Chapter 6

 

Owen’s senses rebelled against the explosion that shook the house. It was like cannon fire, only exponentially louder, deafening him to all but a high-pitched ringing in his ears. There had been an immense burst of energy, a shockwave that had reverberated through the air. His chair had toppled over with the force of it, throwing him to the floor, and his eyes had closed of their own accord as he braced for whatever might come next. The pressure in his head left him feeling dazed, and at first, he could only make sense of one thing.

It was hot. Too hot. He opened his eyes to a room full of smoke. It was thick, black, and oppressive, and as his brain struggled to make sense of what had happened, a wave of panic rose in his chest.

Lena.

Owen’s lips parted to call for her, but the breath he drew was nothing but acrid smoke, sending him into a fit of coughing. He didn’t spare a second glance at Phelps as he crawled from the room, doing his best to stay low and out of the worst of the smoke. His ears were still in full rebellion against the horrendous noise, as though he’d been submerged in water. He knew his lips were moving… Was he shouting? He was trying to call for her, but was he actually making noise?

Confusion and panic guided his movements as he crawled down the long hallway as quickly as possible. It was strewn with flaming debris. Owen had no idea where Phelps’ study might be, but the source of the explosion was all too obvious. Everything that wasn’t obscured by smoke was distorted by the extreme heat. The once-defined outlines of the walls and furniture shimmered before his eyes as if in a mirage, and the heat made him want to squeeze them shut again.

“Lena!”

That time he could hear his own voice, albeit only faintly. The sounds were slowly changing from a deafening silence to the roar of an inferno. Owen could hear voices somewhere behind him, but he didn’t dare look back. None of them belonged to her.

“Lena!” he shouted again, his voice cracking painfully. He listened in desperation for her response, but there was nothing. His heart pounded in his ears, the adrenaline pushing him closer to the source of the fire. One of the doors had been blown off of its hinges and now protruded horizontally into the hallway. Owen moved toward it, his eyes glued to what lay beneath.

No…

“No! Lena!”

She lay unmoving, face-down on the glowing hardwood and pinned by the heavy door to what, only moments before, had been Phelps’ study. The door was hot to the touch, but he ignored the pain as he pushed its weight off of her. He spared only a quick glance into the room as he worked to free Lena, but it was completely engulfed in flames. The thick smoke billowed out of the doorway overhead, and as Owen squinted into the inferno for a sign of Nate, he realized the exterior windows had been blown open as well. Nate was nowhere to be seen.

“Lena! Talk to me, baby! Lena!”

He managed to pull her completely out from beneath the door, which seemed to have shielded her from the blast somewhat. Owen could tell she was injured, but he was determined to get her away from the immense heat as quickly as possible. He gagged and choked on the thick smoke, but he never stopped moving. He pulled her along the floor as he crawled, his brain working in a feverish panic to understand what had happened and what he should do next.

Just get her out of the house. Get her out, get her out…

“Nate!” a hoarse male voice shouted.

Phelps. Two men were attempting to pull him toward the front door, but Owen didn’t spare a glance for any of them. Phelps was still calling for Nate as the men on either side of him persistently urged him onward. Owen said nothing as he pushed past them, unable to think of Nate at that moment. He got Lena out of the hallway and into the portion of the house that had an open floor plan. The air was a bit clearer there, but his goal was the front door.

Just a little further… She can’t die. This can’t be happening. What if she…

Oh, God… No, no, no…

Please just hold on, baby. Hold on.

The cool, night air was soothing to his dry throat, but the sudden influx of oxygen made him lightheaded and sent him into a coughing fit. His chest ached with the poisoned air and with raw, acute terror. Owen carried her down the front steps and collapsed onto the lawn, wondering if they were far enough away from the house. If there was a secondary explosion…

He didn’t take more than a half-second to think about it before dragging Lena another twenty feet further. He looked down at her and sobbed in horror. Her clothes, skin, and hair were dark with soot and smoke. Owen cradled her limp body in his arms, and he found himself pleading aloud as he brought a trembling hand to the side of her neck.

