“She didn’t come out with me,” Mom said with a shrug. “I thought she’d come out with you. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
My jaw dropped. How the hell could she be so blasé about this? This was her mother she was talking about, and she wasn’t even sure if she’d come out of a burning building or not?
“Are you serious?” I said, my hands clenching into fists by my side. I’d never, ever hit someone in my entire life, but right now I was seriously tempted to give my mother a good slap across the face. “You know she sleeps through anything, right? Even with the alarm going off, and even if the hotel staff banged on her door for an hour, she probably wouldn’t have woken up. Someone needs to actually go into her room and get her!”
“Well, I assumed you’d get her. You have one of the spare keycards to her room, right?” Mom said with another shrug. “Don’t worry about it; I’m sure someone’s getting her. She’s only on the second floor, anyway.”
“Yeah, and that’s right below the third floor, which is on fire, in case you hadn’t noticed!” I said. “I would’ve got her, but Elijah told me you already did!”
“Well, don’t worry about it. Like I said, someone will find her,” she said. “God, how did I raise such a worrywart?”
I shook my head in disbelief, unable to believe how little she cared about her own flesh and blood. “You didn’t raise me,” I muttered. “She did.”
With that, I turned and dashed back towards the hotel entrance. If no one else was going to make sure my grandmother made it out of her room safely, then it was up to me.
“They’re almost all out,” I overheard Elijah say to another staff member as I dashed past him at the entrance. He didn’t even notice me go back in.
People were still pouring out through the main lobby, and I shoved my way past a group of seemingly-drunk men on my way to the stairs.
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“Hey, you’re goin’ the wrong way, sweet-cheeks!” one of them called after me. “Damn…this place might be on fire, but it’s still not as hot as that ass!”
Seriously? We were in a burning building, and this guy thought it was an appropriate time to sleaze onto women?
I rolled my eyes before dashing up the left-hand side emergency stairs, finding them empty. Everyone else must have already made it out or gone down another set of stairs. The alarm continued to blare in my ears, and I wrinkled my nose at the harsh smell of smoke which was permeating the air in the stairwell now. As I reached the small landing between one set of stairs and the next which would lead me to the second floor entrance, the cord from my dressing gown came loose and started to swing down at the floor, right in between my legs. Before I could even register what had happened, I tripped over it and flew backwards with a scream.
Clunk.
Clunk.
Crash.
I hit the previous landing with a thud, and my vision swam in front of me as I tried to climb back up. I totally and utterly failed, legs and arms too wobbly and weak to move. Every inch of my body ached terribly, especially my head and right arm, and I gasped and tried to stop my eyes from closing as a flurry of thoughts swept through my mind. Grandma…Finn…are you okay? Am I going to make it out of here? Why can’t I move?
Coming back in here had been a stupid idea. Noble, perhaps, but stupid. I’d wanted to save my grandmother, but all I’d done was put myself in harm’s way as well. I should’ve gone to a firefighter or emergency-trained hotel staff member and asked them to make sure my Grandma made it out of her room safely, but instead I’d put myself at risk like an idiot.
Too late now. I’m trapped. I can’t move.
Hindsight was a real bitch.
Feeling even woozier as the pungent scent of smoke hit my nostrils again, I finally closed my eyes, my mind drifting away to another place. Maybe this wasn’t real. Maybe this was all just a nightmare. Yes, yes…that was it. Just a nightmare. I’d wake up soon.
“Rory! Jesus fuck, Rory!”
Someone was calling my name. It seemed far off in the distance, and I tried to open my eyes again. All I could see was fuzzy greyness in front of me.
“Help…” I murmured weakly, not even sure if I was hallucinating the voice or not.
“Don’t try to move for a minute,” a calm masculine voice said a few seconds later. I felt two strong arms scooping me off the hard floor, and my eyes fluttered open and shut several times as I tried to see what was happening.
“It’s me. I’ve got you, and you’re gonna be fine,” the voice said. So familiar.