WILDFIRE ↝ E. MUNSON

[33]

"Eddie?" Lily's voice cracked out, silently pleading with him to move, to open his eyes, to do something, anything. "No," her voice faltered, "p-please no." She leaned down to press a small kiss on the top of his head, resting her forehead against his. "I'm sorry," she whimpered, "I'm so sorry."

She held onto him as Nick began to sob, Dustin's screams piercing through the air. However, as she cradled him, her arms still held tight around his chest to hold him to her, she couldn't miss the unmistakable feeling of his chest still rising and falling with short, shallow breaths. Her hand moved to just under his nose, where the breaths were faint, but they were still there.

"He's breathing," Lily said, sitting back up quickly as Dustin and Nick's gazes instantly moved to her. "Oh my god, he's still breathing. Nick help me, grab his feet, we need to get him out of here now."

Nick shot to her feet, grabbing her older brother's legs as the two girls carried him back towards the trailer. Despite still breathing, he was losing blood fast, and they knew they didn't have time to wait for the others to get back from the Creel house.

"How do we get him up?" Nick asked as they laid him down on the mattress, still laying haphazardly on the side of the room from where Eddie had thrown it in his attempt to keep them from following him back to the Upside Down. "He cut the rope."

Lily looked out the window, surveying the trailer park around them as her eyes landed on the Mayfield mobile home, though she couldn't say this version had belonged to them, but to one of the previous owners. However, something propped up against the side caught her attention, and she bolted back outside, crossing the field to reach the place she called her home back in the real world.

Lily's hands grabbed for the ladder, hurriedly grasping it and attempting to drag it back towards the trailer. Across the field, she could hear Dustin shouting at her to hurry up, and she willed her body to move faster, every second bringing them closer and closer to the possibility of saving Eddie.

Dustin held the door open for her, and she dragged the ladder in, propping it up against the gate back to the real world. It was just tall enough to provide access back, without the shifting gravity swallowing it. Nick sat next to Eddie on the mattress as Lily set up the ladder, her ear pressed against his chest to hear his heartbeat.

"He's still breathing." Nick said. "We need to get him out of here now. What's the plan?"

"I'll go back in." Lily said, her eyes moving from the gate back down to Eddie, her stomach lurching at the sight of the blood that stained his face, and pooled in the torn remnants of his Hellfire shirt. "I'll pile up the mattresses, and you send him through. I can catch him."

"Is that going to work?" Dustin asked. "What if we kill him?"

"We don't have a choice." Lily said. "If we don't get him through that gate, he's dying anyway. We have to try."

Lily put her hands on the ladder, climbing up and grabbing the edges of the gate as she neared the top, taking a deep breath and waiting for the gravity to switch. She tried her best to hold on as her legs toppled down from above her, but her sweaty palms were slick, nearly sending her head first onto the trailer floor. She let out a panicked yell as she reached out for the ladder, grasping the top rung and yelping as her arm nearly popped out of its socket.

She let go of the ladder, crouching down as she landed on the floor of the trailer. She ignored the burning feeling in her shoulder, instantly moving the mattress from where she'd flung it aside in her attempt to go after Eddie, and then moved into Nick's bedroom, retrieving her mattress to pile it on top of Eddie's, in an attempt to cushion his fall as much as possible. She climbed back up onto the pile of mattresses, and looked up to the gate, where Nick now stood with Eddie held over her shoulder.