hiss and a crackle and flames came up from under the door.
Patrick ran to the window and tried to open it, but it didn’t budge.
Looking around the room, Marcus spotted the heavy brass lamp on the nightstand. He jerked it off the stand. The plug flung back, slapping him in the leg, but he didn’t wait. He couldn’t. Something was terribly wrong, because they’d had that window open only the day before. Marcus bashed the window with the lamp and ran it around the frame, knocking out the rest of the glass.
Patrick practically leaped through the opening.
Marcus followed, but by the time he got outside, Patrick was already gone. He turned back toward the small cabin and froze. His heart went from racing to still. At least that was what it felt like.
The entire house was engulfed in flames. Heat buffeted him from the front, and the cool night air blew at him from behind. Sweat ran down his temples in rivulets.
Shouting and loud bangs jarred him from his horror-filled daze. He ran around to the back, toward Jeremy’s window, with the blood rushing in his ears nearly as loud as the roaring fire. The window was broken out, and smoke poured from it. He tried to look inside, but the heat was too intense.
He could hear Patrick yelling from the front of the house, followed by more banging.
Marcus pushed himself closer until his face felt as though it were on fire. He couldn’t get in that way. “Mary!”
There was no answer.
Again he tried to get close, to look inside, but there was so much smoke. Flames licked at the bedroom door, going up the walls and inside the room. Maybe she and Jeremy made it out? But how? The glass was jagged….
Panic clutched at Marcus’s chest again.
There was a loud bang from the front of the house.
Marcus took off, going around the house. The kitchen window was blown out as well.
The house groaned and snap! Before his eyes, part of the roof caved in. “No!” Marcus ran to the front of the house. The door was open, hanging on only one hinge, but Patrick was nowhere in sight. Flames and smoke poured out the door, blocking his view.
Marcus didn’t think, he took off, barreling through the open doorway. It was hot, so hot. He couldn’t…. He had no choice—his family! He moved forward as the overbearing heat pushed him back. He fought harder than he’d ever fought in his life. Covering his nose and mouth, he yelled out between hacking coughs. The smoke burned his eyes and his nose. He couldn’t breathe at all. The heat was too much; it stole the air right out of his lungs. “Patrick! Mary!”
Somehow he made it to the middle of the small living room. Where the ceiling had collapsed. He couldn’t see, had to keep moving forward…. His foot hit something. He couldn’t go over the fallen beams, so he dropped to his knees, intent on going under, but he touched something soft.
Skin! Oh, galaxy. Working his way up the body with his hands, he touched bare flesh…. Patrick! The beam lay over him, and he was so still.
“Patrick!”
Was that a moan? He felt some more…. The heat was so intense, he felt as though his eyes were on fire. His nose. He couldn’t see, and with the roar of the fire, he couldn’t hear…. Finding the end of the beam with his hands. Please be alive, please be alive! “Patrick!”
Marcus was wracked by coughs again, but somehow he managed to get Patrick out from under the beam.
With strength he didn’t realize he had, he grabbed Patrick under his arms and hauled him out of the house. Patrick was so heavy. Heavier than he should be. Lethargy dragged at Marcus, and he wanted to just lie down and quit, but he couldn’t.
It seemed like hours, but was probably only a few moments, before he got Patrick all the way outside, off the steps, and into the cool spring grass. He felt around for a pulse and found it, but he couldn’t stay. He had to get Jeremy. He had to get his beloved valet, Mary. No, that wasn’t right. She wasn’t his valet anymore; she was Jeremy’s nanny. And she’d take care of him, just as she always had Marcus and Patrick.
He made it back inside. “Mary!”
A loud crack sounded above him. Marcus looked up and watched as the rest of the ceiling fell. He couldn’t react fast enough. The center beam