Just then, a back draft swooped up the side of the building. There were shouts and voices from below screaming at us to get off the stairs and out of the building. But the fire had gotten too thick and all the lower windows and doors had been engulfed with flames. There was no way out save by going up.
My mother let out a wet sounding cough and gasped, getting to her knees to breath air that wasn't a cloud of smoke, but there wasn't much of anything in that building except that dark, deadly air. She pushed me, hard, toward the opening and the rusted chain that hung from the rafters above. "Mama, I can't leave you!"
"We ain't got much choice, baby."
She looked up at me then, her face dark, eyes red rimmed and watering and it was all I could do to remember what she wanted from me. She'd called me baby. She'd never done that before in all my years. My mama wanted me out of that building. She pushed me toward freedom and breath and safety. My life mattered to her-she wanted me to live.
"Mama … "
"Go, Sookie. You go on now."
I turned to look at the opening above. There was so much smoke I could only make out the streak of dull silver from the chain hanging down.. Mama had gone quiet behind me but I was too scared to look back, trying to desperately screw up my courage while the world fell apart around me. I heard and felt the boards under my feet groan, and in desperation, I jumped toward that chain, locking my legs and hands around it, swinging off the half-fallen platform just as it creaked and broke in two, spilling down into the dark below. Mama went down with it.
"No! No, Mama! Mama!"
But she couldn't hear me. I held onto that chain like a lifeline, afraid that if I loosened my grip even the tiniest bit I'd join my mother in the flames below.
"Sookie! Sookie look here … "
My momentum had swung the chain so that it listed towards the open window. I tried to see into the street below, and moved my body to make the chain move in even wider arcs, aiming for the opening and freedom. Even through my terror and the roaring of the flames below, I could hear screams, some angry, some scared, but I couldn't tell which ones I knew or which ones cared if I lived or died. I did catch sight of Uncle Aron on his knees, that hat scrunched up between his hands as he cried something fierce into the fabric. The chain creaked with each swing I made, in and out, flames and air, back and forth as my body felt heavy and my lungs full.
"Sookie! You look at me right damn now!" That was my brother, he sounded so angry. I could see him across the street, angled so he could watch what was happening inside where I was clinging for dear life to the swinging chain. His face had gone near white. And next to him Dempsey moved his attention to me, looking like he was working something swift and clever to get me down.
But I was so tired. My head throbbed and my fingers ached.
Sylv had blood on his lip and Dempsey's left eye was again a black bruise.
I loved them. The pair of them. I knew that just as sure as I knew that my mama had always loved me. She died to see me out of that building.
I blinked when one hand slipped from the chain, my gaze falling onto Dempsey's face, to that round, perfect mouth. I reckoned I did love him and not just because of his sweet mouth and sweeter kisses. He'd been my best friend since I was little. I supposed I'd always loved him.
Funny thing about love, ain't it? Sometimes it saves you and sometimes, like right then, even love isn't enough.
The smoke billowed up, choking me, so thick I couldn't breathe. So thick there was nothing I could do but let it swallow me whole.
Nash
I felt like a mourner. The only thing missing was the black clothes. Instead I wore a suit, something obnoxious, designer that Duncan insisted I let him buy me. Five pieces in this suit and I recycled and restructured them with ideas Daisy grabbed from Pinterest. Still, a cream button up and green tie didn't exactly say "mourner," but I felt like that's what I should call myself.
The dream had not transferred into events that shaped my daily life. It went beyond the sleeplessness and how their recurrence made me feel and act and see the world. Now it had become something that left me desperate and sad and too damn mixed up by all the feelings I had to make sense of anything other than the sadness that wrapped around me like a noose.
I wanted to let it all go; Willow, Sookie and the second-hand memories that people I didn't know had in D.C. Part of me wanted to believe Willow, that it was the lives we led before that drew me closer to her, that reasoned why I couldn't get her out of my head.