Richelle Mead owns the VA and Bloodlines series.
I'm updating again this week! Yay! And this is another weird one. Kind of. It was inspired by a picture on the Official Bloodlines Facebook page. A picture of Adrian carrying Sydney out of a fire. OMG. I'm dying here waiting for TIS so I saw the picture and this popped into my head. If you haven't see the pic, I suggest going to check it out. Because holy sexy!
Anyway, review and let me know what you think!
I spun, frantically searching the abandoned house for Carly. She had to be here. This was where she had been, this was where Mrs. Terwilliger's pychotic sister Genevieve told me she would be. Maybe that had been my first mistake. Trusting someone I was pretty sure wanted me dead. But if she had Carly I couldn't take any chances. I'd jumped in Latte and driven off for Los Angeles the second she'd called.
Adrian had begged me not to go. Just wait for me, Sage! Just wait! That might have been my second mistake. I hadn't waited. I'd left without him, I didn't even bother telling Eddie or Angeline I was leaving at all. When I arrived at the house and noticed the first wafts of smoke drifting up from under the front door I figured it was better that way. Adrian wouldn't have let me run into a burning house and Eddie would have wanted to go in himself. I couldn't let either of those things happen. This was my problem, my sister, and I needed to handle it.
I'd run through the door despite the fire, coughing from the already thick smoke rising in the living room.
"Carly!"
I could barely see it was so hazy. The thick, acrid smell burned my lungs as I tried to breathe through it. I just needed to find Carly.
The fire was spreading quickly and I tried to check the rooms as fast as I could. I scanned the rooms downstairs before heading up to the second floor. I knew that if she was on the second floor our chances of making it out of this house alive were greatly decreased, but I couldn't leave my sister in this house. I couldn't.
When I made it to the top of the stairs I heard a loud crack. I didn't stop to look behind me, but I was pretty sure a part of the ceiling had caved in. The crackling flames were almost deafening, surrounding me at every turn.
"Carly!"
I opened a door on my left and was met by a huge hole in the floorboards. Orange flames shooting up, illuminating the room in a dangerous glow. I swung the door closed quickly, hoping somehow the thin piece of wood would keep the flames back.
The hallway was too smoky, almost black, but I ran quickly to the door at the end, pushing it open and entering the room. The floor was intact, at least, but there was no sign of Carly.
Tears were running down my cheeks, no doubt mixing with the smoke and ash coating my face. Where was she?
I was gasping for air and crying and I couldn't breathe. I couldn't stay in this house any longer. I'd die. Carly wasn't here. Genevieve had tricked me.
I stumbled to a window and, with clumsy fingers, desperately tried to open it.
A part of me had known it was a trap. The logical, Alchemist part of me. The part that was always thinking, always rationalizing. Genevieve knew I'd never join her coven like she wanted, so she'd decided to kill me instead. Eliminating the enemy, or maybe the competition. I wasn't sure how she saw me. I didn't know what about me screamed adversary to her, but I did know she'd kidnapped my sister and used her to lure me into a burning building.
I finally managed to unhook the latch of the window. Wedging my fingers underneath the glass, I wrenched up as hard as I could. I needed the air outside. The pure, clean oxygen that was waiting right on the other side of this window. But the window would only lift about an inch. I tried again, my hands stinging with the effort, but it wouldn't budge.
I gagged in the smoke, but managed to stay alert enough to scan the window sill. There must have been something blocking...
Then I saw it. It was a small thing, just the tiniest head of a screw, jutting out from the side of the window, but it was also the only thing keeping me in this room. The only thing keeping me from breathing. Genevieve, or one of her minions, had nailed the window shut.
I tried pulling at the screw, but only the tips of my fingers could get a hold of it. And even then it hurt. Bad enough to have me whimpering in pain. From the dim light filtering through the window from the street lamp outside I was able to see how red the skin on my hands looked. Red and raw. Burned. No wonder my hands stung so badly. I must have burned them while searching the house...
This was bad. I turned around toward the bedroom door, but the orange glow slipping under the door from the hallway told me it wasn't safe out there.
Fuzzy as I felt from the lack of oxygen, I knew I had to break the window. It was the only chance I had. I turned, but couldn't see anything in the room. When I'd first come in, there had only been a bed in the corner. No chairs or lamps or anything that could help me break out the glass window. I blinked hard, fighting against the sudden dizziness, and bent to take off my heel. I was pretty sure I could use it to...
...break...
...the glass.
My eyes stung from the smoke, my hands stung from the flames, the heat of the fire was rising up through the floorboards. I thought I heard sirens coming from outside, but when I looked there were no fire engines. No police.
Just...
...just a yellow Mustang.
I blinked a few times. Was there really a Mustang outside or was I just hallucinating from lack of oxygen? When I saw him standing outside on the front lawn, fear and shock and something that looked like rage playing over his beautiful features, my heart thumped once in my chest.
Adrian was here.
But it wasn't any good. He couldn't get to me. By now the whole first floor was engulfed in flames, and he didn't know where I was...
I raised my arm, the thick air and the heat making me feel like I was moving in slow motion, and swung the heel of my shoe at the glass. The heel might have made a sound when it hit, but I couldn't hear it over the raging fire. I couldn't hear it over my own heart beat. Over the blackness that was rushing towards me from all sides.
I swayed back, away from the window.
When I hit the ground, my first thought was that it was easier to breathe down here, but it was much hotter. Then the blackness surrounded me and I didn't think anymore.
###
My brain kicked back in before my body did. At first, all I knew was that I hurt. Badly. I was hot, my skin stung, felt like the worst sort of prickling. A thousand needles poking me all at the same time. I wanted to scream, but my body wasn't responding to what my brain was telling it. Something was wrong.
