But it didn’t come. His nose wrinkled and he could smell the smoke stronger now. It was way too strong to be from a tiny lighter. Then he heard the scream and opened his eyes to see what the hell was going on.
Jake’s mouth dropped open when he saw the flames in the corridor reaching up to the ceiling. The men in the gang were scrambling to their feet, heading straight for the door to escape the heat and the smoke. Jake coughed, suddenly hyper aware of how constricted his lungs felt. The fire was spreading quickly and he could smell gasoline in the air. He couldn’t even get his hands free to cover his mouth and stop him from breathing in the toxic smoke.
The gang had left him to die.
He had an impending sense of deja vu. Hadn’t he almost died in the car inferno only a few days ago? Maybe death had been chasing him up ever since he escaped. Maybe he was meant to die in flames. Only minutes earlier, he’d been desperate for death, ready to let it overcome him, but now, the phrase be careful what you wish for came to mind right away.
Jake let a sob escape his lips. At least if he died, he might be reunited with Aby again. If she was already dead, then maybe this wasn’t so bad. But as the smoke maybe his vision hazy and he began struggling to breathe, he desperately clawed for air. He didn’t want to die. He really didn’t want to die…
Jake felt a whoosh of cold air hit his face and he opened his eyes to see the side door to the kitchen wide open. Standing in the doorway, her face distraught, was Megan.
Megan...she set the fire, Jake realized. She did it to flush the others out...she did it to save me.
Jake could hardly believe that she was there. He thought she’d be long gone by then. But as she rushed to him and fumbled with the binds on his hands, Jake knew how wrong he’d been. He’d always failed to see that Megan was selflessly kind. She’d never leave him to die, no matter how scared she was. Setting the fire and then running through the flames to help him...it wasn’t in her nature, but she did it anyway.
She was a better person than he’d ever be.
He wanted to tell her how sorry he was. For the way he treated her, for his misconceptions about her, for doubting her as a person. But his lungs felt clogged with black smoke now. His throat burned. His head was woozy from the lack of oxygen. He felt ready to slip into unconsciousness, but he felt his hands fall free of their binds and then Megan’s bony hands hooked under his armpits and hauled him up.
“We have to go!” she screamed, coughing violently. Jake was unsteady on his feet as he made toward the door, but she did her best to hold him up. The pair of them hit fresh air at the same time, coughing and sucking in the cold night air. Megan’s eyes were wide as she looked back toward the house in horror.
“One of them is still in there!” she cried, pointing through the window. Jake looked over his shoulder and saw a blurry outline of the young man he’d found drugged up in the kitchen when he arrived. He was the only one of the men who hadn’t taken a turn with the lighter. Compared to them, he was a saint.
“I didn’t mean for anyone to die!” Megan sobbed. “I just wanted to get them out of the house...he’s going to burn to death…”
“No, he’s not,” Jake choked out. He found his feet before Megan could stop him and rushed back to the house, hearing her scream after him desperately. He didn’t know why he couldn’t just let the man go. He was a psycho. He spent the entire day watching him get tortured and did nothing. But Jake felt like he had some redeeming to do. He didn’t want to see any more death or torture. He didn’t want to live in a world where it was acceptable to leave a man to die in a burning building. In fact, Jake still wasn’t sure he wanted to live at all, so what was there to lose?
His feet pounded the ground hard as he made his way to the house. The kitchen was almost engulfed in the flames now, and the young man was cowering in the corner. There was such fear in his eyes that Jake knew he was making the right decision as he dived to save him. He was just a kid, really. He needed another chance at life.
Jake could feel the intense heat of the gasoline-fuelled flames licking at him, but he scooped the young man into his aching arms and ran back for the door. The crackling of the fire filled his ears like fireworks until the moment he escaped the house and collapsed onto the grass. Megan rushed to him again, still coughing and Jake fell against her, trying to concentrate on making his lungs work. Megan grabbed his wrist and they both crawled away from the wreckage of the house, dragging the young man with them. He seemed to be unconscious now, maybe even dead. Perhaps the smoke had killed him. Jake didn’t know and he didn’t have the energy to find out.
The three of them lay on the wet grass. He watched silently as the house was reduced to nothing. The flames cracked the windows and snaked up toward the sky. Jake knew they should get out of there. A fire like that could easily spread to the forest. They were basically in a giant tinderbox. But his body wasn’t ready to move. Megan seemed to be in a bad way,
