by J. L. Drake
“Another?” Wendy pointed to my empty glass as I danced to the music. I nodded, mouthing a thank you, and handed her my glass. The band was great. My co-workers were all relaxed, and even my bosses who were dating, but weren’t, were off in the corner flirting.
After several drinks, I felt the effects, and my newfound confidence in myself was at an all-time high. I finally stopped dancing long enough to hear that people were moving on to a bar. I thought what the hell and headed out with them.
The bar had great music, and I hit the floor again right away. I was really enjoying myself. I hadn’t danced like this since high school.
“What?” I yelled over the music to Wendy, who was trying to tell me her husband was coming to pick her up in the next twenty minutes. I nodded my understanding as I noticed a few co-workers dancing on the stage. They waved me over, and I held up a finger, signaling one second. I wanted to make sure Wendy got to her car all right.
“You want a drive home?” she yelled over her shoulder as we headed for the coat room. Now that I had stopped, I figured I really was ready to call it a night, but my bladder had kicked in, and I knew I couldn’t make it home without addressing that first.
“I’d love one, but I need to use the restroom first. Can you give me, like, ten?”
“I’ll go, too.” She sent a quick text off to her husband and followed me upstairs.
As I fixed my hair in the mirror, I thought I heard my name being called from outside. Assuming it was Jessi, I quickly dried my hands.
“Wendy, I’ll be right outside the door.”
“Okay. It will most likely take a village for me to get these Spanx back on, so I’ll meet you out there.”
I chuckled and stepped outside but stopped short when I saw Myles blocking my path.
“No.” I held up my hand and made it very clear I wanted nothing to do with him.
“You need to hear me out.”
“I don’t need to do anything with you, Myles.”
“Look.” He stepped closer, and I stepped back. He reached out and yanked my arm and pushed me back into the wall. “My father is up my ass right now. You know what he’s like. He can’t know that you left.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“Arizona,” he warned, which only made me want him to grovel harder.
“You should have thought of that before you cheated and hurt me.”
“I need you to keep your mouth shut for a few more months. We don’t really need to divorce, anyway. You always freak out and then come to your senses later.”
“And we’re finished here.”
“Hey,” he pressed his body against mine, “remember what happened the last time you pissed me off?”
I turned my head, not wanting him to see the fear that flickered through me.
“Get off me, Myles.”
“Or what?” He pulled down on my arms, and I yelped in pain.
“Ari?” Wendy stepped into the open doorway and looked stunned at the situation I was in. “Are you okay?”
“Fire!” someone yelled, and in a blink of an eye, a stampede of people moved toward the exits.
Myles glared at me then at Wendy, clearly weighing his options.
“Or maybe fate just fixed my problem.”
Huh?
He suddenly shoved me backward, and I tumbled into the empty bathroom. He disappeared into the crowd, and I quickly scrambled to my feet with Wendy by my side. Thick black smoke puffed out of a room downstairs, and the screams were deafening.
“We need to get down there.” Wendy tugged at my arm, and we raced down the steps. I froze, unsure exactly where I wanted to go. People from behind me started to push, and we both got shoved into the madness. With all our might, we fought to get across to the far wall.
Wendy reached for my arm just as a huge mob started to form around us again, all pushing in the same direction. A chair got kicked, and I tripped and started to fall, but Wendy helped me keep my balance as the mob forced us forward. We finally managed to get under the stairs where we crouched down out of the way of all the craziness, each of us trying to desperately catch our breath.
“Where is the fire? Which way should we go?” she screamed in near panic while about five hundred people all were trying to get out of the place at once. I shook my head, scared as hell, trying hard not freak out. I couldn’t tell either. All I knew was that if we didn’t stay put, we’d surely be trampled.
Sirens, screams, and blaring music were all that could be heard. My heart pumped wildly, and Wendy and I held hands and stared into each other’s wide, frightened eyes. I saw the panic rush over her face.
“I have kids! They need a mother. I can’t—”
I grabbed her shoulder and tried to calm her, but I could see she was losing it. The smoke was getting thick fast, and I looked all around and tried to see how we could escape without being hurt.
“Please, Arizona! We need to get out of here!” She suddenly broke free from me and crawled forward and disappeared through the sea of hysterical people. I screamed her name, but lost sight of her almost immediately then spotted her as she stood up. She turned to reach toward me, eyes wide with fear, only to be sucked forward in the flow of bodies out of sight.
“Wendy!” I screamed again, but my voice only got lost in the confusion.
I took a deep breath and crawled out through a gap then fought to stand, elbows out, then tried to beat a path through the crowd, but it didn’t work. One girl was frantically screaming and tried to break through, and she hit me in the head with a bottle. I fell with a heavy thud. I waited to be trampled, but someone helped me up, only to be pulled away.
Oh, my God! This is bad! I scrambled back to my safe spot under the stairs, holding my throbbing head. My hand was red with blood. She must have broken the skin.
The music stopped suddenly. The smoke was even worse now, and my eyes streamed. People seemed to be thinning out. In a matter of seconds, the thick black smoke engulfed me. Coughing like crazy, trying to catch my breath, I realized I must stay low and try to crawl below the smoke or I was going to die under these stairs in some dirty nightclub.
