Page 84 of Shadows in Bloom

It’s smoke.

My heart jackknifes with panic, and next thing I know, I’m being heaved up to a seated position. Turning my head, I cough harshly, blinking rapidly against the stinging in my eyes and nostrils as I try to catch my bearings.

“Come on!” My glasses are suddenly shoved in my hand, and I quickly put them on just as my arm is thrown around slim shoulders, and I’m dragged to a stand. “We have to get out of here.”

Ophelia…

“Wh-what?—”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” she cries..

The smoke filling her bedroom is so dense, save for where flames climb up her curtains and walls, singing them black, lifting the corners of her wallpaper.

When we reach the door, I twist around to look over my shoulder.

There, on the ground is a candle on its side, pointed toward the curtains.

A horrible feeling bottoms out my gut.

We blew that out…

Didn’t we? I could’ve sworn…

Oh God.

The house creaks threateningly.

Ophelia yelps when she throws open the door, and I turn to face ahead, eyes rounding as I look around. How did it spread this far already if it started in her room?

“Come on,” I hear her yell over the roaring flames that seem to be climbing over every wall.

Slipping out from under Ophelia, I turn toward her and give her a nod as I bring the collar of my shirt up to my face, covering my nose and mouth. She does the same, and then we carefully descend the stairs to the first level.

The smoke is even thicker down here. The fire has spread everywhere.

The front door lays straight ahead, currently unobstructed, and I could cry in relief.

Grabbing Ophelia by the arm, I start tugging her toward safety. I can hear muffled yelling as she tries to say something—call something out—but it’s impossible to make sense of it under the whooshing of the fire and the ringing in my ears.

Why aren’t the smoke detectors going off?

We stumble outside, down her porch steps, and fall to our knees in the grass. It’s only then that I realize what Ophelia was yelling inside.

“Dad!”

Pushing to an unsteady stand, she staggers around, yelling out for her dad in between harsh, wet coughs. While I heave into the lawn, blinking bleary-eyed around their front yard.

In the distance, I catch flickers of red and blue—hear sirens drawing closer. With the St. Maud manor being right at the edge of town where Main Street ends, it’s only a matter of time before people start gathering to watch the scene, if they aren’t there already.

Wouldn’t they be helping us though?

“Dad! DAD!”

I turn and scramble to a stand, all but tackling Ophelia to the ground just before she reaches the porch steps.

She shoves me off her, crab-crawling away from me.

“What are you doing?” I shout, triggering another cough attack.

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