Page 23 of From the Ashes (Redwood Bay Fire #2)

CHAPTER 23

Colt

My ears are still ringing as I gradually peel my eyelids open. What the fuck just happened?

I cough and press my fingertips to my head. They come away red and sticky. I can feel something stinging on my scalp, but seeing as I can wiggle all my extremities, I chose to believe that means it’s not that bad. I’m sure Zahir said something once about head wounds bleeding worse than they look.

My heart pangs. I’m confused and in pain, but the one thing I know for sure is he’s the only person I want to see right now.

That isn’t going to happen, though. So I take a breath and focus on the ground where I’m lying. It’s dark but I can still see that there’s crap everywhere and dust settling all around me.

Earthquake.

Oh, yeah. That’s what happened.

“Colt?” my mother’s voice rings out.

“Yeah, I’m here,” I say back, blinking and trying to look through the gloom. “Dad? Portia?”

“What the fuck was that?” my father grumbles in outrage.

Portia moans. “Still here. I think.”

I start flexing my muscles and twisting my limbs, pretty certain that apart from being banged up, I don’t have anything terrible to worry about. “Anyone injured?”

“My arm hurts,” my mom says, making my heart contract. I know we were just fighting, but I’m never not going to care about her, no matter what. She sounds so scared.

“I’m fine but I’m stuck,” my father says with a huff. “Get over here and help me out.”

“I’m okay,” Portia replies to me. “Are you okay?”

“Debatable,” I tell her with a laugh that quickly becomes a moan. “I’m going to be black and blue tomorrow…”

As I manage to finally sit up, my words trail off as I see something twitching on the wet floor in front of me. Something small and colorful.

It’s one of the baby koi carp. It’s suffocating.

Suddenly, I’m up on my feet, spinning around, looking for anything that I can use to help. The empty wine bucket is lying on its side under the table we were sitting at mere moments ago. I grab it and look at the fish tank. The top has been smashed off. There’re bits of wall and fake cherry blossom petals in the water, and it’s leaking fast through the broken glass. The other koi is swimming around in the few inches of water left, clearly agitated.

“Colton!” my father barks. “Stop fucking around and help me!”

I ignore him.

Only wobbling a little on my feet, I leap over to the tank, scooping up that fish and what water I can in the wine bucket. By some stroke of luck, the fake tree branches appear to have stopped a lot of the dust from settling on the water, hopefully making it more hospitable for the fish.

After getting as much into the bucket as I can without risking hurting the little thing, I turn around and approach the flapping one on the floor. I don’t know if I’m going to hurt it. But if I leave it there, it’s definitely going to die. So being as careful as I can, I slip my fingers around its orange and silver body. It has a noticeably round, plump body, which I think makes it easier to quickly pluck off the floor and dunk into the bucket.

I stare for a second as the most recently rescued fish stills. Just as I’ve convinced myself that by grabbing it, I did more harm than good, it jerks like a dog shaking itself after swimming in a lake. Then the two koi start flitting about in their new mini metal home.

“Jesus Christ,” I say weakly. “You scared me for a second there, fishy.”

“COLT!” my father practically screams. “Stop ignoring me and?—”

“You said you weren’t injured, just stuck,” I interrupt him calmly. “That fish was dying. It’s okay now.”

“Fish?” he splutters. Now I’m on my feet I can see that he is indeed pinned down by what I would guess is a metal beam from the ceiling. But as he said himself, he doesn’t look particularly wounded. “We were just eating fucking fish! What the fuck are you?—”

“Language, Fredrick, please,” my mom sobs. Portia is with her, feeling the arm she’s favoring.

“Speak for yourself, Mr. Ross,” Portia says, not looking up from my mom. “I was eating the avocado and tofu.” She offers me a weak smile. “Thanks for rescuing the Nemos. I think your mom might have fractured something, but hopefully it’s not too serious.”

I exhale, looking down at my bucket of fish, then back up at the rubble cave we seem to be trapped in, the fake Sakura tree looming over us, gently raining petals every now and again, then at Portia’s somehow still immaculate strawberry blond hair. The laugh escapes my throat before I can stop it.

“I almost wish I wasn’t gay,” I tell her, bordering on becoming hysterical. I’m not sure if I’m grateful for or regretting that wine in my empty stomach right now. “This would be one hell of a first date story to tell our kids someday.”

“How can you joke about that in a time like this?” my mom says, sobbing harder.

I shrug, putting down the wine bucket and moving closer to inspect her myself. Not that I don’t trust Portia. She seems like the kind of person who requalifies her first aid training more often than is strictly necessary. But because despite how awful she’s been today, she’s still my mom, and I love her.

“It seems like the perfect time to joke,” I tell her as I run my hands over the rest of her body, brushing away grit and glass. “Everything about this situation is completely absurd.”

However, I quickly realize she’s sobbing in earnest. So much so that I begin to worry she’s not telling us about some rebar she’s secretly impaled with.

Like I said, I love my mom. But I have no doubt that she’d be the character in a zombie movie who wouldn’t tell anyone she’d been bitten.

“Stop upsetting your mother!” my father snaps, clearly still needing to feel he’s in charge even though he’s only slightly better off than a moth displayed on a pinboard right now.

Upon further inspection, however, I’m even more sure that there aren’t any other obvious injuries. “Mom, tell me where it hurts.”

She takes a raggedy breath. “You’ll never have children!” she wails.

