HER

I don’t know what burns more, my eyes, my arms, my legs, or my lungs.

I don’t even know if I’m moving at this point. I think I am, but it all looks the same, feels the same.

Suddenly, I hear the sound of footsteps and someone yanking me to my feet.

“Miss! You’re okay, we’re just going to get you outside.”

“Please. Help,” I gasp.

“Is there anyone else in there?”

“I don’t know... I didn’t see anyone.” A cough wracks through my body and I’m dragged by my arms for a few seconds and it’s suddenly bright.

“JADE!” I feel myself lifted onto something, probably an ambulance stretcher but I’m not sure. A mask covers my mouth and nose obstructing my views and I can barely see through my burning, teary eyes.

“Oh, Jade, thank God you’re alright.” There’s a pat on my shoulder and I struggle to turn my head. It’s Harriet. I try to smile, but not much is under my control at this point.

“Did Kaine save you?” I think I hear her ask through the fog, but my brain isn’t clear.

“Kaine? He’s here?” I say, my voice smothered by the oxygen mask.

“What? I can’t understand you, honey.”

I try to pull at the mask, but she won’t let me. I sit up batting her hands away. “I asked if Kaine is here?”

There’s a crinkling of her forehead and she turns pale. “It wasn’t him who pulled you out?”

“No, it was a fireman.”

“Oh my God, he went in there to save you, I’m sure of it.”

I wrench the mask off my face, swallowing down a cough so I can yell. “He won’t leave if he thinks I’m in there!”

“I know!”

“Go! Go tell someone!” I scream, the tearing in my throat a distant second to the fear rising in me, concern for Kaine.

I watch her run to the group of firemen standing by the entrance, and struggle to slide off the gurney. I stumble a little but find my feet after a few seconds. I reach Harriet, coming up behind her, as she argues, “He’s definitely in there.”

“No, ma’am, he tried but then when we said no, he just left.”

“No! He wouldn’t leave,” she insists, her voice desperate. “He thinks my friend, his girlfriend is in there. When he didn’t see her out here, he said he would go in, and you don’t know him, he’ll go in.”

“Miss,” one of them says, their eyes flicking over to me as I lean on Harriet.

I drag breath into my lungs. “Please. Listen to me. I will bet my life on it, if you don’t go in there and find him, I will,” I threaten, with every intention of following through.

He crunches up his face and turns to the fireman standing next to him.

“We’ve got some guys in there now, but they might not know to look for him, so we’ll send someone in now.”

Harriet helps me to the ground, as I feel a small sense of hope that they’ll find him.

There’s suddenly a loud crack and the sky fills with glass as the one of the old stained glass windows explodes, scattering the ground with tiny coloured fragments.

We’re all pushed back, further away from the building.

It’s hotter now. The flames are everywhere. I close my eyes and imagine the book stacks and shelves catching alight.

“Harriet.” I say and she turns to me, her eyes as scared and sad as mine. She grips my hand and we watch our home for eight hours a day becoming gutted from the inside by fire. All those books, all that history, all those lives, lost. I push the devastation down as my worry for Kaine bubbles to the surface.

“Kaine. Please. Please be okay. Don’t leave me. You promised me you’d always take care of me. You need to be okay and come take care of me, you promised.” I clasp my hands together and pray, Harriet’s hand rubbing up and down my back.

“Jade!”

It’s Xavier.

He glances at Harriet for a moment before pulling me into his arms.

“Are you okay?”

I nod, glad for his presence, but my eyes tell him everything he doesn’t want to know.

“He’s... he’s in there?” All I can do is nod.

“They’ll find him,” Harriet tells him.

He grabs my hand so hard my fingers crack, but I’m glad for the distraction of pain.

And together we count the seconds. How long, how long can he be in there and come out alive?

“Look!” Harriet finally yells, and we see a figure, limp, being dragging by his arms out of the entrance by two firefighters.

It’s him.

The crash of relief over me is almost strong enough to knock me out. But I hold on and run to him.

“Kaine! Oh, thank God! Kaine!” I say reaching for his ash-stained hand.

But he doesn’t reply.

He doesn’t even know I’m there.

***

I’ve never been a nail biter but the trip in the ambulance to the hospital changes that. By the time we arrive, I’m almost delirious with worry. Why hasn’t he regained consciousness? Why isn’t he sitting up, looking at me like he can see me naked through all my clothes? Why isn’t he kissing me so hard I want to faint from lack of breath?

Why?

Why has this happened to him?

And even more so – why had this happened to him again?

I could ponder the injustice of it all, but as I stand there while they wheel his unconscious body into the emergency department, all I can think is, please don’t let him die.

I wait for his gurney to pass and I follow, never letting him out of sight.

“Darlin’, darlin’ you’re going to have to get out of the way so the doctors can take care of him,” someone calls after me.

I spin around. That voice.

“SUGAR! Fancy seeing you here!” It’s Ruby, the nurse from my own stint in the ER.

“Ruby!”

“Good lord, what happened to you, Sugar? You roll around in a BBQ? You still look a million bucks, though, doncha, you gorgeous thing you.”

Her kindness and familiarity make me burst into tears.

“Oh, Sugar, what’s going on?”

“It’s... It’s Kaine...” I raise a hand pointing to the bay filled with doctors.

“Kaine? Our sexy Mystery Man?”

I nod and her eyes soften and she throws a big, warm arm around my shoulders.