The weak but steady throbbing gave him only a moment’s relief. He placed her gently on the grass and began to check her more thoroughly, his vision blurring repeatedly with frantic tears. Her breaths were faint and shallow but definitely present. There were bruises and contusions all over her, and the back of her shirt was partially burnt away. The skin beneath the tattered fabric looked raw and angry. Blood poured copiously from a large gash on her forehead that crossed the hairline into her scalp, and Owen looked around frantically for something to use to apply pressure to the wound.

It was only then that he realized they weren’t alone on Phelps’ front lawn. Several members of the household staff were cowering on the grass, and Phelps had collapsed near them, watching in shock as his home burned before his eyes. Wyatt was sprinting toward them, flanked by Simpson, Nate’s bodyguard.

“I need a shirt or something! She’s bleeding!” He’d meant to shout, but his voice was little more than a croak. Wyatt heard him, however, and handed him a linen handkerchief before shrugging out of his suit jacket. He knelt to wrap it carefully around Lena while Owen applied pressure to her forehead.

“The fire department and paramedics are on their way,” Wyatt explained, gesturing toward Simpson, who was speaking rapidly into his cell phone.

“I…” Owen looked helplessly down at Lena, recalling perhaps too late what little he knew about emergency medical treatment. “I had to move her. I had to.”

“I know. You did the right thing.”

“But you’re not supposed to move someone after they’re injured like that… What if I hurt her more? What if I paralyzed her, I…” He was rambling, the unadulterated fear rising again within him.

Oh, God…

“Owen!” Wyatt’s voice reached him through his anxiety. “She’s alive. That’s what matters right now. She’s breathing, and her heart’s beating. Let’s focus on keeping it that way, alright? Watch her breathing. If she stops, we’ll have to do CPR.”

Owen nodded mutely, too shocked to form a response. He focused his gaze on Lena’s chest, but he couldn’t detect any movement there. The darkness was lit only by the fire, and he belatedly realized that he was trembling too much to focus his eyes properly. He brought a hand up to her face instead and was relieved to feel a soft, warm brush of air from her nose.

“Did you see Nate?”

Phelps’ question took several seconds to penetrate Owen’s mind, and he kept his hand in place as he turned his head toward the older man. Phelps looked stunned and terrified, but he seemed to be uninjured. His voice had been affected by smoke inhalation, but he’d still managed to shout the question from a good fifteen feet away. Owen thought back to the brief glimpse of the study he’d gotten before pulling Lena out of the house and shook his head sadly at Phelps.

There was no way Nate could have survived it. He was gone.

Owen’s expression made it unnecessary to say the words aloud, and Phelps raised a hand to his forehead, closing his eyes as though fighting back tears. He lapsed into a long coughing fit, but Owen couldn’t spare him another glance. His gaze locked on Lena once again, and he tried not to think of Nate. There would be a time to mourn him, but saving Lena was his priority.

He didn’t realize he was sobbing until Wyatt placed a hand on his shoulder. Owen jerked wildly with the movement and instinctively moved his body forward to shield Lena from further harm. He felt the wetness on his cheeks then, but his hands were too busy to wipe them way. One hand pressed the blood-soaked square of linen to Lena’s forehead while the other hovered over face. She was still breathing.

The sound of sirens reached his ears, and Owen closed his eyes in gratitude. Help was coming.

“Hold on, baby. You are not allowed to leave me, Eleanore. Do you understand? Just hold on. Help is coming. You’ll be okay…” Tears streaked over his soot-stained cheeks as he whispered into her ear, unwittingly repeating the very words he’d used to soothe her when they were four years old. “Stay with me. I’ll keep you safe.”

Not five minutes later, they were surrounded by fire and emergency medical workers. They had silenced their sirens, but the flashing red and white lights made spots dance before Owen’s eyes. The firefighters were shouting instructions to one another and questions at the other shell-shocked victims who had taken up residence in Phelps’ front yard. Several teams of paramedics disembarked their vehicles at a run, carrying their supply bags and stretchers. Owen’s relief at their arrival sent his adrenaline level surging upward once again.

“What happened here?” one of them shouted as she approached.

