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I wake screaming,choking in terror.
Acrid smoke waters my eyes, scorching my lungs when I try to breathe. My tongue tastes like ash, my lips blistered. And the smell—oh God, the smell, like something awful is burning or on fire.
And then I realize it’s me.
I’m on fire.
I’m burning alive.
The flames engulf me, swallowing me whole as I scream and try and kick them away. But it’s wasted energy, wasted breath.
Wastedlastbreaths.
The bed erupts into fire around me. I sob, twisting free of the melting duvet that tangles at my feet, tripping me. I cry out as I tumble from the bed, slamming my head against the floor. I see stars. I see flames, licking the walls and turning photographs and memories to dust before my eyes.
I feel sunburned. I feel gritty with ash and soot. I try and stand, but the sheer heat of the roaring walls and the choking thickness of the smoke cruelly knocks me back down.
I try again, but once again, the blasting heat and suffocating smoke send me reeling to the ground.
I can’t get up. I can’t breathe. The room begins to spin, blurring and dimming at the corners. I can’t even raise a hand to swat at the flames licking my shirt and turning the ends of my hair to blackened, acrid snarls.
This is how I die.
Screaming for my mother. Alone. Terrified. Swallowed by fire.
The walls fade to glowing flickers as my lids begin to close. My throat stops fighting for air as my head drops with a thud against the floor. It all fades, until all I can feel is the smoke filling my lungs and something red-hot and sharp biting into my chest.
Except I don’t die. The door suddenly splinters in off its hinges. A huge, powerful shape comes barreling inside. Fierce eyes, flicking as golden as the flames surrounding them stab into me. I clench in fear as this demon of fire rushes me. But suddenly, I’m being lifted from the floor.
Powerful arms wrap around me from behind. The demon, or firefighter, or whatever it is, hisses in pain, but he doesn’t drop me. He scoops me against a firm, hard chest, turns, and slams back through the roaring doorway into Hell itself.
The walls are crumbling. The roof of the hallway is raining down in black ash. The whole house creaks and groans, spitting fire and death as he barrels through the inferno with me in his arms.
Except suddenly, I realize I’m not dreaming. I’m not reliving the night of terror from seven years ago. And this isn’t a fire demon or a firefighter.
The man carrying me through Hell isNoel.
Just like he did before.
I cling to him, my vision fading as he barrels down another flight of stairs. I can hear sirens and screaming, and the creaking snap of the structure of Jacob’s townhouse dying.
The floor gives out, and we go sprawling forward into fire. Noel groans, but he grabs me tighter, surging to his feet and bolting forward.
I want to tell him I’m scared of dying.
I want to tell him his jacket is literally on fire.
I want to tell him I love him, one more time.
The flames engulf us. The roof sags and creaks, and my heart lurches.
“Stay with me, little one.”
A wall, or a door, gives way as he slams into it, hard. Suddenly, I can taste air.
Cool, sweet oxygen sweeps my hair from my face. Noel surges forward once more before he falls to his knees in the middle of the street.
