Her lungs felt seared, her eyes burned like they’d been doused with hot pepper, and she couldn’t keep them open any longer. Didn’t matter. She couldn’t see anyway, couldn’t hear anything except the fire and the shrill cries of horses as the inferno grew over and around them.
Starved for oxygen, her head started to buzz. What if Lexie was crawling on the other side looking for her? She had no way of knowing if her friend had already made it out. If she didn’t go now, there was a good chance she would burn on this floor.
Would she pass out before the flames got her? Hooves pounded against wood near her head. There were more horses, but…she couldn’t think who, where, or which way to go. And Lexie.
She pulled her legs under her and tried to crawl. The suffocating heat and black smoke pressed her back down. She couldn’t even drag in enough air to cough. After all the times she’d wanted to die, she now desperately wanted to live, but her mind was going dark. With her forehead resting on the ash-strewn floor, she took a second. Thought of her brothers, of Stephen.
A strong hand grabbed her upper arm and jerked her up and off the concrete flooring. She reached out with her other hand as she was lifted and felt the thick, rough fabric of the protective jacket Zach wore. She coughed out Lexie’s name. Or tried to as she was thrown roughly over a shoulder, knocking the remaining air from her stomach.
The relief was immediate, but her throat and chest burned like she’d swallowed fire. Maybe she had.
She was lowered to her back on cool grass. Something covered her mouth and she made a weak attempt to push it away. “Lexie. She’s—”
“They’ll get her out. Just relax. Breathe.”
Zach. Zach was here. She tried again to tell him but couldn’t get enough breath to speak. Nauseous, she fought to sit up. Zach helped her roll to her side and she coughed until she thought a lung would come up.
Lying back in the grass, she heard sirens, male voices shouting. And above it all, the roar of burning wood.
Another figure emerged from the mouth of the barn. A man running, a body slumped over his shoulder. Lexie.
“Is there anyone else in there?”
She shook her head, then tried to croak out that she really didn’t know.
“The horses.” She tried to get up again.
“They’re all out,” Zach said, pushing her shoulders down. “We’ll round them up. Just relax.”
Tears poured from her eyes, making them hurt even more. New voices and something different over her mouth. More sirens as water flowed in a giant stream high into the air.
“You’re okay. I’ll be back.”
She squinted after Zach. Everyone who wasn’t fighting the fire hovered around the other body on the ground.
Chapter 40
When the fire truck passed him ten minutes earlier, he didn’t think much of it. When the ambulance flew around him just three minutes later, he didn’t want to believe it, but he pressed his foot to the gas. When he followed the emergency vehicle through the gates, the empty sound of her unanswered phone was still ringing through his truck’s speakers.
He didn’t remember stopping and getting out, just that he was running. Heart slamming against his ribs as he sprinted toward a nightmare. It seemed like hours for his eyes to track around, take in the scene. Seeing everything except what he was looking for.
Flames thirty feet high lit up the night. Men’s voices shouted above a sound he wouldn’t have associated with a fire. Sparks flew, bright orange against the dark sky. Blue and red emergency vehicle lights spun over the entire scene.
And above it all his repeating mantra. Don’t let her be in there.
Would she have seen the fire from her house? Maybe not. Maybe she was at home, in bed.
Hannah. Don’t let her be in there.
His mind screamed her name. His throat was closed with absolute terror. Voice cut off. He had the random thought that this must be why people couldn’t scream in a nightmare.
This is a nightmare.
Would she go in there? For the horses? His stomach turned as his mind answered that question. Another ambulance bumped over the ground to his left, siren wailing, lights flashing into the chaos.
Firemen yelled and pointed to the emergency technicians and he followed their line of sight to a body on the ground. And he ran.
He reached her, dropped on weak knees beside her. “Hannah?”
Her head turned and she lowered the mask that covered her nose and mouth. Her lips moved, but he couldn’t understand, or couldn’t hear, over the blood pounding in his own head. Moving. Alive.
Was she hurt? Was she burned? He lifted a shaky hand and ran it over her hair, searched her face. The same face he’d looked into just hours ago, now covered with black soot except for the white lines tracking from the corners of her eyes.
“Lexie.” She said the name and coughed so hard her small body strained off the ground. He helped her sit up, adjusted the oxygen mask over her mouth so that every time she wheezed, her lungs would fill.
A paramedic rushed over. “We need to get you checked out at the second ambulance.”
“Is she okay? The other—Lexie.”
Stephen’s eyes landed on the figure lying still on the grass.
“They’re working on her,” the woman said. “Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
She started to stand, but Stephen lifted her slight body into his arms. She’d been in that fire. She’d been in that fire.
“I can walk.”