Something Worth Saving (38 page)

I had to think of a way to get him out of here. The bone-deep need to protect them was taking over, and I started to contemplate ways I could get to them. Looking to Lauren, I could see she was sobbing, black mascara smeared down her pale white face, along with the blood from her mouth.

“What do you want from us?” Lauren begged him to answer her.

“I want my money.” His face was stern, as was the glare he delivered to Georgia and then me. “And your boy pissed me off. He’s gonna pay for that.”

Like I said, I never imagined Ridley having this type of power. The boy I knew, the one who moved around from foster family to foster family, was more troubled than powerful, blaming and abusive. His only defense then was his fists; now he chose weapons. Something had changed in him. I’m not sure what exactly, or if I’d ever know.

Did I even care?

No, I didn’t. I cared about the safety of my children and my sister right now.

It was clear I didn’t know Ridley any longer, if I ever had.

He walked toward me and smiled, bitter, but with had an amused edge to it. His back turned to Lauren and he faced me completely, kneeling down in front of me so his face was at my ear, his breath blowing over me. His gun pressed against my throat as he spoke. “Do you think he can save you now? Do you think he can protect you?”

“Fuck you!” My head was throbbing, and the words offered relief. “Get out of here.” I tried to push him against him but couldn’t. He was so much stronger than I was.

“Just give him the money, Aubrey. If you love me, you’ll help me.”

Lauren looked at me and then our mom. “We don’t love you. That’s where you’re wrong. We can’t love someone who’s destroyed our lives and made us feel guilty for having our own!”

She had the power to save us right now. She could. But would she?

No. She walked out the door, and Ridley let her.

Maybe they were in on it together. Maybe this was some kind of sick joke to them. I’d never know.

“All I wanted was my money. But . . . ” His enraged, vengeance-seeking tone helped me understand. “Your boy really pissed me off the other night.”

Hot tears stung my eyes when I realized that Ridley had not only planned this, but my mother just walked away.

My whole body was shaking with anger as I closed my eyes, the tears spilling over as I heard Gracie’s and Jayden’s cries coming louder. They knew there was something wrong.

As he knelt in front of me, his hands went to the sides of the chair, while his gun was shoved inside the front of his pants.

I hope it goes off and shoots his dick off.

“Stay away from me!” I screamed, but his hand over my mouth cut off my voice. I struggled against the rope around my hands, burning and scraping against my skin.

“Don’t hold out on me. Fucking scream.” His whisper was low as he parted my legs and wrapped his hands around my backside, moving my hips to the edge of the chair and forcing himself hard against me. “Beg him to save you.”

My heart’s thundering rhythm kept me from speaking. I only stared at the door to Gracie’s room.

Lauren screamed, “Help!” The bloodcurdling sound echoed throughout the apartment. Gracie’s followed.

“Beg him to protect you like he said he would.” When I didn’t respond, his frustration got to him, his tone vibrating through my entire body, shaking my bones. “Fucking scream!”

I wasn’t going to allow him to take
anything
from me. Not when my mind drifted to what
could
be taken from me now. My babies.

“I’ll never scream for you,” I said, wincing when his left hand grabbed a fistful of my hair. “Never.”

He whispered in my ear, placing a kiss on my neck, “You know you want this. You just won’t admit it. We were good, Aubrey. You remember.”

“Don’t touch me, Ridley. Don’t.”

He laughed, sinister and sarcastic, as if amused that I would try to stop someone like him. “Why? Because your boy is some kind of hot-shot firefighter? Where is he now?”

“No. Because I don’t want you touching me.”

“Oh, come on . . . you used to beg for it.”

“See” — I pushed myself back away from him, knocking the chair over and kicking him as hard as I could between the legs — “that’s where you’re wrong. I’ve never begged you for anything.”

Lauren’s screams got louder, and I guessed Ridley knew someone was going to come soon.

He stood, hunched over in pain, his hands on his knees. “You shouldn’t have done that, Aubrey,” he warned me, taking a lighter from his pocket. “Now you’ve pissed me off.”

He walked back to the bedroom where the kids were, but from my place on the floor I couldn’t see what exactly he was doing.

When I smelled the smoke, I knew what he’d had done. He’d set fire to something back there.

I immediately panicked and started thrashing around.

“You know.” He paused, his eyes becoming a little darker, and he sniffed, his knuckles sweeping over his bottom lip, his forehead scrunching as he spoke. He walked back down the hall, and I could instantly feel the heat when he reached forward and flicked his lighter, and held an open flame against our Christmas tree. “When I came back, I came here for one thing. I wanted my money. And then I saw you, and things changed a little. You looked good.”

“So, what . . . you thought you had some kind of chance with me?” The tree went up quickly, and the manic roar that fire brings with it silenced Lauren’s screams. Panic took over.

This can’t be happening. Please no. Don’t let this be happening.

“No. Just wanted to get even.” He stepped back from the tree, which was smoldering in flames, heating the room. “See what it was like to break your heart this time.”

“Oh, give me a fucking break. Like I broke your heart by leaving, you cheating, bastard!” My legs kicked as I tried desperately to free my hands, Lauren doing the same but had started screaming again. She knew it was our only chance, as the flames from the tree were catching sparks against the curtains and the carpet. It was only a matter of minutes before our entire apartment would be on fire, and there was no way I could save my kids.

“You’re wrong.” He was standing by the fireplace now, his back to the door. In that moment my mother returned with a bottle, and stood silently at the door. Careful not to acknowledge her, I watched Ridley. “I loved you.”

Maybe she did come back to help us. I’ll never know.

I was the closest to the flames, and the smoke was too much. Sputtering coughs, I heard the sound of glass breaking, and I was lost in the smoke.

