Flash Burned (Burned 2)

The expression on his face said it all. My heart wrenched and I let out a small cry. “It can’t be true!” A fresh batch of tears flooded my eyes. “It can’t be true!”

“Sweets,” he said. “Dane did everything he could to get his staff out of the hotel. He saved a lot of lives. In fact, you were the only one who was significantly hurt. The rest were released from the ER. Like, ten or twelve of them. Mostly injuries caused from the inertia of the explosion, and some struck by debris because they were still too close to the building.”

“And Kyle’s burns?” I quietly demanded.

My best friend returned to my side. In a solemn voice, he said, “They’re not bad at all. I couldn’t get into the lobby. The fire was too intense. Those of us who got out … we were all really lucky, Ari. It could have been so much worse. But I’m—I am sorry. About Dane. Him and Amano,” he amended. “They saved everyone, Ari.”

I choked on a sob. Couldn’t stop myself from crying.

“Maybe you gentlemen should take a break,” Claudia suggested. “You’ve been here the majority of the time. Ari needs her rest. And I really can’t have her blood pressure and pulse elevated higher. It’s not good for her or the baby.”

I wept harder, burying my face in the side of the pillow. My body shook, but I tried not to thrash on the bed, to not disturb the IV they’d obviously had to put in the crook of my arm, since my hands were wrapped. I surmised they’d detected my pregnancy when they’d drawn blood for labs.

I was completely torn, lost without Dane. Shredded to the core.

Looping over and over was the harrowing reality that everything in my life had been destroyed.

Dane—my husband.

My wedding band—because I had no idea how I’d ever get my bracelet back. The symbol of our marriage might be lost forever … along with the only person I would ever love.

10,000 Lux was gone as well—decimated.

It’d all been stripped away from me, so quickly. Like that entire chapter of my life had been erased in one horrific nightmare. As though it never existed.

Yet there was a voice inside my head screaming at me to pull myself together, to concentrate on the fact that I carried Dane’s child. That a part of him lived on … inside me.

All that did was make me cry more, perhaps because there wasn’t tangible proof. In my mind, it was still hearsay. People telling me I was pregnant.

And me still in denial because I hadn’t missed too many pills.…

I winced. Fuck, what did I know about how many were conceivably acceptable to miss? And if this was all true and not some deranged nightmare … exactly how pregnant was I?

The guys left, but Claudia stayed, pulling up a chair and very gingerly rubbing my shoulder, stroking my arm. Compassionately saying how sorry she was, but that everything would be okay. Dr. Lindsey had ordered an ultrasound. They closely monitored my recovery. On and on Claudia went, trying to soothe me while I gaped and couldn’t even form words to get my endless questions answered.

I couldn’t separate the good news from the ghastly. Especially with the terrified voice gaining strength and volume in my head. I’d tried surviving, existing, without Dane once before. It hadn’t worked.

How would it this time?

* * *

The days passed with investigators stopping by to quiz me, though I couldn’t tell them anything more than Kyle and my father had at this point. I didn’t mention the suspicions I had about the axed investors being involved in the blast. I had to speak with Ethan Evans first, and I waited anxiously for him to visit me.

In the meantime, I succumbed to follow-up tests, some poking and prodding, lengthy discussions with medical professionals, a determination that my exposure to and the inhalation of the ammonium nitrate didn’t pose a health threat to the baby.

A peculiar numbness settled in when Dr. Lindsey confirmed all was well on that front. Without the fetus to worry so much about at the moment, the dark cloud of utter devastation consumed me.

I cooperated fully, of course. I’d never do anything to harm Dane’s child. But I really just reacted to circumstances, my environment, instructions given. It was easier than thinking on my own, since that led to more despair.

Especially since my deepest concerns currently lay elsewhere. I continually asked about Dane.

Had the search and rescue team started their work? Was there anything they’d found, any evidence Dane didn’t escape—or that possibly he did?

The questions were tolerated with a lot of sympathetic smiles and commiseration. Until frustration set in because of lack of information and one day I demanded of Kyle, “Have they found anything?”

“Like what?” he shot back, tormented on my behalf. “Teeth? Is that what you want to hear?”

“Ari.” My dad tried to reason with me. “It was an explosion. That means…”