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Still, it didn’t stop the crack that formed in the center of my chest, breaking me apart piece by piece, as I watched him head toward the flames.
What if he didn’t come back out?
I waited…
…and waited…
…and waited…
It felt like I waited forever for Nicholas to come out of the building. Or maybe that was just how time was supposed to feel when someone I cared about was risking their life. Thankfully, it seemed like I wasn’t alone in my concern, as the other men on Nicholas’ team were watching the building, too, their whispers and murmurs telling me that they were looking for a safe way in, monitoring the situation until they needed to make a move.
I kept my eyes locked on the building’s front door, searching for any sign of movement…
And finally, something moved.
The first person that came through the door was small, mirroring the other little girl I’d met on the grass. She was coughing just like her sister, too, the smoke clearly affecting her lungs. A few seconds more and she was rushed by EMTs pulling her up onto a gurney and hastily checking all of her vitals. I watched as she was swarmed by her family members, an older woman softly patting her hair, an older man giving her a sweet kiss on her forehead, her sister reaching up to hold her hand.
I brought my focus back to the door, waiting for the second body to come through the doorway, waiting for Nicholas to come back to me…
I waited…
…and I waited…
…and I waited…
And before I even realized it, I was headed toward the burning building.
“Parker! Hey! What the hell?” Tyler called out after me. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?!”
I didn’t bother answering him, my heart working a lot faster than my head, no words coming to me that could’ve explained my behavior. I barely knew what I was doing, following my connection to Nicholas instead of anything rational that told me I definitely shouldn’t have rushed into an apartment complex that was currently on fire. Even Nicholas would’ve disapproved of my behavior, his voice already upset with me in the back of my mind, telling me that I needed to leave saving his life to the professionals.
And yet, here I was, smoke burning through my lungs, my eyes cloudy with it as I searched for him between the flames.
“Nicholas? Nicholas!” I hopelessly called out for him as I walked down the nearest hall. It felt like walking through actual hell, something that I hadn’t thought I’d ever be willing to try.
But for Nicholas, I was willing to do whatever it took.
A few more seconds passed, and I started to get desperate, my mind beginning to assume the absolute worst. I knew what kind of man Nicholas was, which meant that if there was a situation where it was either down to him or the little girl, he would’ve chosen her every time. I looked up at the burning ceiling, briefly wondering about the physics of an upside-down fire before I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.
Something that looked a lot like Nicholas’ body slumped over in the corner.
He was at the very end of the hallway, so I ran over to him as fast as I could.
“Nicholas!” I screamed his name as I grabbed onto his shoulders, trying my best to shake him awake. Despite my best efforts, he didn’t respond. He seemed knocked out cold. I quickly gave up on trying to wake him up myself, knowing that the smartest thing I could do was pull his body out of the burning building before we were both trapped inside. I slid my hands underneath his shoulders, pulling him back toward the entrance of the building…
But with every pull of his much larger body, I felt myself getting dizzier, getting more tired, the way to the front seeming so much blurrier than before…
I pushed through the feeling, the way the warmth at the edges of my brain threatened to take over, to pull me down into darkness. I didn’t stop until I knew we were close to the front of the apartment complex, the door so close I could’ve reached out and touched it…
Which was exactly what I did, my fingers brushing against the back of it…
Before the darkness finally made good on its threat, claiming me, everything around me melting into black as I fell right into its void, the darkness suddenly beside me, in front of me, everywhere I could’ve looked.
18
NICHOLAS
“Do you think he’ll wake up soon?”
