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Looking past the ambulance doors I got a full view of the house, or what was left of it. Not much, and the rest was still on fire.
“Can someone please call—” I stopped, seeing Roman’s car skid to a halt outside the circle of emergency vehicles that had crammed into our driveway.
A police officer tried to stop him as he jumped out of the car and barreled toward the ruins, shouting my name. He shoved past the cop and a couple of firefighters and finally saw me in the ambulance. Even from twenty feet away, I could see the relief wash over him. I tried to wave, but a new bout of dizziness overtook me and I flopped backward onto the gurney again.
Roman leapt into the ambulance and hovered over me, grabbing my hand and stroking my face while the paramedic yelped at him to be careful.
“God, Karine,” Roman said.
“I’m okay, I think. What happened?”
He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it right now. Let’s get you checked out.”
He turned and started barking orders, wanting to know why I wasn’t already on the way to the hospital. He refused to leave my side, daring anyone to turn him out with death glares I certainly wouldn’t have argued with.
At the hospital, he stayed close, only getting shunted aside by a feisty ER nurse who didn’t seem to be scared of anything or anyone, while I got x-rays taken. I got cleaned up and was given a hospital robe to replace my torn and filthy clothes. The ringing in my ears had mostly subsided, and the horror over what had happened to our home had also eased a bit after seeing how much Roman cared.
Once I was in a room, Roman appeared again, taking my hand and kissing it, then turned expectantly to the doctor.
“She’s certainly lucky,” the young intern said. “Only some cuts and bruises and a bump on the head. Nothing’s broken. We’re just going to keep you for some observation since you took that whack to the head,” she said, smiling at me. “But you shouldn’t be here too long. Just try and get some rest.”
I waited until she left to ask what happened. It felt like hours had passed since I’d been wheeled into the emergency room. “Did you talk to anyone? Does anyone know what’s going on?”
Roman scowled. “There’s going to be an in-depth investigation, but they’re saying it was a gas leak.”
I closed my eyes, letting that sink in. My memory right before the actual crashing sound and the whole world collapsing around me was hazy, but the earlier morning was as clear as a bell. I’d used the stove to make pancakes only about an hour before that, and everything had worked fine. There was no gas smell, no hissing sounds. And I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’d turned everything off properly because I was anal about that sort of thing. I’d also been in the kitchen searching for the car keys and would have noticed a random burner flickering away.
“That can’t be right,” I said. “I was—”
Roman shushed me, squeezing my hand. I couldn’t be mad at him when it was clear he was still shaken up with worry and only wanted me to rest, but I had to tell him what I thought.
“No, listen,” I said, but he leaned down and kissed me gently on the mouth.
“Karine, you need to rest. The goddamn ceiling fell on you. Please, baby, don’t make yourself sick.”
I nodded, closing my eyes against the harsh fluorescent overhead lights beaming down on me. I let him pet my hair and make soothing sounds while I pretended to rest, but my mind was reeling as I wondered what could have so thoroughly destroyed our house.
The only thing I knew for sure was that it wasn’t a simple gas leak.
Chapter 19 - Roman
Even though Karine was safe in the hospital, and the doctor had assured me she wasn’t seriously hurt, I couldn’t get my heart to stop racing. Or get the twisted knot in my stomach to release. My hand kept squeezing hers for the reassuring feeling of her own fingers tightening around mine, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.
She was too worked up wondering what had happened, clearly heartbroken about the total destruction of the house. There was no way we’d be going back there any time soon. It would be easier to tear down the remaining walls and start over than try to renovate that disaster zone.
I wanted to tell her not to worry, that I’d buy her a bigger, better house, anywhere she wanted, but kept my lips clamped shut. This was no time to get sloppy. Still, I would have had to be a monster not to be upset.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her huddling in the ambulance, covered in debris, with the wreckage of that cursed house burning behind her. She’d been under all that just moments before I arrived. While she was getting her tests run, I’d been in contact with the firefighters who’d been on the scene, both to thank them and ask if they had any ideas about what happened.
They were convinced a gas leak had caused an explosion, and reiterated how lucky my wife was that she’d been in the exact right place or I’d certainly be a widower.
Karine’s hand went limp in mine, and it seemed like she was finally asleep. Not wanting to wake her, I sat in the chair beside her bed, fighting a growing anger that I didn’t quite understand the root cause of. It had to be some kind of reaction to the adrenaline that had been coursing through me from the moment I saw the camera feed of our house burning to the time it took to know that Karine was alive.
It was nothing like the rush from skydiving, and I leaned over, trying not to be sick.
That fucking house. I never should have accepted the shoddy mansion as a gift from Feliks. For all I knew, his corrupt builders had cut all manner of corners during construction. When I heard someone clearing his throat in the doorway, I looked up to see Feliks himself standing there. I had to force myself not to explode at his calm demeanor, just standing there with his expressionless gaze while his daughter lay in a hospital bed.
I took a deep breath. There was no way I could blow everything now. And maybe he wasn’t as calm as he appeared. He was probably just used to catastrophes.
