Aaron’s pupils were tight dots when he glanced at me. “I really hope he’s not there.”
Swallowing hard, I nodded and stepped slightly back so Aaron could push open the door. It flowed into the darkness beyond, no hint of a groan or creak, no sudden shower of dust. My chest compressed in on itself, my heart a drumbeat that wouldn’t slow down. I licked my lips with my tongue, tried to swallow. It stuck. I was glad that I hadn’t decided to eat one of the cookies.
“Look.” Aaron pointed down.
When I cast my gaze that way, I saw not footsteps but a wide streak that wasn’t clean, but had obviously been disturbed—brushed to swirl all the dust and remnants of ash from the fire together.
But why? It was obvious that—“Oh.” My gut clenched. “It’s so we can’t tell the size of the shoes that walked through the dust . . . and how many pairs there were.”
Aaron moved the beam of the flashlight around the darkened space. This particular area had no windows, so all we saw were charred beams and furniture distorted and damaged by the fire. Macabre sculptures in the dark.
“I didn’t realize they just . . . left it all here.” Aaron crossed himself. “All that suffering and pain allowed to fester for generations.”
I shivered, but not in fear. Now that I was here, I knew I’d been right not to believe what Ash had told me about Darcie saying Bea was the reason for the ruin; the entire scorched setup was too nineteenth century, not an inset power plug or even slight indication of modernization in sight—every shred of surviving fabric could’ve come straight out of some English country estate.
I couldn’t guess why Darcie had even made up the tall tale—perhaps part of her ongoing war with Bea, even now that Bea couldn’t fight back—but her lies meant Aaron was right about the suffering, the miasma of death.
Yet . . . to a photographer, the frozen firescape was fascinating. Eerie and draped in mystery, no scent to the place at all. The latter was explicable, given the passage of time and the fact that the building was open to the elements in multiple places, but it still felt “off” to my brain.
We had no time to linger, however, and carried on after a quick but careful look to ensure Ash was nowhere in this room.
“Be careful.” I touched Aaron’s back. “The floor beyond this point could be dangerous. Test before you step.”
He nodded, and we moved with slow care until he paused at the next doorway. There was no door there, but the structure itself looked solid enough, as did the floor beyond it.
Aaron still tested it with one foot before putting any weight on it. “I think I know which part this is from the outside. It’s at the top, back section.”
Inside my head, I flipped through the photographs I’d taken. “Then we’re in luck. That area seemed relatively stable.” Quite unlike the devastated front section.
We continued to take extreme care regardless, still following that wide streak in the dust and ash. When I glanced backward, my flashlight beam picked out our footprints, ghostly echoes all that remained of our passing. Everything was black and white, as if the fire had sucked all color out of the world.
I turned forward, my movement rapid. And my vision wavered. I’d have to talk to my specialist about that, I thought as I waited for it to settle again. He hadn’t warned me of this kind of disruption. He had, however, advised me to find ways to alleviate the level of stress in my life.
Said I needed to learn to meditate, do yoga, whatever helped me keep my blood pressure even. I’d still been in the denial phase and hadn’t asked him if it was because my blood pressure could impact my vision, or because he was worried I’d have a heart attack from holding everything inside.
But what if he had been talking about the health of my eyes?
Maybe all this pressure within was causing my vision to degenerate even faster.
I took a deep breath, immediately regretted it. The searing cold of the ambient air burned my lungs.
Shivering, I looked forward . . . and realized that most of the right wall was just gone. No wonder the air felt like shards of ice.
Small piles of white sat below the jagged remnants of the wall.
“The track with the brush marks seems to turn here.” Aaron moved the beam of his flashlight to the left. It wobbled.
“Sorry,” he said in a voice that held a tremor, “hit of vertigo. Can’t stop thinking that the wall to our right is barely hanging on.”
“Wigs me out, too,” I admitted. “I’m behind you, don’t worry. Stuck to you like glue. Try to lose me and I swear I’ll run screaming after you like a banshee.”
Chuckling, he turned left to follow the streak on the floor. The furniture around us lay upturned—as if the fire had thrown it around. A possible explosion? Like in that movie I’d seen a few years back about firefighters being blown back right after they opened the doors into rooms that boiled with fire.
Aaron’s hand banged hard against the back of what might’ve once been an armchair. Before I could ask if he was okay, the same hand crumpled partially under his arm as he went down hard on one knee. His flashlight hit the floor with him, the beam bouncing wildly until it settled, the light pointing back the way we’d come.