I glance at Portia in confusion, then look down at my balls, honestly wondering if she’s noticed some damage I haven’t.

“Mrs. Ross,” Portia says patiently. “Just because Colt is gay doesn’t mean he won’t be a father. A lot of couples adopt, and there’s always surrogacy.”

Holy shit. The earth shifted under us and the goddamned building collapsed around our heads, and this is what she’s tying herself up in knots about?

“It’s not the same!” my mom continues to bemoan, shaking and fidgeting and probably making her injured arm worse than it already is. “You’ll never know the joy of coming together to create a life! How could you do this to me? You’ll never love them the same way if it’s not your flesh and blood!”

“The way you love me?” I snap in disgust, my short fuse replacing the dark humor of the situation in a flash. “What the hell, Mom? I thought I was crazy for being so afraid of coming out to you for so long. But I was completely right. All you care about is what other people will think and having more of your bloodline to mold in your perfect image.”

I shake my head, picking up my new fish friends, and standing up so I can put some distance between us.

“Colt?” she squeaks, tears streaming down her face. But I don’t care if we’re in the middle of a crisis. I said I was done with being manipulated and I meant it.

“We can talk about this later,” I say blandly, moving over to my father. “Or never. It’s really up to you. How’s it going, Dad? Can you wiggle all your fingers and toes?”

It’s mildly impressive how he still manages to puff up like a bullfrog while looking like a sausage that’s gotten trapped under the grill fork.

“We didn’t raise you to be this rude!” he blusters.

I shrug as I look over how the beam has wedged him against the wall, avoiding meeting his gaze while I assess the problem.

“No,” I finally reply. “You raised me to believe that even the slightest hint of questioning your judgement was rude. All I wanted was your approval, Dad. Your love. I thought becoming a lawyer would finally make you think I was worth something.” I glance up and our eyes connect. “But it turns out that I can never win. I’ll never do enough, be enough, achieve enough to warrant your unconditional love. Neither of you.” I cast a look over my shoulder at my mom who’s quietly watching me. “So I give up. I’m not going to try anymore. I’m going to live my life the way I want to, and if we ever get out of this mess, you can decide if you want to be part of that life.”

“Of course we’re getting out of here,” my father says indignantly.

I sigh and shake my head. “Out of everything I said, that’s the part you’re going to focus on?”

“Shh!” Portia hisses suddenly with a frown. “Did you hear that?”

“Honestly, I don’t know—” my father begins to grumble, but Portia and I both shush him this time. I strain my ears, not sure what I should be listening out for. But if Portia’s thinks it’s important, I’ll try.

“Maybe I imagined it,” she whispers a few moments later.

I shake my head as I place my bucket of fish on the floor and press myself as close as I dare against the rubble. I don’t want to shift anything and have the fake tree or more of the ceiling crush us. But if there’s anyone looking for us…

“Fire department, call out!” I hear faintly through all the debris.

“IN HERE!” I holler back as loud as I can, not sure if they’ll even be able to hear me. “WE’RE IN HERE!”

“Who is it, Colt?” my mom asks in a trembling voice.

I crouch down to hold her hand. She’s pale and shivering, eyes red and wet. “Firefighters are looking for us,” I assure her. “I bet they’ll have us out in no time.” My heart leaps to think Zahir might be part of the rescue team, but it could easily be one of the San Clemente crews. Damn, I want to hug him, though.

Maybe finally tell him I love him. Nothing like a little near-death experience to make me realize how dumb it is I’m still afraid to do that.

My mom sniffs. “And will you still be mad at me then?”

I sigh, frustrated with going around in circles. “Mom, I’m not mad at you and Dad. Really. I’m just telling you this is who I am and nothing’s going to change that. Believe me, I tried.” I laugh hollowly. “So, I am afraid that means you’re going to be disappointed in me and love me less, maybe not even want to see me anymore. If that’s the case, I’ll have to accept it. But I can’t pretend for another damn day to be someone I’m not. Don’t you want me to be happy?”

“Well…yes,” she says slowly, wiping her face with her good hand. “But…”

Whatever objection she was going to try and convince me with, it’ll have to wait. We only get a split second’s warning as a different kind of rumble shakes the ground. Then an explosion fills the air and knocks me off my feet for a second time. I cry out and fling my arms over my head as more chunks of the ceiling and walls dislodge, the cherry blossom tree lurches down another several feet on top of us, and the rest of the glass around the fish tank shatters.

That’s when the flames erupt.

“Get back!” I scream at Portia and my mom before scrambling over to my dad, trying to shove the structural beam off his chest. “It’s okay, Dad, it’s okay,” I utter.

He whimpers. “Colt, I…hurry.”

Portia settles my mom farther away from the flames then rushes to join me, throwing her weight under the other side of the beam. “On three,” she grunts. “One, two?—”

“THREE!” we cry together, managing to budge the post just enough that my father can wriggle out from underneath.

But much like a game of Jenga, by moving one piece, we disrupt the rest, and chunks of flaming concrete start crumbling free of the rubble wall like a mini avalanche. Portia pulls my father to her as I tumble away from them, hitting the ground.

“COLT!” my mom screams as pain shoots through my left leg as well as the back of my head. The light from the fire gets blocked out by the debris mounting up. I hear bottles smashing and more smaller explosions popping, and metal, concrete and wood snapping.

Then the throbbing in my head gets too much. Blood runs into my already stinging eyes. I cough and splutter, but consciousness slips away from me.

Then there’s only darkness.