Sound came rushing back then. Everything was so loud, but I couldn't distinguish one sound from another. Sirens, voices, a loud crashing noise. It started to become recognizable. I could hear someone crying. Painful sounding sobs.
Someone was touching my face. It hurt. I wanted to tell them to stop, to stop touching me, to leave me alone, to get me out of here. This hurt! Why wouldn't they stop hurting me?
Then I remembered the fire. I was in a blazing house. I had passed out. Maybe the pain I kept feeling was my flesh burning in the flames? But no. That wouldn't feel like fingers caressing my cheeks.
A warm glow radiated through me. It tingled through my hands, up my arms and over my face. It engulfed me. All I felt were comfort and relief. The horrible stinging was gone, replaced by soothing strokes from someone's fingers.
No. Not someone.
Adrian.
I opened my eyes and there he was. Leaning over me. His green eyes glowed in the flames from the house. I leaned my head back to see that the house was consumed in those flames. There would be nothing left soon.
"Sage?" Adrian whispered, his voice low and thick with emotions. It tore at my heart to hear it.
I turned back to him, noticing for the first time that he was cradling me in his lap. It felt nice to just lie there with him. And I didn't think trying to get up would be the best decision in this case. He'd healed whatever was physically wrong with me, but the look in his eyes told me he wasn't happy.
"Hi," I whispered back. I couldn't think of anything else to say. I could say thank you, but what was I thanking him for exactly? For saving me? Would a simple thank you ever be enough?
Adrian wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tight to his chest. He buried his face in my soot cover tangle of hair. It couldn't have been pleasant to breathe in, but he didn't seem to care as he pressed his nose to my neck and inhaled deeply.
He pulled back and took my face between his palms. "Don't you ever do that to me again. When I tell you to wait, you wait! Do you hear me?"
I nodded, tears forming in my eyes because I could now see the wet trails that streaked his ash covered face. He'd cried over me. Over my injured, unconscious body. And then he'd healed me.
His bottom lip trembled for a moment before he pulled me to him, burying his face back into the crook of my neck. I wanted to stay that way forever. I was here, he was here, nothing else mattered.
But it did matter, of course. Genevieve hadn't succeeded in killing me, but she still had Carly. Still had my sister trapped somewhere, ready to use her against me once again.
I started to pull back, my brain starting to rapid fire questions through my head. Where could Genevieve be holding Carly? How could I track them down? What would I do if I did find them? But then a sniffling sound jerked me from my thoughts.
I looked up to see Jill standing above me. Eddie and Angeline were on either side of her. She dropped down to her knees and pulled me into a hug. It was slightly uncomfortable because Adrian hadn't let go of me yet and I was still sitting in his lap.
"Thank god you're okay," she cried. "We were so scared when we pulled up and saw the flames. And then Adrian ran in to find you and–"
"What?" I asked, pulling back to look at her. Then I shifted my gaze to Adrian. He met my look with a determined one of his own. "You ran into a burning building for me?"
He didn't say anything, just watched me take in the news. I didn't take it well.
"Why would you do something so stupid?" I asked. "Why would you run into a burning building? You could have died–"
"Yeah. And so could you. It didn't stop you, did it?" His gaze was fierce, but not cold. He was concerned and angry with me for doing something stupid, the same way I felt towards him.
I sighed and leaned my head against his chest. Yelling at him for saving me was not only hypocritical, it was also ungrateful. I hugged him, trying to put all of my love and thanks into it, before turning around to look at the house again. It was almost completely demolished now. Nothing left but charred remnants of what used to be.
"How did you get in there? How'd you even know where to look for me?" I asked curiously.
Adrian helped me to my feet right as the first fire engine pulled to the curb. "Your aura," he said softly. "I could see your aura. Purple and gold, even through all that smoke. You were trying to get out of the upstairs window."
"Yeah," Eddie said, sounding weary. "He spotted you and ran in before we could stop him. We didn't even have a plan. I didn't know he could see you. I thought we were going to be attending two funerals..."
"Don't talk like that," Jill cried, slamming her hand into Eddie's shoulder in anger. "They're both fine. That's what's important."
"It is. And before you can even say anything, Sage, we're going to find your sister," Adrian said firmly. "But we're going to do it as a team. All of us."
"Yeah," Eddie agreed. "No more running off on your own without consulting anybody. The both of you," he added pointing at me and Adrian.
I looked around at all of my friends, saw the lingering fear still in their eyes, and nodded. I wouldn't run off without them again. They cared for me. We were a family. I owed them more than that. Besides, they were probably the best chance I had at getting my sister back.
We slipped across the street and into Adrian's Mustang before the firefighters realized we weren't just bystanders gawking at the fire. Adrian pulled me into the backseat with him, letting Angeline drive, while Jill and Eddie took Latte. When I claimed to be fine to drive he protested, saying we were both too wiped after the stunt I'd pulled. Once his arm wrapped around me and I sunk into his side I stopped complaining. I took one last look at the flames through the rear window, watching as the firefighters doused them with water, before facing forward. I took Adrian's hand in mine, linking our fingers.
"You're my hero, you know," I whispered, low enough that I knew only he could hear.
"Of course," he joked. "I'm your personal knight in shining armor. At your service."
His tone was light, but I could hear the truth behind the joke. I could see it in his eyes. He'd run into a burning building to save me. He loved me enough to risk his own life for me. And he was embarrassed by the praise he so obviously deserved.
I leaned closer, close enough to press my lips to his. It was a quick kiss, but meaningful. When I opened my eyes he was staring right back at me. "Thank you," I said. And then, because I needed to say it and he deserved to hear it, I whispered, "I love you."
His smile was brief, a slight upturn of his lips, and then he brought them back down to meet mine. Kissing me in the cramped back seat of his Mustang.