I started to move forward, trying to remember where the exit was. Every moment became harder, and my lungs ached. They begged me to hurry, but I had to go slowly to feel my way. I couldn’t see a foot in front of me, and I could now feel the heat from the flames.
A sudden ridiculous bubble of hysterical laughter came from my throat with the thought of Well, that just goes to show you where having a bit of fun gets you. I’m going to die because I wanted to have a good time. Just as that thought filtered through my brain, I realized this could really be it for me.
“Fire department, call out!” Someone sounded a million miles away.
“Help!” I called, gasping from lack of oxygen. My throat burned, and I coughed so hard my eyes streamed. I must have caught his attention, because a hand reached out, and suddenly his mask came face to face with me.
“Hold on, I’ve got you.” I recognized that voice. It was Cook. I nearly jumped in his arms. His face dropped when he registered it was me.
“Stay low and follow me.”
I nodded and suddenly heard a hissing sound. Cook radioed something in, and I knew by the look on his face that noise wasn’t good.
“Move,” he yelled and pushed me ahead of him, guiding me to the right and left.
Light made my eyes hurt, but I raced toward it, and once outside, I dropped painfully to my knees and tried desperately to force air into my burning lungs. My eyes, nose, and throat were raw.
“Brooke!” Cook yelled from behind me. “I need you!”
A blonde woman came to my side, but I held my hand out to stop her. I was overwhelmed and needed a moment.
“Please, miss, you inhaled a lot of smoke. I need to check you over.”
&nbs
p; “Carter!” Cook barely had the word out of his mouth when Carter appeared at my side in his gear.
“Jesus, Arizona!” He pulled his gloves off and started to check me over. I shook from the inside out when I reached for his arm to anchor my spinning fear. “Breathe.” He tried to get me to listen, but I just couldn’t do it.
“I know it hurts, but you need to focus on clearing out your lungs.”
“Carter, I need to check her over.”
“I know,” he snapped back. “Just give her a moment.”
He shifted to sit in front of me and held an oxygen mask over my mouth and nose. He held my head in his hands, so I’d look at him. “Do it with me. In,” he breathed inward, “now out.”
Slowly, my lungs relaxed enough to let the clean air in. Tears burned down my cheeks, and everything hurt, but I finally began to realize I was in one piece and safe.
“Oh, my God, Arizona!” Myles’s voice was like a kick to the gut.
“Sorry, sir, you can’t cross the line.” An officer held up a hand to stop him.
“No, please, that’s my wife.”
My. Heart. Stopped. Cold.
Carter’s head snapped back at the word wife, and I wanted to run back into the fire and let it finish me off.
The officer let him through, and he raced toward me. The look on his face was scarier than I’d ever seen it. Carter pulled back and let go of my head, and I tugged the oxygen mask off.
When Myles reached to touch me, I jerked back with a yelp.
“Come on, Arizona, get up.”
“Don’t touch me!”
“Hey!” Jessi, God bless her fiery heart, jumped the police tape, and Cook shook his head at the officer who tried to stop her. “Get the fuck out of here, Myles. The last time you touched her, she ended up in the hospital for three days.”
“Get out of here, Jessi,” Myles barked, but he was no match for my pit bull of a bestie.
“You may have her scared to death, but I’d like to see you take a swing at me.”
“Arizona! Arizona!” I heard a female call. “Please! She’s my friend!” It was Wendy. Oh, thank God, it was Wendy. She was all right.
I caught Jessi and Wendy in a hug, and for a half a second I allowed myself to be relieved my friends were okay.
“Sir,” Wendy addressed Carter, “my husband works for the NYPD, and this man is not allowed to be anywhere near her.”
“Shut the fuck up, Wendy,” Myles hissed.
“What do you want to do here, Arizona?” Carter’s tone was flat, but he did not move far from my side.
I stood on shaky legs, and Carter stood up with me.
“What you did in there,” I pointed with my chin as I addressed the worthless piece of shit in front of me, “was worse than anything you have ever done.” I paused for a moment to cough. “Get the hell away from me.”
“Louis,” Carter signaled for the officer to come over, “see this man is escorted off the property.”
“Sure thing.” The officer took Myles by the arm, but Myles ripped out of his grasp with a curse. “This isn’t over,” he hissed, and I closed my eyes, knowing it wouldn’t be.
“Can I take her home, Carter?” Jessi wrapped an arm around my shoulders.
“She has to go to the hospital first, then she can.” He avoided eye contact with me, and I knew he was reeling from what had just happened. “Brooke.” He waved over the EMT, and I was escorted to the ambulance where another oxygen mask was placed over my mouth. Just as the doors shut, I saw Cook and Carter glance at one another.
“I’m so sorry, love.” Jessi held my hand as I broke down.
Chapter Nine
Carter
“Carter!” Cook called as I jumped out of the truck, just needing a moment to think, alone. Too many things were bouncing around in my head.