Everyone has a story. Some beautiful. Some tragic.

For a moment, and though it didn’t feel like a moment, this was something tragic.

It was one night, one fate, and something tragic destroying something beautiful.

Heavy sheets of smoke curling and rolling together, constricting my visions of this life of mine.

You see that there?

That wrenching pain in your gut, knowing not everything is as it seems?

Look closer. That nervous energy you now have, stumbling over words you can’t say, a moaning plea to be saved, slurred words on the tip of your tongue — there’s the something tragic.

When I have nothing left to give, nothing left to say, it’s him who brought me back to the moment, in the arms of my firefighter, the warmth of his heart and body, struggling to save his family.

His voice was muffled under his mask, slurred.

Just as I felt like I was going to fall, it’s the warmth of his breath against my neck that kept me there, on the edge, with him.

“Stay with me, honey.” His voice was muffled by his mask, a harsh gravelly sound, followed by the hiss of each breath he took. “Please. Please just stay with me.”

I said something, though I’m not sure what, and he pushed my hair back, cupping my face with his gloved hand. I felt the warmth.

“You’re okay . . . hold onto me. I got you.”

I looked up at him, smoke and flames curling around us. He stared at me for a long moment, and though I knew he had so many questions right then, he had one thing on his mind. Saving us. “Our b-b-babies . . . ”

Tucking me into his chest, he carried me through the heavy smoke to safety.

The air was thick. Black soot surrounded me. My skin felt tight, my lips and cheeks burning so much I felt them cracking.

I remember laying my head against his chest as he took quick steps. My arms wrapped around his neck, holding on as tight as my weak arms would let me.

“Breathe, baby . . . please, just breathe . . . ” Removing his breathing mask, he placed it against my face, urging me to take a breath. I didn’t want to. I didn’t feel I should be able to. “Breathe for me! Please just fucking breathe . . . ” His voice faded.

I wanted my babies alive. But me, I wasn’t sure I was worth saving.

I deserved whatever punishment fate handed me. The fear inside marks us in ways we’ll never fully understand, and draped over my heart are fears I can’t change.

Command to dispatch, rescue efforts have been completed. We’re on to an exterior attack to save what we can.

10-4

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Jace

“T
HAT MOTHERFUCKER
hit me!” Denny was holding a rag to his face, cussing out Axe over whatever it was the two were arguing about.

“Well . . . if he sets you on fire, then let me know. I know a guy who could probably put it out.”

I was slouched on the couch with my legs sticking out in front of me. Denny kicked me in the shin. “Don’t be a dick.”

“I’m not being a dick.” Reaching down, I rubbed my shin. “I just don’t know what you want
me
to do. This is Axe we’re talking about.”

“Tell him to get off his fucking high horse and stop acting like a goddamn warden around here.”

“What do I look like, your mother? You tell him.” I set the magazine on the coffee table. “I’m going to bed.”

“He only opens up to you.”

“What?” I gave him a confused look. I couldn’t remember Axe ever opening up to me. “Does he have me confused with Dr. Phil?”

“No . . . ” Denny’s frustration got the better of him, and he punched the wall.

“All right,” I said, walking over to him and then putting my arm around him. “Let’s go fuck with my brother, and then we’ll think of something to do to Axe.”

Playing practical jokes always turned him around.

We sneaked into the room when Kasey was in the shower and put four cans of Coke that we’d shaken up for a good ten minutes under the posts of the bed he slept in. Then we froze Axe’s socks for the second time this month and put red Kool-Aid in his shoes. Last time we did that, his feet were red for a week.

“Feel better, little buddy?” We were walking back into the lounge when the alarm went off.

“Actually,” Denny said as we both started downstairs, “I do.”

“Engine 10, Ladder 1 . . . Battalion 2 . . . 800 block, cross streets are University and Western . . . ”

When the apartment address came across the scanner, I went cold. I’d never felt fear like that. It was instant, from my head to my toes, numbing and all-consuming.

The guys looked at me as we loaded onto the truck. “Is that your . . . ” Their voices trailed off as I started to shake, my head nodding vigorously.

We pulled out. Anxious eyes watched me carefully, not knowing what to say.

I had just talked to her. She was fine.

And then my thoughts went to one person. Ridley.

My breath tripped when the apartment number was called out on the scanner and Mike turned around. This was real. This was so fucking real, and I had to deal with it.

“They’ve activated a second alarm already . . . ”

I felt sick. My stomach dropped, my heart stilled, and I could almost feel the blood drain from my face.

Never did I think he’d actually hurt her. It never crossed my mind.

And all this time, the warning had been there. But most of all, I had pushed him toward it. I had baited him with the one thing that had the power to destroy me. That was the worst feeling of all. I knew it now . . . something he’d known all along.

With my mask and air already on, we came around Western, and the smoke was billowing through broken windows shattered from the heat on the fourth floor. Our apartment faced the back so I couldn’t see how bad it really was, but there was no stopping me when I got off that truck.

My dad tried to catch me. Kasey tried, too, and Axe even blocked me, but not this time. I was going in no matter what. They wouldn’t stop me like they did at the pier.

As with any firefighter, I was there to access the situation and respond based on my training. How can you do that when your mind is stuck on one thing?

How do I save my family when I’m so clearly caught up with anger?

My hope was slipping through my own fingers as I was forced to make one decision, one that changed lives. I climbed the stairs, forty pounds of gear weighing me down as I took them two steps at a time.

The thick brown smoke and the sagging wood let me know I didn’t have long. If I was going to get to them, I needed to move now. I started taking the steps three at a time and finally reached the fourth floor.