Get up NOW! a voice screamed in Aiden’s brain, three little words bursting with panic. A sudden urgency washed over him, and with difficulty, he opened his eyes but wanted to shut them again just a second later. They were leaden and burned to close. He was tired, so tired.
“Hurry!” It was a woman’s voice.
Lily’s face filled the screen of his imagination, and along with it came a sense of dread, this time so strong it set his heart to hammering. He opened his eyes again, and now he saw that the cabin was in flames. The heat of the blaze came at him in waves, stealing his breath. Panic lurched him to his feet, and smoke clogged his nostrils.
Not far off in the hazy distance he saw a woman standing alone, staring at him. He didn’t know her, or did he? “She needs you,” she demanded.
It sounded like Lily, but he knew it wasn’t her. This woman was smaller. “Sara?” he choked out.
A flicker of a smile played on her lips as if in reply. She spoke again. “Help her.” Then the smoky haze engulfed the woman and she was gone.
Aiden waved away the smoke in an attempt to glimpse her again. It was no use; she’d either moved away farther into the thick blackness or vanished completely. Dizziness nearly felled him, but he managed to grab the back of the sofa, steadying his totter. The floor was a furnace, burning the bottoms of his bare feet. He pushed the pain away and waved off the smoke in front of him, which he noticed, thankfully, was rising.
There was a blanket wrapped around his midsection. No, he thought, not wrapped, stuck. He realized, with horror, it was his own blood making it adhere to the bare skin of his torso. He’d been shot! He remembered that now. It all came back. Natalie holding the gun, aiming it at him; him not believing she would or could shoot him; him thinking he’d talk her out of whatever crazy idea she was entertaining.
With trembling fingers, he peeled the blood-soaked blanket away and peered down at the hole in his side. Blood bubbled from it, oozing and pulsing with each beat of his heart. Pain in his shoulder sent his fingers exploring gingerly until they grazed another hole.
There was nothing he could do to help himself, and he knew with heart-rending finality that time was not on his side. He willed himself calm and set out to find Lily.
A man lying prone on the floor caught his attention. He moved close enough to get a better look. “Jesus Christ!” Deputy Deluca’s head was haloed with a spray of crimson. In his hand lay his cell phone. With an agonizing rip of pain, Aiden fell to his knees. No way the man could be alive, but he checked for a pulse anyway. Finding none, he took the phone and punched in 911. A voice on the other end asked what the emergency was.
Smoke caught in his throat, making him sputter. “Need an ambulance and fire truck. Cabin on Ryan’s Road. Hurry.”
An urge came over him just then—to sit or maybe lie down, his energy spent, as if uttering just a few words had taken all he had left. He’d take a little rest and wait for the ambulance. It wouldn’t be long. Help would be there soon.
Slowly, as he went the short distance from kneeling to sitting, he saw Natalie. He inched nearer, until he was close enough to see her eyes were closed.
Smoke burned his eyes and throat. His world was growing dim, then the sound of a cough startled him back to consciousness. “Lily?” he called, pressing the blanket over his nose and mouth to keep the smoke from his lungs. His vision blurred, focusing in and out like the lens of a camera. He was dying; he wanted to die. The thought of moving even just another foot was akin to climbing Mount Everest.
“In front of you.” It was the voice again. Sara’s voice. This is no hallucination, he told himself. He lay prone, stretching himself out, hands searching, sweeping across the floor until finally, with great relief, they fell on the woman he loved. He felt the silk of her hair and stroked it. “Lily?”
Her head moved ever so slightly. A nod, he realized. She was nodding.
“I…I…called for help.” He coughed and held a palm to his side to stem the flow of blood. With each hack, it oozed through his fingers. How much time did he have left? How much blood had he lost? His world was growing more dreamlike. Was any of this really happening?
He couldn’t stand and was growing weaker by the second. Lifting her would be impossible. There was no hope. He might as well take her in his arms and lie beside her. Together they would wait for whichever came first, rescue or death.
Suddenly, it was as if a pair of hands were on him, trying in vain to pull him to his feet. “Save her,” the voice demanded.
But how could he possibly get Lily to safety? The voice was wrong. There was nothing he could do. Aiden clasped Lily’s hand, entwining his fingers with hers.
“I love you,” she whispered.
* * *
A blast of frigid air assaulted him like a slap to the face, and Aiden gulped it in greedily. Choking and sputtering, his breaths came in wild, frantic waves, filling him with a momentary panic. Would he ever breathe again? A chilled hand lay across his forehead, calming him. “Sara?” He looked around, but saw no one.
Smoke streamed from the open cabin door, and he was shocked to realize he was outside, lying in sooty snow. Lily was behind him, a little farther away from the blaze.
He elbowed to her side and saw that her nose was smashed flat, and was not just broken, but crushed. Blood had already begun to dry and congeal thickly around her nostrils. He did his best to check for gunshot wounds. There was no growing ring of red oozing through her clothing. Thankfully, he didn’t think she’d been shot. But her face! Her poor broken face. What had that bitch done to her? His pulse quickened as his anger rose. Let the flames take her. Let that fucking girl die and go straight to hell.
“Lily.” He shook her shoulders with what little strength he had left. “Wake up.”
Her eyes fluttered open and a hand flew to her ruined face. Tears flowed, cutting trenches through her soot-covered cheeks, and she let out a ragged breath. “Oh, God.”
The sound of twigs breaking and snow crunching beneath the weight of something small caught Aiden’s attention. Rex ambled toward them, dirty and shivering. He turned in a circle and curled up between them. Lily was safe; his job was done. He closed his eyes and let the last of his energy drain away.