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“Nothing like that,” Cole said. “It’s a fire. Their house… there was an explosion.”
“Oh, myGod.” My heart jumped into my throat as my feet stopped moving. A fire? Anexplosion? What did that even mean? “And we don’t know if they’re okay yet?”
They both shook their heads as they ushered me out the door and into their patrol car.
“I need to get to Janessa,” I said, suddenly feeling frantic. “She’s going to need me when she finds out.”
“That’s where we’re taking you,” Prescott said, calming my nerves a little. “She’ll need to hear it from you if she hasn’t heard already.”
“She’ll want to go there,” I said, already anticipating her reaction. God, that was going to be rough. My eyes were welling up with tears just thinking about how she was going to feel when she heard those words.
Fire.
Explosion.
“She can’t go,” Prescott said, as if that was the final answer. As if he’d never met Janessa Thoreson.
“It won’t be safe, hon,” Cole added. “We need you to keep her calm and keep herhomeuntil we can call you with more details.”
I didn’t know how I was going to make that happen. I still didn’t know how I was going to tell Janessa.
I just knew we needed to get there.
Now.
* * *
I heard Janessa scream before I even made it to her front door. When I let myself in, I saw her uncle—still with the phone in his hand—and Becca helping her up from the floor.
“No, no, no,” she kept repeating. “This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.”
Janessa looked over at me, tears streaming down her face. “Daisy Lynn, please… please tell them… tell them it isn’t true.”
Before I’d even had a chance to say anything, she bolted from Justin and Becca’s arms, running straight for the door. I caught her, but just barely. She was running on pure adrenaline, and it felt like I’d just been hit by a bus.
“Janessa!” I yelled, gripping her tightly as she tried to drag me with her toward the door. “Honey,pleasestop!”
It took all three of us to finally get her to calm down enough to actually hear us. Up until that moment, I was pretty sure she hadn’t fully comprehended anything we’d said or done. In her mind, we were just keeping her from the thing that mattered most—getting to her guys.
“I have to see them,” she said between sobs, her eyes still firmly fixed on the door. “You don’t understand. I have to… I have to know they’re okay.”
“Prescott and Cole are on their way over there right now,” I said, slowly rubbing small circles on her back. “They’re going to call us when they get there, but they want us to stay here until then.”
“We’ll be right here with you,” Becca said, her sweet voice light and soothing. “You heard Daisy Lynn. They’ll give you as many details as they can when they get there.”
“Maybe you should lie down for a little while, sweetheart,” her uncle said.
Janessa shook her head and looked into my eyes. “I have to go,” she repeated.
“We can’t go,” I started to say, but she cut me off with a look that was more intense than anything I’d ever seen.
“Tell me,” she said. “If it were Cole and Prescott in that fire… tell me. Would you let anything stop you from going?”
My stomach clenched. I held her gaze for several long seconds before I looked over to Justin. He must have read my expression, because he simply nodded.
“I’ll get my keys,” he said with a sigh. “If you absolutely have to go, at least let me drive you.”
Janessa nodded as Becca and I exchanged a worried look.