“I don’t know. Some kind of explosion,” Owen croaked back. The EMT looked at him in concern and gestured to her partner to see to him while she examined Lena. Owen shook his head adamantly. “No, focus on her!”

“What’s her name? Can you tell me about her? Any medical history we should know about?”

“Eleanore Gardner. She’s nineteen… She doesn’t have any chronic health issues… She’s been unconscious since I found her…” Owen realized the questions were to gain information as well as to gauge his own mental state, but he kept his attention on Lena. The EMT worked quickly over her, assessing her wounds and checking her pupillary reaction and oxygen levels.

“Where was she?”

“In the study with her father. There was an explosion, and… I think whatever it was must have come from inside the room. There wasn’t much left of it.”

“Is her father still inside?” the medic paused in her work and looked at the burning house in alarm. The woman’s partner shouted a warning to the firefighters that there may well have been another victim with critical injuries.

“He’s… He couldn’t have made it. Not if he was in the room.”

“Is there any chance he wasn’t?”

“I don’t…” Owen faltered, remembering the last few moments before the blast as well as the blazing interior of Phelps’ study. “I don’t think so. I would’ve seen or heard him if he’d left the room before Lena. I think she must’ve been in the doorway. She was under the door when I found her. I know you’re not supposed to move an injured person, but—”

“No, you did the right thing. Getting her away from the fire was more important,” the woman reassured him. “I’m Sarah. My partner over there is Melissa. What’s your name?”

“Owen.”

“Alright, Owen. You did a great job, and we’re going to take care of her. Are you hurt?”

He shook his head in denial, ignoring the pain in his eyes and throat as well as the burning sensation in his hands.

Owen watched Sarah’s hands move quickly and confidently over Lena’s body. Melissa helped move Lena onto the bright yellow backboard, and together they worked to intubate her and start an IV. He winced sympathetically as the silver instrument was wedged into Lena’s mouth and the clear tube was pushed down her throat. In seconds, they had attached the bag to the end of the tube and were checking for breath sounds.

“Clear and equal,” Sarah pronounced. “Let’s get her on the rig. Sir, one of the other teams will see to you and transport you—”

“No! I’m going with Lena!”

“Are you family?” Melissa asked him.

“Yes, I’m her fiancé,” Owen insisted without hesitation. It was a stretch, but there was no way in hell he was going to let them separate him from Lena. “The only other family she had was her father.”

The EMTs nodded in acceptance, lifting Lena’s stretcher from the ground, and Owen followed them to the ambulance. He glanced briefly at Phelps and the others, who were being treated by other medics, but his focus was on Lena. He climbed up into the back of the ambulance and took a seat opposite Sarah while Melissa got behind the wheel. The sirens howled overhead as they raced to the hospital, and Owen watched anxiously as Sarah continued to work on Lena. She connected the endotracheal tube to an oxygen line and bandaged Lena’s head wound tightly before checking her pupils for a third time.

“What’s going on?” he asked frantically? “Why isn’t she waking up?”

“We don’t know yet.” The simple answer only irritated him, and his blood pressure rose high enough to make him feel dizzy.

“What about the rest of her? She had burns on her back,” Owen reminded her.

“Tell you what… She’s stable for the moment. I’ll tell you what I know so far about her condition if you let me treat you while I talk.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. And if you weren’t scared out of your mind right now, you’d realize that. Let me do my job, Owen. I’ll tell you as much as I can.”

He scowled in frustration but nodded his head, too desperate for information to even consider refusing her offer. Sarah slid around to his side of the rig and began her examination.

“So?” he demanded impatiently.

“Hush and let me listen,” she admonished, pressing a stethoscope to his chest. “Breathe in.”

“You said you’d tell me—”

“And I will, but right now I need you to breathe in. As deeply as you can.”

Owen kept his eyes on Lena as he followed Sarah’s instruction. The simple act of inhaling sent him into a fit of violent coughing, and she quickly strapped an oxygen mask around his head.

