Page 124 of Burn It Down

Fire.

Jake.

My eyes spring open to find Cassie and my dad talking to a nurse.

“Jake,” I manage to whisper, but it comes out more like “hay”.

Cassie’s eyes whip to me and she’s instantly by my side, holding my hand.

“Dylan! Shh, don’t try to talk yet.”

Fuck that.

“Shake,” I try Jake’s name again, but I can’t get the goddamn “j” to work.

“Shh,” my sister says, holding a plastic cup to my lips.

Why won’t she tell me where Jake is?

I raise my hand to bat the cup away. “Jake?” I finally manage to say, but it comes out ragged and exhausts me and hurts like fucking hell.

My sister shares a look with the nurse who purses her lips, but finally nods, and my sister starts talking.

“Jake’s currently undergoing hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Phoenix got you out and two of the guys from the other truck went back in for Jake, but he was already unconscious. They suspect carbon monoxide poisoning and are trying to clean his blood.”

He’s alive. That’s what I’m choosing to focus on…althoughfocusis a bit of stretch at the moment. I’m still a little dizzy, but the thing that is most notably absent, are any burns.

“Shop?” I ask, overcome with the need to sleep.

My dad steps into view, shaking his head solemnly. “We lost everything.”

Figures, right as I’d thought there might be a chance for us to hold on to it after all, it all goes up in flames.

But who locked me in? And why?

My body pulls me under before I can voice any of this.

I’m in and out of sleep several more times. I have no idea how long I’ve been here or what day it is. I’m startled awake by someone frantically yelling my name. It’s a scratchy whisper-yell and it makes my own throat hurt again.

“DYLAN!”

I do my best to sit up. I still don’t have much of a voice so I bang my plastic water tumbler on the bedrail to get Jake’s attention. Even raspy and broken I’d know his voice. The desperation in it has me choking on a sob.

When he turns the corner into my room, the sight startles me. His hair is a mess, his eyes are bloodshot, his lips are dry and split, and he’s in a hospital gown, pulling a rolling I.V. bag with him.

A nurse comes in the door right behind him. “Mr. Ellington, you need to get back into bed,” she nags. “And please stop trying to speak.”

I flip my covers open and pat the space next to me.

“Are you hurt?” he rasps, completely ignoring the woman as he climbs into bed next to me.

I shake my head because talking still hurts like a son of a bitch.

Jake’s hands are all over my face, neck, and chest. While he explores my body, I kiss his forehead and place my cheek against his face.

“Maybe we should give them a second,” my sister says, uncrossing her legs and heading for the door, my dad right behind her.

The nurse looks pissed. “Mr. Ellington needs to get back into bed.”

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