Page 109 of Not Quite Dead Yet

‘No!’

Jet stepped back, the ground groaning beneath her.

‘Billy! Go, now! The whole thing is going to come down!’

‘Not without you!’

Jet’s throat seized, a fist around her heart.

‘Go, Billy! You have to leave! You have to live!’

She stepped back again.

‘Not going without you!’

‘Yes you are!’ she screamed, voice fighting the flames, the sigh of the dying building. ‘I have three days left! I’m already dead, Billy! You’re not, you have to live!’

‘No!’

‘Billy, you go! You leave or I will never fucking forgive you!’ Her voice cracked, not the ground. ‘And I will die hating you, I swear. Go! Please, Billy! For me!’

His voice wasn’t there anymore, just the sound of boots striking the metal steps, doubled up, like a heartbeat.

Good, he was gone, he was safe.

Billy had to live.

But so did she.

Jet’s body absorbed the heat, used it, lit a fire in her gut.

Yes, she only had three days left to live. But those three days were hers, and she was not going to let hell take them from her. They were hers, and she was going to fucking live them, every small moment, stretch each minute into a lifetime.

Jet had to live.

And the other side of that too came crashing in, her breath shuddering with it.

She didn’t want to die.

She did not want to die.

Her heart screamed it and her head too, guiding her feet back.

She was scared to die.

She would not die.

All that fear she thought she’d lost, because the dying didn’t need fear but the living did, it all came rushing back, wearing her skin, roaring in her ears.

Jet flinched, jumping out of the way of a burning ceiling panel, and she ran.

Back down the corridor, charging through the door into her dad’s office.

Shutting the door like it could stand between her and hell, keep it at bay.

To the window at the back.

Jet slammed into it, staring down through the glass, blinking away the smoke.