Waking Up In Vegas
Chapter Thirty Six
"Cathy!" Delana's voice echoed through the morning light.
Jasper was on his feet in an instant, along with the other three occupants of the porch.
"Delana?"
Jasper's eyes then caught the signs of the fire, and his heart dropped. Oh, no. Cathy! He quickly took stock of the situation. The truck was too far. Delana's jeep was blocked in by the Lincoln. But Delana aparently didn't care. She tore across the yard, then scrambled up the fence of the pasture, a shrill whistle escaping her lips. Diana lifted her head, trotting to meet her calling mistress. Delana grabbed a handful of mane when she met the horse, swinging herself up onto her back and kicking the gray into movement.
"Delana! The FENCE!"
Jasper's voice rang out behind her, but it didn't penetrate the girl's mind. Her thoughts were only on Catherine Bloom. Delana was a superb rider, a skilled jumper. But that was always on a warmed up horse... and in a saddle, with reigns.
"My car," Heero called out to Jasper. "Come on!" Jasper spared a last look at his long time friend... his employer, then turned to jog back to the house.
"Jasper?" Cecilia asked, from the door. "What ha..." her eyes saw her daughter... and the smoke her daughter was heading straight for. "Oh, God!"
"Dial 911," Jasper told her, already running through the house, hot on the Heero's heels and praying they would be in time. Or that better yet, it was all some kind of false alarm.
"Hey, horse-boy," the girl with the long blond hair called out to him, opening the rear door of the Navigator. "Get in."
He nodded, never stopping and nearly flying into the open car door. The girl swung up lightly behind him.
"Step on it, 'Ro," she told the man climbing in the driver's seat. The other blond was already in the passenger seat.
"Oh, God," was all Jasper could think.
Diana eyed the fence looming in front of her. She was confused. Her mistress seemed too focused. But not the good focused that told Diana where to go. Focused on something else. The horse tried to coalate the mixed up signals she was getting. There was no bit in her mouth, , just hands tangled in her loose mane. The legs against her sides were persistent, but with a different pressure than usual.
But Diana was not about to let her mistress down... even if she didn't know quiet what to do. She saw the white washed fence up ahead, and the open yard beyond it, the road beyond that. She snuffled to her mistress. Didn't her mistress see the fence?
Diana tried to veer away. The woman on her back was *not* thinking clearly and Diana wanted to wait until she *was* before she would take such orders. But Delana's fingers tugged on her mane, her legs giving the insistant signal to keep moving forward. Diana snorted unhappily, but let herself follow the lead, going forward. Diana eyed the fence, knowing what her mistress wanted. She kept her eyes on the fence, picking her footing and her stride. The fence disappeared from her view as she got closer, but her mistress somehow kept her steady. Diana gave a heave and pushed herself off from the ground, into the air. She had to twist her rear legs just a bit to keep from knocking into the fence, but she cleared it, landing heavily on the other side before taking off again.
Delana screamed when the house finally came into view, when she and Diana burst through the tree line at the road. Diana balked, nearly rearing in fright at the smell of the fire on the air and the unearthly sound that tore from her mistress. The Barton's home was up in flames, the fire licking out the windows on the bottom floor and smoke billowing up into the clear morning sky.
Delana didn't wait, or think. She swung off the horse, forgetting the faithful Diana as she ran towards the house, thoughts as consumed with Cathy as the house was consumed with flames.
"CATHY!" she screamed. The little car was still in the drive, but there was no sign of the red-head anywhere outside the inferno. The braided girl dashed up the front porch, coughing as she caught a lungful of smoke. She pushed the door open and dropped down into a crouch as smoke billowed above her head.
"CATHY!" she called into the house. "Catherine! Please! Where are you!" She could barely hear her own thoughts above the monstrous roaring of the flames. She blinked her eyes, unsure if the tears falling were from the burning heat and smoke or the pain in her heart.
So loud, so different. Delana barely recognized the house she was in as fire crackled around her, as glasses burst, as things crashed to the floor as the walls, tables... as everything was consumed.
"Cathy," she cried, her voice hoarse as she choked on the fumes that wound their way around her throat and down her nose.
"...'lana..."
Delana whirled her head around in the direction of the whimper. There! Top of the staircase!
Delana scrambled up the steps. Cathy was nothing but a huddled up mass three steps from the top. It looked like she'd tried to escape, but couldn't.
"Cathy, Cathy," Delana said, tears falling down to wet Cathy's unmoving form. Delana quickly checked her girlfriend over. The woman seemed unconsious, drifting in and out at random moments. A line of blood trailed down her cheek, but Delana couldn't see what from.
