I’d forgotten about the need for the blanket to shield me from the worst of the heat from the door handle, scalding my palm on the burning iron.
The pain was immediate and intense. Enough to yank last night’s pasta from my stomach and have it almost crawl up my throat.
Almost.
I made myself turn the knob, even as I felt my skin melting, charring against it. The pain took over everything—or tried to take over everything. But then I made myself think about how excruciating the small patch of burning on my palm was. Then considered what that would feel like covering my entire body.
And it got me moving. It was almost a blur, like someone else with more strength of will was manning the controls inside my brain. Then I yanked the small window in my studio open, with my uninjured hand.
The air kissed me, taunted me with its cooling and clean oxygen.
I coughed into it and tried to suck up as much unpolluted air as I could. But I didn’t have time for that. I was scooping canvases and throwing them out the window before I could think about what would happen to them if they landed wrong on the concrete below. They could be ruined and smashed from the fall and I could’ve almost—maybe actually—killed myself trying to save them.
I couldn’t think about that. So I didn’t.
The air increased in heat and intensity. The window I was throwing my canvases out of was tiny, not designed for a person climbing in and out of. Nor did it have a ladder attached to get me safely to the ground.
A quick glance to the flames licking the door told me I only had seconds. I snatched at the prints that were closest to my heart, that wouldn’t be able to be thrown out the window. The sketchbook full of memories too raw to be on display in the room. And then I ran. The wood was unsteady and hot against the balls of my feet, and I stumbled as something stabbed into my foot as I was halfway back to my bedroom door. The pain was intense, but nothing compared to my palm, which answered the call of the flames around it, itching to consume more of my skin.
I moved through the flames, stopping right in front of the door I’d closed for all of those sensible reasons, like not letting the flames spread. Now one of my hands was all but useless, the other clutching the images I’d risked my life for.
Smoke curled in my throat, seemed to fill it with ash. My body tried to repel it as I coughed uncontrollably, panicking as the fit didn’t give me any space to suck in what little air was left in the room.
My body swayed.
My throat was closed.
Eyes filling with grit.
I’m going to die.
And then the door was wrenched open, a figure darker than smoke filling it. The figure that rushed at me and had me gathered in its arms before I realized I’d collapsed into them.
“Lauren,” he growled against my neck as he buried me into it. I clutched my art to my chest as my coughing slowed and stopped, Gage striding across the room and through the open window.
The air was cool and beautiful and clean. But I already had beautiful and clear air the second my face pressed into the bare skin of Gage’s neck.
I worried about how Gage was going to maneuver the fire escape while carrying me. I worried about the rust on the fire escape and the considerable amount of weight Gage’s muscled form added to the load the aged iron would have to take on.
But I needn’t have worried, because this was a man who I’d been sure would’ve been able to save me in the middle of a plane crashing. And I’d had that thought the second I met him, when I knew nothing about him.
And now I knew everything about him, and I knew I was in safe arms. No matter how sure he was that they were going to destroy me. They were the only thing that was going to save me.
Then those arms were shaking me. Or was the world shaking?
Of course the world was shaking. It always did with Gage.
“Lauren, baby. Please, I need you to breathe.” His growl was thicker than the smoke taking up residence in my throat. It was full of more pain than the sharp and burning sensation in my palm.
My throat cleared and my chest burned as I sucked in the air that Gage was so desperate for me to welcome. And welcoming that banished the darkness creeping at the sides of my consciousness.
“Fuck. Okay, that’s it. That’s my girl,” he murmured.
I was rocking. There were lips against my head. Sirens were either far away or really close; my ears couldn’t hear anything but my strangled breathing and Gage’s soft murmurs.