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“No, wait—Axe!”
My stomach flips and adrenaline spikes in my blood as the floor drops out beneath me. The stairs collapse under my weight, and my heart stumbles as I fall… fall… freefall into the nether while flames climb around me.
The pain in my back has me twisting in the air. The memory of a tank-shaped bruise enough to make me change the way I come down. Another mistake, really. Because then I slam to the ground floor feet-first, and feel the splintering pain of one leg breaking and the pair folding beneath my weight.
“Mayday! Mayday!” Nix’s frantic voice echoes from somewhere far away while I lay, dazed and breathless once again, atop a raging inferno. “The stairs gave away. Axe fell about fourteen feet. Axe! Axe, come in! Command, I have nowhere to go. Stairs are down.”
* * *
Machines beep, and the constant shuffle of a hospital corridor breaks through my subconscious until I peel my eyes open and find myself in a brightly lit room. Machines on my left. Another on my right.
My left leg weighs a ton, and when I blink the dots from my vision and peer to the end of the bed, I find it wrapped in white plaster, all the way to my knee.
“You’re such an asshole.”
Sluggishly, I tilt my head to the right. First, to glimpse a hand wrapped around mine. Then up to a pair of brown eyes, spilling over with tears and pinning me with anger.
“Hannah?” My throat is hoarse and itchy as I cough to clear it. “Hannah, what are you—”
“You’re just gonna throw yourself down a set of stairs, huh? First that ladder, and now stairs. Why?” she bites out. “To convince me to run away and never come back?”
She wears jeans and a button-up shirt. Soft plaid, so the pastels set off her tan and complement her olive skin tone. Her hair is in a ponytail, her long locks hanging over her right shoulder and drawing my eyes down to the very ends.
She’s beautiful. Breathtaking, really. She’s everything I would list, if asked what I’d look for in my forever.
If only guilt didn’t chew me up every single time I consider taking more.
“You think you’re funny, Axel Feeney? Breaking your leg on the job and sleeping inside a house of flames?”
Exhaustion makes it difficult for me to do much more than turn my head and look up at the pockmarked ceiling. Take in the square tiles made of an odd, flammable material that would go up like a shot the second fire touched them.
This hospital—this whole town—is old. And as such, many of the homes and buildings go up quicker than if they were in the city with newer builds.
“Axel?”
“Didn’t fall on purpose.” I slide my thumb along her delicate wrist and note we’re in this room alone. For the moment, at least. No doctors. No nurses. And no Nicole. “I was trying to watch Nix’s back. Ended up on mine instead. But that’s what I—”
“Don’t make this one of those ‘I told you so’ conversations,” she growls. Angrily, she reaches up and swipes a fat tear from her cheek. “Don’t you dare treat this as a way to bolster your argument and send me away.”
“Hannah—”
“You’re a firefighter, I know! Your job is dangerous. You chase fire every damn day of your life. I’m still young and could do better,blah, blah, blah. I know! I’ve heard it all.”
“You’veheardit?” Carefully, I peel my fingers from her wrist and attempt to slide my hand from hers. But she grabs on tighter and holds me close. “Hannah! You’veseenwhat happens to guys in my job.”
“So what?” she barks out. “Firefighters are allowed to feel love, Axel. People with dangerous jobs are allowed to love!”
“So just leave already. Jesus!” I tug my hand away and gulp down the thick wad of guilt clogging my throat and threatening death. “This isn’t just about my job, Hannah. This is about you. About the fact you’re still a fucking kid. I’m a grown man!”
“You’re two years old than me.” She grits her teeth and looks me straight in the eyes. Forceful. Unbending. “I’m nineteen. You’re twenty-one. Boo-freakin’-hoo. We’re young, but we’re not children.”
“You have so much left to experience.”
“Oh yeah,” she rolls her tear-filled eyes. “Because being with you is a life sentence that excludes me from touring Rome or planting a garden.”
“Hannah—”
“Or racing a car around Piper’s Lane. Or watchingTitanic, remastered, in the theater.”