"It'll be okay, Cathy," Delana assured, wrapping her arms around the woman. She pulled, pulling Cathy towards the bottom of the stairs. With a sickening thunderous crash, the bottom of the stairway, the step under Delana's let caved in, the flames licking at her feet.
Delana screamed, trying to push Cathy back up the steps and pull herself up at the same time. She felt the hot, jagged burning splinters of wood digging into her leg, gouging her skin as she managed to get them both off the stairs and onto the second floor. What the hell were they going to do, she thought. She stood, her leg protesting, and supported Cathy. She hobbled down to the far end of the hall, to the window. The flames hadn't yet begun to eat at this part of the house, but the fire was growing... coming closer. She had to set Cathy down to open the window, grunting as she heaved the heavy glass pane up. Smoke billowed around her, sweeping through the opening.
Delana had always admired how the roof over Trowa and Cathy's back porch was barely slanted, and today she praised the architect as she levered Cathy headfirst out the window, keeping a firm hold of the other's clothing as she scrambled out behind her. Delana glanced around the yard below her, praying for something to break their fall when they jumped. Because they *would* have to jump, she realized as she supported Cathy again, half carrying-half dragging her to the edge of the roof.
Her heart soared for just a moment as she saw Heero, that was his name-right?, standing below. Other's were there, but they were obscured by smoke, by the teary blurring of her eyes. Help was here. Maybe they just might make it out of this after all!
Without warning, something inside the house exploded, scaring Delana and shaking the whole frame of the house. In her surprise, Delana took one wrong step... and they both tumbled over the edge of the roof and to the unforgiving ground below.
"Oh, My god..." were the first words out of nineteen year old Emily's lips as she first saw the scene as they turned the corner.
Midii's foot slammed on the break, the car skidding as her own eyes widened in horror and shock.
"Trowa..." she whispered as she saw the flames eating at the house. The black navigator that Emily recalled from the night before at the diner was parked across the road, the familar Jasper in front of it, ashen. The couple- Yuy and Darlian, is she remembered- stood looking in shock. And some blond woman, not much older than herself, taking charge. There was a cell phone in her hand, and from the calm, worried expression on her face she was talking to someone at 911.
Jasper, poor Jasper, that Emily had never seen as anything other than happy and calm looked half-dead as he, too, talked into a cell phone.
Oh, no. What about Cathy and Trowa? Were they... no... were they in there? Emily jumped out of the car, Midii not far behind her.
"Oh, God, no," Midii cried, rushing forward. She nearly tumbled into a shell-shocked little gray-haired lady.
"Mrs. Henderson," Midii said.
"Poor, poor, little Catherine," The old woman sniffled. "Oh, dear. Poor young Trowa. What's he going to do when he finds out? She was all he had left."
"Mr.s Henderson? Mrs. Henderson? Please, what are you talking about?" Midii demanded, hands on the woman's shoulders. "Cathy? Trowa? Are they in there?"
Small glassy eyes met Midii's brown ones. "Trowa? But he and that sweet little blond left this morning in quite a hurry, too." Mrs. Henderson looked at her neighbors house. "But poor Catherine." She shook her head, tears beading up on her eyes. "Poor, poor Cecilia. It's gonna break her heart. Howard's too."
Midii blinked. "Cecilia? The Maxwells?"
Mrs. Henderson looked back at her. "Why, of course, dear. It was their oldest... Deana, Diana, oh, bother. What's her name?"
"Delana?"
"Yes, dear. Delana, that's it. It was her that went in after poor Cathy!"
Midii raised her eyes to the house, the little woman forgotten with the news she'd been given.
Cathy and Delana were in there!
"DELANA!"
Midii's eyes turned to Emily's surprised shriek. The teenager had looped around the house, looking for... something, someone. Midii wasn't even aware her feet were moving until she was by the girl's side. Some brown-haired man she didn't know was there, too.
"DELANA!" There was no mistaking the momentary glee in Emily's voice as they all caught sight of the brunette woman on the back roof. She was limping, it seemed, and stumbling a little under the weight of the red-head she was supporting. But there they were, and they were alive!
The brown haired man rushed as close as he dared to the house as Delana tottered to the edge of the roof. Midii faltered and stumbled as something inside the house exploded. As she braced herself, she watched in horror as Delana's feet missed a step, moving a bit too close to the edge. The gutter gave way...
... and the two went crashing to the ground.