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Jake.
“I’m sorry.” The little girl cries into my body.
“Breathe,” I tell her. “Just concentrate on breathing. Someone is going to come for us.”
I’m lying, I just hope she doesn’t know it.
It’s too late for us.
The fire is heating the air around our bodies, and the smoke is making it harder to breathe with every passing second.
“We’re here,” I croak. “Please help us!”
Someone has to be coming. Someone has to hear me.
“There you are.” I hear that voice again, the one on the other side of the smoke. Distorted, almost garbled, but closer. “Why did you have to do it?”
“Help us.” My voice is gone, nothing more than a hoarse plea and barely audible over the little girl’s gasping cries.
“Why would you do it, Margot? Why would you choose him over me? We could have had it all. And now you’re just going to die for nothing. I would have protected you. You could have had everything. And where is he now? He’s not here to protect you.”
“Ray?”
How is he talking through the smoke?
Why is he here?
Even as I ask myself those questions, I know the answers. Through the pain and black edges that are blocking everything else out, I know.
Ray did it all.
He’s the one who started the fires.
The one who killed Dustin.
“You,” I barely manage. “It was you. You killed Dustin.”
“No one will ever know. My secret will die with you.” Ray laughs. He actually laughs at me and the fact that he’s responsible for killing a little girl.
Before I can say anything or beg him for our lives, he’s gone.
I’m alone in the world. The child underneath me isn’t moving. She’s not crying. Just… nothing.
I can’t hear anything but the sound of the fire spreading, eating through the walls and roaring as it finds more fuel. I try to hold my breath to conserve air, unable to think of anything else that will help me make it until help can get to us.
Help has to be coming.
I try to count, to make a game of holding my breath as long as I can, but my mind is too focused on the pain radiating through my body to do it. Instead, I wait with tears rolling down my face. I’m trapped, and I couldn’t even save the child I’d come for.
At least I told Jake I loved him.
At least I came home to him before I died.
I shut my eyes, ready to let go while I picture the life Jake and I should have had.
The baby we should have had.
I love you, Jake.
