1

“All my friends think you’re lame.”

I stared at Ace, my supposed boyfriend. He stood towering in front of me, tall and muscular. His jet-black hair was gelled up and back. His brown, nearly black eyes, glared all the way to my core.

“Good thing I don’t give a shit about your friends,” I shot back as I pulled my arm from his painful grip.

“Shut the fuck up,” he bit out as he yanked open a bedroom door. He put his hands on my back and shoved me forcefully into the empty room.

“Get your hands off me!” I demanded, my voice rising as I spun around toward him. I flinched as he slammed the door shut behind us, trapping me alone in the room with him.

“Shut your damn mouth!” he roared as he advanced toward me with rage in his eyes.

My heart pounded as I stumbled backwards. I knew that wild look. My stomach churned as I frantically searched for a way out of this room, away from the out-of-control hunter in front of me.

“I’ve told you not to fuck with me in front of my friends,” he continued his angry rant as he grabbed my arm and yanked me roughly toward him. “You just don’t ever learn, do you?”

His arm suddenly swung, his first colliding with my left cheek. I crashed to the floor from the hit. It felt like a damn brick had just made contact with my face. Tears burned my eyes, but the monster wasn’t done yet.

A string of swear words spewed from his mouth as he kicked me in the side with his booted foot, sending me flying into the air and crashing onto my back. The wind rushed out of my lungs as I frantically tried to suck oxygen back in.

He stood above me, screaming about how this was all my fault. I stared up at him, unable to breathe or even cry. I pinched my eyes closed as I prayed his vicious attack was over. He had once been my hero but, in moments like this, he was exactly what we had escaped.

He moved away from me, still cursing as I watched him walk to the door. He ripped it open as he yelled one last time at me. “Take a nap you dumb bitch. I ain’t leaving the damn party for your pathetic ass.”

The door slammed closed behind him and my rigid, tight body instantly began to relax. I had survived another attack.

I was okay, well okay as I could be at the moment.

Air slowly began to trickle back into my lungs as I struggled to my feet. All I had wanted to do was go home, to leave this stupid party and crawl into my bed for much needed sleep. My drug-addicted boyfriend was obviously too consumed with the buffet of drugs in front of him to be bothered by taking his girlfriend home. Of course, he wouldn’t have to take his lame girlfriend home if he would quit stealing my money and let me save up enough to buy a car.

My head began throbbing, my cheek still reliving the force of his punch over and over again. I gingerly moved my jaw, making sure it wasn’t broken. My fingers trailed to my tender side. I was pretty sure he didn’t break a rib this time.

I inched over toward the empty bed in the room and sat down. I dropped my head into my hands as tears drained from my eyes. How the hell did I end up like this?

I coughed. And coughed again. A third cough woke me from my sleep. I groggily opened my swollen eyes. My throat was scratchy and felt swollen. My breaths wheezed in as sweat broke out across my forehead. Why was it suddenly so stinking hot in this room?

I sat up too quickly and the memory of what had occurred in this room slammed back into me with the shooting pain in my side and the dull throb of my cheek. I rubbed my eyes, realizing I must have fallen asleep on the foreign bed.

I stood up, my movements much slower and cautious now. A burning heat continued to torch the room as I shuffled over to the door. I wiped the sweat from my brow as I grabbed the door handle. My hand flinched back, burned by the flaming heat.

A sick feeling of dread slowly began to take hold within me. Why was the room hot? Why was the door handle burning? I took a deep breath through my nose and, for the first time, realized it stunk of smoke. The house was on fire!

Panic began to pump through my veins as I pulled my shirt down over my hand and again tried the doorknob. The heat seared through my shirt, but I ignored the pain as I tried to turn the knob. The stupid thing wouldn’t budge. Ace had locked the door.

I quickly stepped away, ignoring the pain as I rushed over to the window. I unlocked it and pulled upwards but the stupid glass pane wouldn’t budge.

No! No! No!

This is not how I was going to die. I was not going to die at only eighteen in a freaking drug house! I didn’t go through everything I had survived to die like this!

I spun around, frantically looking for something to break the glass with. I grabbed a lamp and rushed back to the window. I swung it at the glass, but the lamp simply smashed as the window remained intact.

My heart pounded as more sweat broke out over my entire body. I swung around and my heart dropped to my feet as the door I had just tried to open was now on fire.

“No!” I screamed as, in a complete and utter panic, I banged my fists on the window. “Help me! Someone help me! Please!”

Tears began streaming down my face as I hit and kicked at the window, but it refused to break beneath my limbs. I didn’t want to die! I wasn’t ready!

Smoke billowed into the room and my childhood education kicked in and I dropped to the floor, knowing more oxygen would be down lower.

I pulled my cellphone from my jean pocket and cursed as the stupid thing was dead. Just my luck. I shoved it back into my pocket as the smoke began to surround me with its promise of death before the fire. Like hell. I wasn’t going out like this.

Sirens suddenly wailed out from the darkness outside as red and blue lights lit up the smoke-filled room. Help was here! But would they even know I was in here? Would Ace alert them? Was he even still around? What kind of lowlife, scum of the earth boyfriend would leave their girlfriend in a house that was on fire?

Depressingly, I realized I had that boyfriend, and I allowed him to treat me like this. I was no better than he was.

I scrambled to my feet and again attacked the window with all the force of a crazy person refusing to go quietly to their death.

“I’m up here!” I screamed though I doubted they could hear me. “Help me!”

I thrashed against the window with everything I had, desperate for someone to somehow hear me. My vision began to blacken around the edges as my head began to get foggy and lightheaded. I forced my eyes to focus on the lights outside the window, but it was a losing battle. The smoke was cutting off my oxygen supply and slowly killing me.

My pounding turned into clawing as the strength began to drain from my arms.

“Someone help,” I forced out, my voice only a whisper. “Please.’

“Get back!” a voice replied.

My eyebrows crushed downward as I stumbled backwards like a drunken sailor and tripped over my own feet and fell backwards onto my butt. Had someone actually answered?

“Stay back!” the male voice again called as something suddenly smashed into the window. Glass shattered everywhere and I threw my arms over my face.

“Are you okay?” a male voice asked with a British accent.

I clumsily dropped my arms as my eyes looked loopily toward the fireman in full gear crouched in front of me.

“Come with me,” he said through his mask in his British accent.

I sat staring at him. My body was so deprived of the oxygen it desperately needed that my brain sent the message to move but my limbs remained in place.

He cursed beneath his breath and I pondered how very un-fireman like that was. He stepped toward me and bent down, scooping me into his arms as he retreated back toward the window with me.

My eyes gazed at this mystery fireman’s face as he carried me as effortlessly as a loaf of bread and met his eyes. They were the most gorgeous color of green I had ever seen and yet they held speckles of yellow and brown deep within them also.

I was staring at his eyes as he said something, but between the mask and his accent, I couldn’t make it out. The black on the sides of my vison began to close in around me which caused my heartrate and breathing to spike. I gasped for breaths, suddenly realizing that by picking me up from the floor, the air had gotten much thicker and heavy with smoke.

I coughed hard and turned into the fireman’s hard chest. “I don’t want to die,” I whined out in nothing more than a whisper as I bounced with his steps. I took one last breath and looked into those stunning green eyes as the darkness overtook me.