One Little Direction

Chapter Fifty- Three: Burning

{Jonnie's POV}

*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*

Urgh! Seriously? My alarm clock already? Is this world fucking serious? The beeping continues and I slap my hand around the bedside table quietly as possible so I don't wake up Gemma, well, at least before this bloody annoying noise does.

I wrench open my eyes and look at the alarm clock on my bedside table but notice it displays the time 2:43am. What? My alarm shouldn't be going off until six am. Hang on, that's not the alarm clock.

"Gemma! The kids!" I yell as I leap out of bed and throw a top on to go with my pyjama shorts.

"What Jon?" Gemma asks me groggily, sitting up a little, restricted due to her eight month pregnant stomach.

"Gemma! Get anything important and get out of the house! I'm getting Evie and Luca just get out!" I tell her sternly running towards our bedroom door.

Gemma suddenly realises what's happening and leaps out of the bed as I sprint towards the staircase, the fire alarm going off like mad, smoke starting to float down into the downstairs area. THE TWINS! It's coming from upstairs.

I sprint up the stair case as I hear screaming and crying from their room. The smoke is getting quicker as I pelt into their bedroom where Evie is standing up in her cot and Luca is jumping up and down, yelling 'Daddy'.

"It's okay Lukes! Daddy's here!" I reply, a small cough coming out of my mouth as I scoop up Evie in my left arm and then grab Luca from his cot opposite Evie's, holding him in my right arm.

I go towards the door but Evie lets out an ear piercing squeal, "Aaron!"

I groan and turn back, quickly grabbing Evie's toy cat called Aaron and Luca's toy fox called Jack from their cots, shoving them down the back of my shorts. They can stay there.

I then get down onto my hands and knees and place Luca onto my back. "Luca, whatever you do, don't breathe in with your mouth and DO NOT let go of Daddy, okay?" I ask him and hear a small whimpered response before I crawl out of their room, closing the door behind me.

I look at the stairs straight ahead and the bright red and orange flames to my left. Fucking hell! I hold Evie in my left arm and scramble as quickly as I can towards the staircase before I go down them on my butt and then run towards the front door.

I get out to the letterbox where Gemma is standing holding a couple of things and some of the neighbours are coming out of their homes in dressing gowns and slippers to see our burning house.

"Mummy!" Luca cries to Gemma and Gemma takes him from my back. I hold Evie tightly to my chest as she cries into my shirt. I look back at our two story home as flames rip through the top right end of the house. There's no point in me going back there to try and fight the fire.

Reasons: 1) it's not safe. 2) although I've been trained, I cant stop that. 3) the neighbour just told Gemma he's called the fire brigade.

I turn to face Gemma and she's got tears streaming down her face. I hold Gemma tightly as we stand huddled on our front lawn as the fire blazes on behind us. Upstairs in our home is the study, the spare bedroom, a bathroom, Luca and Evie's room and the new baby's nursery that I finished two days ago. That's surely gone now though...

I hear sirens coming and step back from Gemma as the fire truck pulls up and all the firefighters rush up to the house with hoses and other equipment.

A firefighter comes over and starts asking me questions. The final one being, "Anyone you can contact?"

Gemma hands me both of our phones. She must've grabbed them from the bedroom when she left. I unlock my phone with my free hand, although it's shaking like mad. I go to contacts and hit the first one my fingers find.