“She has to be!” I choke out. “She has to be.”
His sad eyes meet mine. “Chase…” He can’t finish his sentence, but I know what he’s thinking. If she’s here, there’s no way she’s still alive.
Command radios in that the fire’s made its way to the boiler room, and Alec glances at me.
“Get out of here!” I bark, but he doesn’t move. “I mean it! Go!”
With forty pounds of gear on me, sweat clings to my body. It’s hard to breathe, hard to move. My hands and knees are burning with the boiling water beneath me.
I don’t care about any of that, though. My daughter has to be somewhere in this fucking place. I refuse to believe she’s dead. Alec is wrong. I’m going to find her and save her. As he reluctantly exits the apartment, I head toward the nursery again. Maybe she’s hiding somewhere. She loves to play hide and seek. What if she’s somewhere scared, waiting for me to find her.
A loud explosion shakes the building, stopping me in my tracks. I have to get out now if I want to make it out alive. For a brief moment, as I glance around, I consider staying. Is my life even worth living without my daughter?
“Chase!” Alec yells, shocking the hell out of me. “Let’s go! I’m not leaving without you.” He grabs me by my tank and yanks me out the door and down the stairs. When we make it far enough away, my feet give out. I drop to the ground and watch as the entire building explodes like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
A second and third engine pull up, working the fire together, but I can’t move from my place. I can’t stop watching my life go up in flames. And I don’t budge until Rich says, “The EMTs called.”
Ripping my mask off, I whip my head around, praying someone found my daughter. “Hazel?”
He shakes his head. “Victoria died on the way to the hospital. They don’t know the cause of death yet.”
I nod and stand. I know what it is. Overdose. She died doing the only thing she loves, the thing she put above everyone in her life, and she took my daughter with her.
“Maybe she wasn’t in there,” Alec says.
I hold up the shoe I was clutching in my glove and remove my tank. “She was there,” I choke out. “This was her shoe.”
Alec’s face falls. “Fuck, man.”
“I gotta go.”
“Go,” he says. “We’ll handle this...”
I don’t hear anything else he says. My head is fucking numb. I strip out of my gear, leaving it on the rig, and then start walking. I have no phone, no car, so I have no other choice.
I end up at the hospital. The nurse at the front desk glances at me with wide eyes. I’m sure I look a mess, but I don’t give a shit.
I give her Georgia’s name and she directs me to her room. When I walk in, she’s in tears, crying into her phone. “Please, I just need an update. I—”
When her eyes land on me, her words come to an abrupt halt, before she speaks. “The police located Victoria’s parents. She showed up with Hazel, but they got into an argument and she left. They haven’t seen her or Hazel since. The police are searching for her, and I was asking them for an update—”
“I have an update,” I say flatly, cutting her off.
“You found her?” Her tear-stained face brightens.
I hand her the half melted shoe and her face drops. “Chase…”
“She’s dead.”
Her head snaps up. “What? Who? How?”
“Hazel… and Victoria. They were in a fire. It hasn’t been confirmed yet, but Victoria overdosed, and I couldn’t find Hazel’s body. I was too late. She’s gone.”
Georgia gasps. “No.” She shakes her head, and it’s then I notice she has bruises and cuts all over her face. Stitches above her brow. I should ask her if she’s okay, but I don’t have it in me to care.
“Yes,” I bark out, my grief quickly morphing into anger. “She’s dead! Because you, with your rose-fucking-colored glasses refuse to see the world for what it is! Fucked up!”
She flinches. “Chase, I’m…” She breaks into sobs. “I didn’t mean—”
“Of course you didn’t mean for this to happen. Because you never could’ve imagined it turning bad because you have no clue about how ugly this fucking world is!” I swipe the tray by her bed, the contents flying all over the place.
“Enough!” a deep voice barks from behind me. Tristan, Georgia’s dad, walks inside. “I get you’re hurting, but so is she.”
“Good!” I bark. “She should be hurting because she caused this.” I point my finger at Georgia. “I will never forgive you for this.”
Fresh tears fill her eyes, and they’re the last thing I see before I walk out of the room and out of Georgia’s life. I should’ve known this would all end badly. She’s too good, too sweet, too fucking innocent and naïve. She just doesn’t understand how the real world works. How drug addicts like Victoria work. She wants to see the good in everyone and everything, but that’s her reality, not mine. In my world, good doesn’t exist.