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Prologue
Twenty years ago, Serbia
(Drago, 17 years old)
“It’s the blonde one, you idiot,” I mumble and reach for the bottle of beer on the coffee table.
I don’t know why I keep watching these predictable thrillers. Maybe they keep my mind off the shit I don’t want to think about. Like, how I need to tell my old man that I failed the third year of secondary school. Again. Or how my mom will lose it in the morning when she realizes I crashed my bike. It’s not like I can hide the fact that both my right arm and cheek are scraped raw. It would have been nice if the road rash at least erased the ink fucking Adam screwed up on again. I never should have let him practice on me. It’ll take two months for the crap he tattooed on my forearm to heal enough to be covered up. And, hopefully, with something that doesn’t fucking sucks. This shit looks more like a donkey than the reaper I told him to do.
Taking another swig from the bottle, I look over at the clock beside the TV. Three in the morning. I should go upstairs and sleep. I promised the girls I would take them to the zoo tomorrow. Dina will probably freak out and cry when she sees my face. Tara will just try to poke the mangled flesh.
I turn off the TV and toss the remote onto the coffee table. I’m halfway across the room when I’m thrown back against the far wall as an earsplitting boom engulfs me. Pain explodes through my right side.
Everything goes black.
* * *
My eyes snap open, but I can’t make anything out at first. My vision is blurry. There is a sharp pain at the back of my head and on my side. It takes me a moment to realize I’m sprawled on the floor, but when I try to sit up, another jolt of pain shoots through my right shoulder and down my arm. I grit my teeth and press my left hand on the wall, somehow managing to stand. A wave of dizziness hits me and I pause, trying to make the room stop spinning around me. My vision clears a little, but I can still barely see shit. The air is murky, and the only source of light streams in behind me. Something wet slides down the side of my neck, just below my ear. I swipe it away and see blood on my fingers. What the fuck?
I’m still facing the wall, trying to get my bearings when the smell of smoke invades my nostrils. Slowly, I turn around and immediately take an involuntary step back. On the opposite side of the house, beyond the living room and the stairs leading to the upstairs bedrooms, the door to my parents’ room hangs askew on its hinges. Part of the outside wall is missing, and the glow from the streetlight illuminates debris piled on the bed and all around the floor. Dust hangs in the air.
“Mom! Dad!” I vault over the overturned furniture, but I can’t hear my own voice. I can’t hear anything.
My eyes are glued to the fragmented wall piled atop the bed where my parents were sleeping as I try to move the couch out of the way with my one functional arm. The other is useless and numb. I think my shoulder dislocated when the blast threw me against the wall.
The space is filling up with smoke, and it’s getting harder to breathe, but I don’t see fire anywhere. Frantically, I turn around and catch sight of an orange glow beyond the kitchen threshold. Fear grips me as I shift my gaze to the upper floor, to the door closest to the landing. My sisters’ bedroom. My eyes dart between the upstairs door and the wreckage of my parents’ room, while my heart beats like crazy. Should I go help Mom and Dad first, or get the girls? An acid taste fills my throat as I take in the magnitude of the destruction on the ground floor. There is no way anyone could have survived that. With one last look at my parents’ room, I push down the bile, hurdle the ruined couch and run for the stairs.
When I reach the top step, I’m seized in a fit of coughing. I bury my nose and mouth in the crook of my arm, trying to keep the smoke out of my throat and lungs, and kick the door open.
“Tara!” I shout as I stumble and grab my crying sister off the bed to my left. I shift her to my hip, then turn to find Dina, Tara’s twin, standing in the corner of the room. Her eyes are wide and panicked, staring at me. I try reaching for her, but I can’t make my right arm move.
“Take my hand. We need to get out,” I yell, still unable to hear my words.
Dina shakes her head and plasters her back to the wall. Tara is wailing and thrashing in my hold.
“Fucking now, Dina!” I roar and fall into another coughing fit. “Fuck!” I wheeze.
I try moving my right arm again and fail. The smoke is getting thicker. We have to get out of here, but I can’t carry both of my sisters with one arm. Fear and helplessness are suffocating me more than the smoke itself. I’ll have to take them out one by one. I need to pick. How the fuck can I choose which sister to save first?
Tara is hysterical, and I’ve already got her. She’ll have to be first.
“I’m taking Tara outside, and I’m coming right back,” I yell, looking at Dina’s frightened face. She seems so much younger than her four years when she’s scared. “Just two minutes, Dina sugar. Don’t move.”
Throwing a pleading glance at her to make her understand, I turn around and run out of the room.
I don’t know how I’m managing to descend the stairs. The smoke stings my eyes, making it almost unbearable to look where I’m going, and I trip several times before I reach the front door.
Outside, neighbors stand in our driveway, gaping at the house. There are flickering red lights visible down the street, getting closer. It’s probably the fire department or an ambulance. They will be here any moment, but I can’t wait. I thrust crying Tara into the arms of the closest man and dash back into the burning house.
The smoke is so thick that I’m forced to half run, half crawl across the living room. My eyes water and my lungs scream for air. I reach the stairs just as the edge of the rug closest to the kitchen catches on fire. The flames are spreading fast and moving toward the stairway.
I finally make it back up to the girls’ bedroom, my eyes straining to see my sister. She’s not where I left her, so I lunge toward the bed. Dina is bundled up, hiding under the covers.
“I’m here, sugar.” I throw the duvet to the side, grab Dina around her waist, and lift her onto my hip.
Going back toward the front door is out of the question. There’s too much smoke. I could try to get us out through the window—it’s not too high—but Dad bolted it shut last month because Tara kept opening it, and he was afraid she’d fall out. We have to reach my room at the other end of the hall and use the balcony there.
“Hold on to me!” I can’t assess how loud I’m speaking, so I shout just in case. “We’re getting out!”
