Royal love

Chapter 76

There's a massive explosion and the room goes up in flames. Pieces of the gun are lodged in my skin, the brick of the walls is crumbling. The explosion was enough to break the door open.

Everyone is knocked out.

I'm going to die. I can't get them all out of here by myself, I can't live with not saving them. So, I'm going to die.

I cough at the soreness in my throat as the smoke gets thicker by the second. I look around. I feel a scream build up on me. I want to scream for help, but I know if I do that, I'll just attack more bad people who'll only save Hayden and his father and leave everyone else to die.

Tears stream down my face. I'm on the floor, I can't stand, somethings wrong with my legs. The pieces of the gun sting in my legs, face, and all over my torso. My clothes are ripped. I feel helpless.

And then I see movement.

Hayden.

I feel myself come back to life. I feel the air come back to me. I look around, and find the door. The open door. I just need to drag everyone out.

Hayden moves again. I pull myself over to him, touch his face. "Hayden," I say softly, it's all I can do. My throat hurts from the smoke. Hayden doesn't respond. He just opens his eyes, smiles.

He smiles. At a time like this, he smiles. It makes me smile.

"Of course your going to smile right now," I say shaking my head as I run my hand across his face and back, checking for shards of the gun. "We just got bombed, I'll remind you."

He doesn't respond, just stares at me and smiles. His head is bleeding. There's a shard of the gun, a big one, lodged in his head.

A really big one.

And he's bleeding a lot.

Is he smiling because he's delusional?

I feel myself slipping away but stop myself. Just get them al out.

I grab Hayden under his arms and begin the long pulling journey to the door. It's difficult since I can't stand up, but I manage. Once Hayden's out, I go for the next person closest to the door, Sam.

She's the worst of them all. Covered in blood, shards of the gun all over her, imbedded under her skin, she's burnt from the fire, her red hair is black at the tips. She might not be breathing, but I don't focus on that. Because if I do I'll lose hope for anyone else.

Once I finish pulling her out most of the way, Hayden finishes pulling her through the doorway, weakly but he still does it, and starts aiding her.

I go back in for the third time, panic setting in as I realize how bad the room is getting. There's so much smoke, fire is everywhere, and it's starting to spread. I grab Jody and pull like his life depends on it. Because it does.

I have to go a longer way because there's fire blocking the easier way, but I don't let that stop me. I pull him out and farther out of the doorway so the fire can't touch him anymore than it already has.

When I go back in I can't breath.

I can't breath and I can't get to the others. The fires too big, the smoke is too thick.

I scream. I scream with my whole body.

Maybe I think it will wake them up, maybe that's why I do it.

Or maybe it's because of the sense of helplessness.

Because it digs into me. It rules over me. Suddenly I feel every bit of pain that I hadn't before. The shards of gun imbedded into my body don't just sting or tingle anymore, they burn. And they tear at my skin.

I feel myself melting, cooking alive. If I'm feeling like this, how are they feeling? I look over the fire at the pile of my, possibly dead, friends.

I scream again.

It hurts my throat.

It's a dry, weak scream.

It doesn't do much for what I'm feeling, but I do it.

I sit in the burning room for what feels like ages, trying to figure out how to get past the fire, how to save their lives too.

Then I feel a hand on my shoulder. Hayden. He's crouching. He's up.

"H-help." I point to them. Hayden nods and starts picking me up. "No," I say sharply. Then I point to the others. He puts me down. I begin crawling back out the door. Sam is out there, passed out still, covered in blood. I don't check to see if she is breathing. I just will that she is because I won't be able to take it if she isn't.

I watch, from a distance, as Hayden runs through the fire, his long pants catching fire as he does. He picks up Rowan, Noah, and Daniella, in one go.

Like cargo, he dumps them around me, I spread them out so they can feel the somewhat fresh air. I watch as the fire spreads out of the room even more. I watch as it catches the walls around the room on fire.

I watch as Hayden falls to his knees picking up Levy and Mateo. He drags them as much as he can and then stands up, throws them over his shoulder, and runs through the fire. He dumps them around me just like the first load and falls in front of me.

"Thank," I whisper. It's all I can manage before I completely lose my ability to speak.

He nods and then drops his head. "We can't stay here long, the whole building I'll be in flames soon."

I don't know how he collected himself so quickly but I'm glad he did.

I watch as he lifts his head, then his body, and turns back to the burning room.

His father.

I want to tell him to go save his father, that we can change him, or lock him up, or something. Anything better than letting him die.

But I can't. Again, I feel helpless.

Hayden watches, legs spread in front of him, his posture is the last thing on his mind as he watches his father burn.

Word count: 1060
11-18-23
10:02 am
(Not revised)
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