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“Miss. Miss. Are you okay?” A paramedic comes running toward me. “Were you in that fire? Can you tell me your name?” She starts firing things out at me.
“I… I, uh, I was in there, yes.” I let out a series of coughs as I watch a stretcher being rolled toward me. Everything around me moves at a fast pace. I’m put onto the stretcher, vitals are being taken, and then I am being wheeled toward the back of an ambulance.
“Rory!” Addy screams as she comes barreling toward me through the growing crowd. A sense of relief comes over me when I see that she’s safe and was not in that bed. “Rory! Oh my God, what happened?”
I shake my head and pull down the oxygen mask to try and tell her that I don’t know, but the paramedic stops me.
“She needs to keep this on right now. You can meet us at the hospital.” The paramedic starts talking with another as I watch as her lips tremble and her eyes widen in fear. She looks up at the smoke coming from our room and then back down at me. Tears start to roll down her cheeks, as she lets out a gut wrenching sob.
I grab her hand and squeeze it. While I may not be able to say anything, I’m so fucking happy she wasn’t in her bed.
And I need her to know I’m okay.
By some miracle, I’m fucking alive.
“We tried to reach out to your mom and stepfather, but they haven’t answered our calls,” a nurse by the name of Betty tells me with a frown. She tucks her short blonde hair behind her ear. Her slender body is hidden behind her dark blue scrubs.
“Wait, what? What do you mean you can’t get a hold of them?” I sit up a bit more in the hospital bed, my heart starting to race. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry. The doctor will be in shortly. Your stepbrother is waiting outside; would you like him to come in?” she offers as if that’s some sort of consolation prize.
“Yeah. Sure,” I respond, but my mind starts drifting to where my mother and Aaron could be that they are not answering such an important phone call.
I mean, your daughter is in the hospital after her room went up in flames and she was trapped inside. But yeah, whatever they’re doing could be more important.
My anger flares, and I get lost in my thoughts. My mind working out the words I need to have with my mother and whatever bullshit she’s pulling.
She’s never acted like this. So flakey, so absent. What the fuck is going on?
A knock on the door shakes me back to the present. I watch as Seven, Dekker, and my asshole of a stepbrother file into my room. The three of them circle my bed, and my eyes flit back and forth between all of them.
The silence creates a thickening tension in the room that I can’t stand.
“Are the three of you going to just sit there and stare at me? Take a picture, it will last longer.” I cross my arms over my chest and let out a sigh.
Seven takes out his phone and I see his flash go off. “You said I could.” He smiles and shrugs.
My middle finger instantly goes up. “Sit and spin.”
“Enough,” Xayden cuts in. He gives Seven a scolding look, and his eyes turn back towards me. “Are you okay?” he asks.
For a moment, I just sit there in silence, completely bewildered by his question.
Then I break out into a fit of laughter.
Xayden narrows his eyes at me. “I don’t understand what’s so funny about what I asked.”
“Oh, it’s actually hilarious. Truly. Like you give two shits about me. But then just throw out ‘Are you okay?’ like you actually do. That’s a great joke.” I chuckle.
“Do you have any idea what just almost happened, Aurora?” Xayden grits his teeth.
My laughing stops, and I fist my hands in my lap. “I’m very well aware of what happened, Xayden. I was in that room when it went up in flames. I almost died in there!”
“What happened?” Dekker cuts in, brows furrowed in worry.
My head snaps to him. “A fire. In my room.”
“Yeah, no, we got that part. But how did it start?” Seven asks.