Jonah's little sister

Chapter 12

Beth's POV

I wake up in the middle of the night and smell smoke. I walk out of my bedroom and see my apartment is on fire. I grab my phone and call 911. After that I call Jonah and Zach and left messages. Before I can call anyone else, I pass out from all the smoke.

Zach's POV

I wake up to my phone ringing. It stops before I can answer it. I check the message and see it's Beth. I listen to get message. She's coughing a lot and I can't really tell what she's saying but I hear "fire" and "help". I put the pieces together and run into Jonah's room. I get him up.

"What's going on?" He asks when I shake him awake.

"We gotta go, Beth's in trouble." I tell him.

     We pull up to her apartment building and see fire trucks pulling up too. I get out of the car and run up to Beth's apartment. The firemen haven't gotten there yet. I break down the door and see Beth lying in the middle of the floor unconscious, I run in and pick her up then run out of the apartment.

     Then some firemen come up and start to put out the fire. One tries to take Beth from my arms but I refuse to let her go.

     About 45 minutes later the fire is out and Beth is still unconscious and wearing an oxygen mask. Soon I see her starting to wake up.

     "Beth!" I say as she starts to wake up.

     "Zach?" She asks taking off the mask. "Zach, there was a fire." She says sitting up suddenly.

     "I know, you're okay." I try to comfort her. She grabs onto me and starts crying into my shoulder. I stroke her hair and try to calm her down.

Beth's POV

     I wake up to an oxygen mask on my face.

     "Beth!" Zach says.

     "Zach?" I ask. What happened? Then I remember. "Zach, there was a fire." I say sitting up suddenly.

     "I know, you're okay." He says. I grab onto him and start crying into his shoulder, he starts stroking my hair and trying to comfort me. I'm deathly afraid of fire, ever since I was seven.

     I should explain, when I was seven, I had a cousin named Lyla, she was a few years older than me and we were really close. One night I was spending the night with her and her family and there was a fire that night. Lyla was trying to protect me from the fire and I made it out alive, but she died right in front of me trying to protect me. It was traumatizing, and ever since then I've been deathly afraid of fire.

     Jonah runs over and starts to comfort me too, he knows how I feel because he knew how close Lyla and I were.

     "Bethy, I know this is hard for you, especially after what happened with Lyla, but we're all here for you." Jonah tells me.

     "Who's Lyla?" Zach asks. Jonah tells him the story and he hugs me tight.

     "Bethy, you're gonna stay with us in the guest room okay?" Jonah tells me. I nod not wanting to speak after what happened.

     They take me back to the house, but I can't sleep after the fire. Zach ends up sitting on the couch with me and we start watching Charlie St. Cloud on Netflix, which is one of my favorite movies. About halfway through I fall asleep on Zach's shoulder.