In Between

Chapter Twenty: After the Fire

Draven headed straight into the middle of the debris, ignoring the hands that tried to hold him back, and ducked into the semi-collapsed house. He kicked aside a wooden beam and sent sparks flying into the poisoned air—they burned his skin and put holes in his shirt, but he didn't care. The remains of Gilda's house were spread all around him. It was barely standing, and he wondered if it would topple over onto him and bury him there too. In truth, he didn't care much about that possibility either. His eyes meticulously scanned the wreckage for anything resembling a body while his desperate heart prayed that he wouldn't find one.

He kicked at a chunk of blackened remains out of pure frustration and almost hit Kieran with it who had followed him inside. He had his arm over his face to protect himself from the smoke and sparks or possibly to hide the tears streaming down his face. Draven would never admit it, but he could feel the stinging sensation of moisture threatening to force its way out his own eyes.

"Do you see anything?" Kieran whispered in the smallest voice possible.

"No. I'll keep looking. Go back with the others," he snapped.

Kieran stared at him wordlessly and didn't move an inch. He was opening his mouth to protest when everyone caught up with them to inspect the wreckage. Gilda shuffled through her ruined possessions with tears in her eyes and a smile on her face.

"What do you look so damn happy for?!" Draven yelled. "They're dead!" He had to turn the last word into a growl to hide how his voice cracked with emotion. When did I become such a wimp? he thought reflexively, but a moment later he accepted the fact that it made him incredibly sad to think that Apryl was gone. She'd been...special.

"I'm happy because I'm a genius!" Gilda explained. It was lucky that she continued the statement quickly or Draven might have hit her. "Don't worry about your friends. I took care of it. The Outsiders are safe," she announced with another bitter-sweet grin. It was clear that she was devastated about the destruction of her home, but she was nonetheless relieved.

Kieran's head snapped up. "They're still alive?" he asked incredulously.

Draven said nothing. He was so torn between extreme anger and extreme happiness that his body simply refused to respond at all.

"Come, I'll show you," Gilda said, grabbing Draven's bicep and dragging him off to the side. After a moment of sorting through the rubble, she pointed out a metal handle attached to the floor. "There used to be a beautiful rug covering this entrance. Adding a wine seller was Jotham's idea. It took years to get our hands on the materials for the door. The metal parts are fireproof and it looks as though most of the floor survived, so it makes sense that everything beneath it survived as well."

"And that's where you hid them?" Kieran asked. He was grinning like an idiot, and Draven felt a similar grin creeping onto his own face.

"Why didn't you tell us that when we were planning on running into a burning house to save them?" he demanded, forcing the grin back.

"I tried, but you completely ignored me in that panicked state. It was an idiotic thing to do anyway. What were you thinking?" Gilda scolded, but Draven was ignoring her again. He grabbed the handle, which was still hot enough to burn his hands, and threw the trap door open with all of his strength. The smell of smoke and wine poured out of the dark hole revealed in the ground.

"Apryl? Are you okay?" he called down.

Someone coughed and Bri's hoarse voice floated up as snarky as ever. "I'm down here too—thanks for asking. Can you get us out of here? Part of the wall collapsed," she explained, coughing again.