I had just barely made it out of the burning school.

"Alfonso!" I yelled, searching for my friends. "Ferguson!"

"We're right here, Marco," they called to me from another cluster of people. I sighed with relief.

"Star!" I looked for her in the crowd, but she was nowhere to be seen. "MISS SKULLNICK!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "STAR'S STILL IN THERE!"

"Whatever," she retorted with an extremely thick Brooklyn accent.

I ran toward the front door and was stopped by security guards. I kicked them in the shins and continued into the still burning school building.

"Star!" I called out. "Star! Where are you!?"

I heard a faint coughing coming from one of the outdoor areas. I immediately went over to it.

"Marco…" she choked out. I can't get this off me."

I noticed the four wooden beams crisscrossed over her. I lifted off the top one and kicked the rest in half. In the time it took me to do that, she had gone unconscious from lack of oxygen. I heaved her up onto my shoulder. She was deceivingly heavy. The room began to go dark, and I heard what sounded like bodies collapsing before I passed out.

I woke up on the couch with a really big, heavy hot water bottle on my chest. I began to lift it off, then realized.

"Star?" I asked, puzzled.

She woke up and almost fell off me when she realized how we had been set up on the couch.

"AAH!" she cried out.

I just lay there, and I could feel myself blushing like mad.

She took notice. "Aww!" she said. "You're blushing!"

I took a minute to let myself cool down, but before I was done, Star had wrapped her arms around me. "Thanks for trying to save my life, safe kid." She buried her face into my neck and I put a hand on the back of her head and one behind my head. I hugged her back and we fell asleep.