“Aaron!” I grabbed instinctively at his shoulder. “Did you trip?”
“My . . . head.” He leaned forward, his breath erratic pants. “Swirling.”
Wondering if he was having a panic attack, I knelt down and put my hand on the back of his neck. “Just breathe, slow and easy.”
He tried—I could see him fighting to concentrate—but he collapsed onto his hands and knees moments later, would’ve gone to the floor if I hadn’t slipped my arms under his and helped him to a seated position against the burned-out armchair.
“Go . . . look for . . . Ash,” he managed to get out, his words emerging in slow motion. “I’ll just . . . just . . . catch . . . my breath.”
I didn’t want to leave him, but knew he was right. The faster I did this, the faster we could leave. “Don’t move.” Leaving him with the bigger flashlight by his side, beam on, I used my smaller one to sweep the area while fighting the claustrophobia that was my lack of vision anywhere beyond the narrow strip of light.
When it passed over a pair of legs, I almost didn’t see it. My brain, hitching. Snagging.
A delayed reaction.
I swept back the beam, barely stifled a scream, and a split second later was rushing over to Ash. He lay slumped on his right side, part of his face pressed to the dust and blackened debris of the fire, and his skin so white that I was certain he was gone.
Hand shaking, I put my chilled fingers to his throat.
His skin was the same temperature as mine, and as still as death. No, wait—
After blowing on the tips of my fingers to warm them up, I pressed them against his throat once more . . . and wondered if I was imagining it. “No, it’s there.” A pulse too deep and far too slow. “He’s alive!” I yelled to Aaron.
“Thank God.” Lethargic but understandable.
Trembling, I began to check Ash for injuries. Had he hit his head?
My fingers were so cold once again that I didn’t even feel it when I touched something sticky on his back. It was only when the beam of my flashlight caught my hand that I saw my fingers were coated in red.
Perhaps it was shock, but I didn’t panic. I just shifted so I could look at his back.
A mass of darkness spread over the camel brown puffer.
Holes—so many holes—in the fabric, the filling that spilled out a dull pink from his blood.
“He’s been stabbed.”
No response from Aaron.
Heart kicking, I crossed back to him. “Aaron!”
“Lu . . . ?” My name a slurring attempt that faded into nothing as his eyes fluttered shut. He fought to open them. “Wh . . . wh . . .” Another exhale, this one quieter and somehow more peaceful.
Then, nothing.
I took hold of his narrow but strong shoulders, shook hard.
When I got no response, I didn’t give myself time to think—I slapped him on one cheek. Hard enough that it stung even my mostly numb palm.
No response from Aaron.
The skin of my cheeks burning hot, then going ice-cold, over and over again, I had to focus to check his pulse. It beat steadily, in a far better rhythm than Ash’s.
The realization did nothing to stop the screaming inside my head—because he was unconscious.
They were both unconscious.
In a part of the house so frigid that we might as well be outside in the snow; it was a miracle Ash hadn’t already frozen to death.
I had to get them to safety.
“Think, Luna. Think.” I gave myself thirty seconds to run through the breathing exercise Dr. Mehta had taught me, just long enough to stop the skittering in my brain and regain some semblance of control.
I looked at Aaron, then angled the flashlight at Ash.
One tall and lanky, the other slightly shorter but more built. Neither one small or light in comparison to my own body. And right now, both incapable of helping me.
Dead weight.
I shoved away the whispering reminder of Nix’s body, how hard it had been to handle him.
Biting down hard on my lower lip, I decided my priority: to get them out of this section exposed to the snow and frigid external air. It wasn’t too far to the other side of the doorway, all of it on a flat surface.
If I could stash them in a corner, the walls would provide protection from the cold air, and their bodies could share heat. I’d then find blankets, rugs, whatever I could to insulate them from the cold.
I decided to try to move Aaron first, since he was closer to the door—and healthier. My mind was working now, and I had an excellent idea of what was wrong with him. If I was right, then while Ash’s chances of survival were low, Aaron had a good chance of making it as long as I could keep him warm.
My thoughts felt cold, inhuman—but I wasn’t cold at all.
Everything burned, fear a shriek inside my head that repeated Vansi’s name over and over again.
Because my best friend was in the same room as the person who’d stabbed Ash and left him here to die.