“Hey,” he caught up to me and grabbed the side of my jacket, “listen to me for a second.”
“What?” I wasn’t in the mood for comforting.
“Before you shut down, let me tell you something. The other day, I ran into Arizona and she was heading into a lawyer’s office.”
“What? When?”
“The other day.” He brushed over that part of the story. “My point is, it was a divorce attorney.”
“Were you going to tell me this?”
“I didn’t think too much of it, to be honest.” He lowered his voice as the other guys rushed by. “Look, you like her, right?”
“Yeah,” I sighed.
“So, talk to her before you think the worst. Chances are there’s more to the story than you think.”
My head fell, and I knew he was right. I knew she had been hurting when I met her. I figured the last guy she was with had been abusing her and that it would be hard to talk about. I was okay with giving her time before she shared the story. As much as I wanted to slam the door on my heart for the second time in my life, there was a bigger part of me that at least needed to hear her out first. Damn, though, that word wife was like a knife to the soul.
“Good.” He took my silence for what it was. “I’ll talk to the chief and get you off for the night.”
I smacked his shoulder as I raced to get showered and changed.
The hospital was busy when I arrived. The nurses didn’t say much, as I was wearing my NYFD jacket and we were often here to check on our rescues.
“Libby?” I stopped the nurse who was at the front desk.
“Hey, Carter.” She pushed her glasses up her nose and studied my face. “Are you looking for someone from that bar fire?”
“Yeah. A woman, Arizona Lexington.”
She looked up something in the computer. “I’ll take you to her.” She grabbed her radio before she left her post. “Any idea what is happening with the fires?”
“Not yet,” I answered honestly. We always kept the nurses in the loop the best we could. If we all didn’t work together, the wheels wouldn’t turn properly. “How is the girl?”
“She’ll be okay. Smoke inhalation, of course, and she got hit pretty hard on the head, so we’re watching her concussion closely.”
“How bad is it?”
“Normally, I wouldn’t be as concerned, but,” she opened the file in her hand and scanned the chart, “this isn’t her first concussion this year.”
My stomach twisted, and as much as I wanted to know more, I decided not to press too much.
“Here she is.” She stood outside the glass doors. The curtain was partially shut for privacy.
“Thanks, Libby.
“Anytime, Lieutenant. She’s a very attractive lady.” She winked and smiled warmly before she left.
I tucked my hands in my pockets and stared at Arizona asleep in the bed. A reflection alerted me someone had come up next to me.
“God,” Jessi wiped her eyes with a sniff, “I’m so over seeing my best friend in a hospital bed.”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw she must have been crying for a while. Her eyes were red, and her cheeks were puffy.
“Why didn’t she tell me she was married?” I whispered.
“You don’t think she tried, Carter?” I shrugged, and she went on. “It’s not an easy thing to bring up.”
“But it is. Being married is a big thing to bring up.”
“Maybe for the average person who just fell out of love, but not her kind of marriage.”
“Meaning?”
“Look,” she pulled her oversized sweater up over her shoulders with a slight shiver, “it isn’t my place to be sharing this with you, but I love my best friend like she was my own sister. And I won’t let a great thing slip through her fingers because of her ex anymore. Let’s get some coffee and talk. She’ll be out for a bit.” I waved for her to lead the way after one more look at Arizona lying in the hospital bed.
&nb
sp; We found a quiet table in the back of the cafeteria, and she pulled out some fresh tissues and dabbed at her eyes then cleared her throat. She, too, had inhaled some smoke and was struggling with the after affects.
“You need to know she isn’t a doormat or a weak woman. She actually has a set of balls that would put most men to shame. It was how she caught Myles in the first place. That, and because she’s smart and gorgeous.”
She eyed me to see if I would say anything, but I held my silence and my composure.
“They met when they were eighteen and were married by nineteen. His father saw the potential in her, even though Myles didn’t, and hurried their wedding along. Little did he know Myles would see her as a threat later on, and that’s when things went dark.” She took a long breath, and I knew there was a lot of bad blood still sitting on the surface. “It wasn’t long into the marriage that she stopped calling me as often. She canceled trips with me and the other girls and started to become much quieter, pulling away from everyone. She wasn’t allowed to see me or her brothers, because she knew we were starting to suspect there was a problem. So, we tried a different avenue and called Grady, and he was the one who found out that Myles was monitoring her phone calls.”
“Wait, who is Grady?”
“Her cousin. He’s a firefighter in California. They used to be really close when they were kids, and when her family moved here, they kept in contact, but Myles tried to move between them too. Grady’s ruthless, though, and convinced her to see a therapist. Because Myles watched her every move, she had to pay in cash, but at least she was doing it.”
“Jesus.” I rubbed my face, trying to catch up.
“Carter,” she fiddled with her paper cup, “I have to ask, have you ever noticed her triggers?”
“Triggers?”
“Have you ever noticed she jumps whenever someone slams a door, flinches when someone yells, or how the smell of cigarette smoke puts her totally on edge?”
“No.” I shook my head, feeling my heart break for her again. “I don’t smoke and am pretty even tempered.”