceitful weep of his own. “It’s gonna be okay.”

It’s not going to be okay. It’s never going to be okay. We both know it.

Because Abigail and Lucy are gone. But because of my brother, I’m still here.

I should be with them. The three of us should be together.

“Nooo!” I cry again, fighting their holds with the intent of jumping out of this fucking ambulance and running straight back into the fire and letting it take me. Randy pins me again, and I just catch his nod to the paramedic at my side before it all goes black again.

A temporary peace from a permanent kind of pain—one I’ll never recover from.

47

Tad

Doctors and nurses move around me in a flurry, holding me back with a hand on my chest when I try to follow them toward the restricted area I saw them take Breezy into when we arrived.

They had her out of the ambulance before Randy could bring the truck to a stop, moving to the back too fast for me to catch up. Memories of being too late—of being the only one to survive—cascade like waves over my shoulders and sink me to my knees. I can’t do it again.

I can’t lose them. I can’t.

Tears fall unchecked as I put my face in my hands and roar into the empty hallway. My chest implodes with the force of my yell, and I don’t let up until every last vestige of air has been wrung from my lungs. A gentle hand falls on my shoulder and squeezes, and when I look up, it’s straight into the sage, sad eyes of Sheriff Pete Peeler. He must have driven like a bat out of hell from the house, just like Randy did.

“Come on, son. Let’s find a place to sit down.”

I shake my head violently, unwilling to leave this spot until I’m forced. “I’m not leaving, Pete.”

“I don’t want you to leave, boy. I want you to sit. Shit, I think you got smoke clogging your ears.”

He guides me with a hand under my arm, effectively helping me up and over to the wall, where I slide down to the floor with my back against it immediately. He climbs down to the floor beside me, lumbering as his knees crack.

Randy comes to a skidding stop in front of us, having found a spot to abandon the truck and made it inside finally, and when I meet his gaze, it’s nearly as tortured as mine. I don’t often have the fortitude to consider anyone’s pain but my own, but Randy’s been serving the penance of his demons just as long as I’ve been living with my own.

He knows I’ve never forgiven him for saving me, eternally punished for doing the right thing. It’s not right of me, but it’s not wrong either. It’s just…purgatory.

His back slides down as he sinks to his ass against the wall across the hall, mirroring my posture entirely, legs flat out in front of himself, body limp. “Fuck.”

He’s in rough shape, but I’m arguably rougher, choking on saliva, soot, and a pure adrenaline crash as I try to keep it together.

“Take deep breaths,” Pete commands easily, his hand finding my shoulder and gripping tightly. “Both of ya. Take some deep fucking breaths.”

“Breeze!” Bennett yells, moving down the hall at a run with Norah and Logan hot on his heels, his eyes wild and searching as he yanks open doors and looks inside up and down the wing to our right.