“Well, well, fancy seeing you two together. I heard you were lookin’ for Mr. Handsome, but I didn’t know you found him.”

“He found me, Ruby. He saved me,” I say through hiccups. “So, now you guys have to save him.”

“We’ll do whatever we can, Sugar. Don’t you worry about that. Ruby’s here.”

And I hide myself in her until a doctor finally comes out to see me.

“Are you family?” he asks.

“Yes,” I tell him before I can stop myself.

“Hell yes, she is,” Ruby adds.

The doctor frowns at Ruby, but she stares him down. He takes my hands and pulls me over to the seat in Kaine’s bay. He’s hooked up to oxygen and the heart monitor. I reach out to touch his foot, hoping it will wake him. But it doesn’t.

“He’s inhaled a lot of smoke. We don’t know how long he was in there, but it was long enough to cause some serious damage. The firefighter actually found him under a fallen shelf, so it might also be a combination of smoke and the concussion that has him out. We’re going to take him to get a CT scan now. And then the nurse will bring him back and... well, his hands are pretty burned, he must’ve used them to shield himself from the fire.”

I can’t look. So, I just stand and pat the bed, careful not to hurt him. Murmuring a prayer that, if he gets through this, I will do whatever I must to take care of him for the rest of his days.

***

“Who would do this?” I ask Xavier when he finally shows up at the hospital. He’d stayed at the library helping for the last few hours. Harriet hitched a ride with him to the hospital, bringing a bag of mine with a change of clothes.

I take them from her, grateful for my friend and her instinctive, caring nature.

“We don’t know. It must be tied to the ‘J’ business. It must be,” Xavier tells me, his face streaked with ash, his dark, deep eyes confused.

“People could’ve died. People... could still die,” I stutter.

“He’s not going to die, honey. His body just needs to recover. He’ll come to soon. I’m sure of it. He’s strong and fit,” my friends reassures me.

“And this is the second time he’ll have almost died in a fire.”

Xavier looks down at his shoes, contemplating my words. He sighs and stays calm.

But the revelation slashes through me like a knife dipped in acid, and I suddenly feel an overwhelming sense of anger. I push myself up onto my feet, pacing back and forth across the hallway in front of Kaine’s ER bay. My fists slowly curl into tight, tight balls, my knuckles white when I lift my hand to jab in Xavier’s direction.

“Well, he is NOT going to die on my watch. So, you, you go find whoever did this... and we’re going to make them pay.”

Xavier’s eyes narrow and harden. He glances over at his boss and friend, and bites his lip.

“I’m serious, Xavier. They will not get away with this. I will make them pay for what they did to the library, to the company, to everyone who was hurt today, and to Kaine. And I am going to make it hurt.” My voice starts loud and firm, but by the end, I’m so filled with emotion, the words come out in a stammer, in waves.

Harriet hugs me from behind and wipes a hand under my eyes, catching the tears.

“Shhhh. We will. Don’t you worry, we will.”

“Jade?”

We all turn at the sound of Kaine’s voice, and I run up to the top of the bed, touching his forearm, careful to avoid his hands wrapped in bandages.

“Kaine, I’m here. I’m here,” struggling to keep my voice low.

“Are you... are you okay?” he asks, his lips barely moving under the oxygen masks.

My knees almost buckle with relief, at the sound of his voice. “Yes, God, Kaine, yes, I’m fine.”

“Good. I love you.”

“I love you too, I love you so much,” I say over my happy tears.

“Did I hear Xavier’s voice?”

“Yeah, man, I’m here,” Xavier replies.

“Okay. Xavier. I need you to do something for me”

“Whatever you need.”

“I need you to take Jade to my apartment to collect her things. And then I want you to take her home, her home. And I want you to make sure that she never, ever comes near me again.”

Xavier’s head snaps over to look at me as my mouth falls open.

“What? What are you saying? Kaine?” I ask him, reaching out to touch his face.

“You heard me. Go away. And I never, ever want to see you, Jade. Ever again.” I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

“Kaine!” I beg him.

“Xavier,” he says to his friend who doesn’t know what to do. “I’m going to tell you one last time, Jade Sinclair. I don’t want you in my life. I never did. So just go.”

“I’m not going! No, I’m not going!” Something must’ve happened to him in the fire, it’s the only explanation.

“Honey. You should. Just, let’s let him rest and we’ll come back later, okay? Come on,” Harriet says, patting me on the back.

“NO! You can’t make me go! KAINE!” I yell, not caring who can hear me. Just that he tells me this is all a mistake.

I see Xavier give Harriet a look, and she grabs one of my arms as he takes the other, and they drag me from the ward.

I struggle, but together they’re too strong and I’m still weak from the fire.

“NO!!!!! KAINE! Don’t do this! Why are you making me go! KAINE!” I scream, ignoring the people coming out to watch my scene in the hallway.

Xavier wraps his arms around me as I thrash and scream. Harriet hails down a passing cab and throws open the door when it stops in front of us. Xavier pushes me into the cab, and Harriet slides in next to me.

“Nooo, God no. Xavier, don’t make me go,” I beg as he watches me through the taxi window. He gives me a look I can’t decipher, and he leans over and gives the cab driver some instructions.

I’m spent by then, but the sobs still come in hard and fast, and I let Harriet pull me into her arms and hold me.

And wonder why it has come to be, after everything, that Kaine Ashley died for me today.