“Breathe slowly,” she instructed. He glared at her briefly before staring intently at Lena again, and Sarah smiled sadly before following through on her promise, checking his vitals as she spoke. “Your fiancée does have some burns on her back and the backs of her arms. I’d venture to say second degree on her back, maybe first degree on her arms. There might be a little scarring, but they’ll heal. I suspect her left clavicle is fractured, and I’m pretty sure at least two of her ribs are as well, so they’re going to need to get her to radiology as soon as she gets to the hospital. But the bigger concern is her head injury. They’ll want to do a CT to rule out serious damage, but it’s probably better that she’s unconscious right now. She’d be in a lot of pain otherwise. Her heart rate is low but steady. We’re giving her oxygen and trying to get her stats up before we hand her over to the ER docs.”

“But she’ll be okay?” Owen whispered fearfully.

“The doctors will do everything they can to make sure that she will be, and we will do everything we can to get her to them. Now, are you experiencing any dizziness or nausea?” He shrugged noncommittally, unable to think of anything but the woman lying on the gurney. “Any pain anywhere? Any shortness of breath?”

“It’s hard to breathe,” he admitted, still watching Lena. “And I’m a little dizzy.”

“Your heart rate is through the roof. I need you to try to calm down.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to calm down?!” Owen shouted as loudly as his charred throat would allow. “I just pulled the love of my life out of a burning building that literally blew up!”

“Your elevated stress level is making your respiratory condition worse.”

“I don’t give a fu—” The rest of his statement was swallowed up in another coughing fit, and Sarah pushed the mask back onto his face.

Owen gazed anxiously at Lena, longing for a glimpse of her beautiful blue eyes. He knew Sarah had been right, though. If Lena were awake, she would be in horrible pain, and there would be enough of that later. Mentally and physically.

The alarm on the heart monitor beeped loudly, and his eyes widened in terror. He demanded to know what was happening, but Sarah ignored him, speaking instead to Lena while she did chest compressions as gently as possible. With broken bones in the chest cavity, too much jostling could be dangerous, but she wanted to avoid using the defibrillator if at all possible.

“Come on, Eleanore. Stay with us. Keep that heart beating,” Sarah said loudly. “Get us there now, Mel!” The engine revved a little louder in response.

For the first time in his life, Owen found himself reaching out to a God he wasn’t sure even existed. His adoptive parents had never taken him to church, and his birth mother certainly hadn’t bothered to teach him anything about faith either. He only knew what he’d learned from the handful of holiday services he’d attended with the Langfords as a teen. But in that moment, he prayed as fervently as any priest. He didn’t take his eyes off Lena as his lips moved silently behind his oxygen mask and his eyes streamed with fresh tears.

She was his life. He couldn’t lose her.

The ambulance bumped gently as it entered the hospital emergency entrance, and a crew of doctors and nurses stood waiting to help them out of the vehicle. If Owen had been able to spare a thought for anything other than Lena’s condition, he might have wondered at their eager reception. News of the explosion had already reached them, and the staff had been forewarned of the incoming trauma victims. Lena was the first to arrive.

They whisked her away to a trauma room quickly, and Owen ripped off his oxygen mask and moved to follow them. A nurse intercepted him with practiced skill, and he had to fight every instinct he possessed not to toss her into the wall so he could get to Lena.

“Get the fuck out of my way!” he screamed at her, his vision shaking out of focus as the adrenaline pushed his blood pressure even higher. The nurse held him by his biceps as though she were about to bodycheck him like a two-hundred-fifty-pound linebacker, but her voice was remarkably calm.

“Sir, you can’t be in there right now. As soon as they have her stabilized, someone will come talk to you.”

“I need to be with her!”

“You need to let the doctors do their jobs and—”

“I won’t get in the way! I just need to be with her. Please!” His shouting led to more coughing, and the nurse took advantage of his momentary weakness to guide him forcefully to a gurney in the triage area.

“Sir, you’re suffering from smoke inhalation, and that can be fatal if it goes untreated. You can see her room from where we’re sitting,” she told him, still holding him by the shoulders with one hand as she pointed toward a windowed room with the other.

