My whole body aches under an unfamiliar pressure. My skin burns hot in some places. The sting makes me want to cry, but the adrenaline rush won’t let me. Thoughts keep racing through my head, each worse than the one before, while my ears hurt from the explosion’s shattering boom.
“Where’s Leo?” I manage.
“Right here,” Leo replies.
I can’t see him, but at least I know he’s alive. There’s a growing pain in my entire left side. That can’t be good.
“Take it easy,” Beck tells me. “I’ve got you, brother.”
“What about the guy we rescued?”
Beck looks somewhere to my right, and I want to turn my head to follow his gloomy gaze, but my neck is suddenly stiff and infuriatingly uncooperative.
“He didn’t make it,” Beck says. “I’m sorry.”
“No…” Gray seeps around the edges of my vision, and I feel like I’m starting to float.
“Hey, hey! Stay with me!” Beck calls out, but he sounds far away. I feel a nudge in my shoulder, pressure tightening in my chest.
Someone removes my mask and my helmet.
A wave of dry heat washes over my face.
I glance around, trying to focus and make sense of it all. Somewhere, farther away from the roof of the warehouse next door, a man watches us, standing in the sunlight. Hishair is golden. He’s tall, broad-shouldered. I don’t know who he is, but he seems hypnotized by the carnage before him.
I lose focus again.
“Dax, stay with me!” Beck shouts.
But my eyes are rolling upward.
I’m losing control over my senses. I want to stay awake, but all I can think of is going back home to Olivia, burying myself somewhere deep within her. I can almost smell the tropical hint of her shampoo, taste the coffee on the tip of her tongue. I can almost feel her, wet and warm and welcoming.
She’s home for me.
I need to see her again.
But the darkness overpowers me despite Beck and Leo’s agitated voices, despite their pleas for me to stay awake. They become echoes in the pitch-black nothingness that overtakes me, while I pray to every god to bring me back.
10
OLIVIA
When I left the diner, the guys were still out, fighting a fire. It was a big one, according to a customer, a friend of the local sheriff, who was texting him in real time. It’s been a few hours, and I feel my stomach knotting with concern as I glance out the living room window, waiting to see Dax, Beck, and Leo return home.
I’m pacing through my kitchen, still trying to reach Chloe’s cell, but to no avail. I call Dax, hoping he’ll pick up. I get his voicemail.
“Hey,” I say with a trembling voice. “I know you’re busy; I just hope you’re okay. Give me a call when you get this message.”
It’s uncomfortable wrestling with this swelling anxiety all on my own.
Luke must be worried, too. I know Leo has a sitter for him when they’re on shift but even so, I’m compelled to go next door and see if they’ve heard from the guys. Growing restless with each passing minute, I head over and knock on their door.
Stacy, the sitter, answers. She’s a twenty-something college student with big brown eyes and a dimpled smile. “Hey. Olivia, right? From next door?”
“Hi, Stacy. Yes. I was just checking to make sure you guys are okay.”
“Yeah. Luke is in his room. I told him to hit the sack, but I’m pretty sure he’s trying to finish another Lego project his dad got him.”