“I can’t see her,” he managed through the coughing. The blinds were closed, but he could see rapid movement through the infinitesimal spaces between them. “What’s happening?!”

“They’re doing everything they can to help your friend—”

“Fiancée,” he interrupted.

“Fiancée, then. Someone will come update you as soon as possible, but right now, I need you to let us treat you.” She paused, beckoning to a coworker to page a doctor immediately. “What’s your name, sir?”

“Owen Langford,” he croaked, eyes still streaming as he craned his neck to see around her.

“Alright, Owen. I’m Judy. Dr. Jackson is on his way. Is there someone I can call for you?”

“Um… What?” Owen felt as though his brain was being pulled in too many directions at once. What’s she asking? I need Lena… Judy looked at him with even greater concern than before, trying to assess his mental state.

“I need an emergency contact for you, Mr. Langford. For your fiancée too. Is there a family member I can call?”

“Mary… Uh, Dr. Mary Langford.”

“You’re one of Dr. Langford’s sons?”

Owen nodded absently, not bothering to correct the nurse’s assumption. His eyes were glued to the window of Lena’s trauma room, and he could tell that the activity within it seemed to have slowed down. That has to mean she’s okay… They wouldn’t slow down unless she was stable. Or unless… He pushed the thought away, barely registering the arrival of a man in a white lab coat. Dr. Jackson listened intently as Judy brought him up to speed, and Owen answered his questions distractedly, keeping his gaze trained on the trauma room. He was alarmed once again when the door opened and several more people in lab coats wheeled Lena’s stretcher out of the room.

“Where are they taking her?” he demanded, instantly on his feet as she was wheeled out of sight. The doctor moved to block his path and attempted to push him back onto the bed.

“Sir, I need you to sit down and stay calm.”

Owen threw the man’s arms off and fought to get around him. His heart was pounding in his ears, and his vision blurred with panic again.

“I need to be with my fiancée! I need to be there when she wakes up!” His shouting launched yet another fit of coughing, and the next voice he heard was familiar.

“Owen? What happened to you?!” Mary was at his side in an instant, joining forces with Dr. Jackson to get Owen back onto the gurney. She looked askance at her coworkers, and Judy rattled off what few details she had on the situation.

“Lena’s hurt! They won’t tell me anything, and they just took her away…” He was still frantically trying to follow after Lena, and Mary’s professional instincts took over.

“We’ll find out what’s going on, but you need to sit down this instant. You’re hurt too.”

“I’m fine. She needs me!”

“Yes, she does!” Mary raised her voice, finally capturing his attention. “She’ll need you to be strong for her, and you can’t do that if you’re not well. Now, either you’re going to sit down and let us treat you or I’m going to strap you to this bed and sedate you. Is that clear?”

Owen stared at her, his expression one of panic, fear, and desperation. He was trembling and panting heavily, wheezing with each rapid breath. His legs felt suddenly weak, and he collapsed onto the bed of his own accord. Mary slipped an oxygen mask over his face again and clipped a pulse oximeter onto his index finger, watching the numbers on the screen.

“You’re having an anxiety attack. I need you to breathe slowly, Owen. In… and out… In… out…” She coached his breathing as Judy and Dr. Jackson continued to work around them. Within minutes, he had an IV in his arm and a nebulizer attached to his mask. “You’re doing great, sweetheart. Just keep breathing… That’s it…”

Mary sat on the bed next to him, gazing at him with so much love and empathy that it made Owen’s chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with the smoke he’d inhaled. For a moment, he was transported back to the last time she’d sat with him on an emergency room gurney. He’d thought of her as his own personal savior, sent to rescue him from the hell that had been his life at that age. She’d made him feel safe. Owen had spent years wishing that Mary, rather than Vera Monroe, had been his mother, and eventually he’d gotten his wish. More or less.

But she couldn’t save him this time. Because the only thing that could save him was Lena’s survival. He didn’t want to contemplate a future without her in it. He couldn’t even fathom it. Owen looked up at Mary through swollen, bloodshot eyes and sobbed into the hand that stroked his dirty, tear-stained cheeks.

“She can’t die, Mom. She has to live.”