Page 33 of Patchover Fright Night
Stitch
Camille was in pain,and I couldn’t do a fucking thing for her. I was kneeling beside her, gripping her hands, and trying to get her to breathe with me, like the classes said, but she was too anxious, and it wasn’t like she didn’t have good reason to be.
“This can’t be happening,” she hissed through her teeth, as another contraction hit her, and I felt every inch of her tensing up with the pain.
“Breathe through it, baby. Remember, tensing up makes the pain worse.”
“I’ll giveyousome fucking pain in a minute,” she snapped, putting a proud smile on my face, because there’s my fucking savage lady. Even in the face of all the shit going on around us, she was still so fucking strong. This was why she was perfect for me, because sometimes it’s the strong partner in life that keeps us fighting. She’d always been that for me.
“Is Lissa okay?” I heard Sophie talking to Micro, but I was doing my best to ignore them, until Lissa suddenly gasped about pretty flames, and ran from the room, with them behind her.
“I fucking hope she’s seeing things still,” I said to Camille, just as Micro yelled ‘fuck’, and Sophie started screaming for help.
Camille took a deep breath, as the pain seemed to ease for the moment, and met my eyes.
“The fucking building’s on fire, isn’t it?” Jesus Christ. I looked to the doorway to see Micro standing there, with pure horror on his face, then I turned back to Camille, forcing a smile.
“Of course not, baby. I’m just gonna go check we can get you to safety, so our baby isn’t born in this shithole. Keep breathing deep for me.”
I was halfway to the doorway when Camille called my name, and I turned to see panic on her face.
“You’re a shit liar, but I love you for trying.” I nodded at her, because what the fuck could I say? My old lady was in the midst of having my fucking baby, and holy shit, the entire doorway, and the entrance to the hall, were engulfed in flames.
“Fuck. Micro, tell me there’s some kind of fire safety shit here. Sprinklers, extinguishers, something.”
He swallowed hard, reaching out to pull Lissa back from the flames, pushing her into Sophie’s arms.
“We have extinguishers, yeah.”
I didn’t like that look on his face, because that should be a good thing, shouldn’t it?
“Out with it, man. Tell me they’re not in another fucking building or something.”
He grimaced, pointing at the roaring wall of flames crossing the hallway. “They might as well be. They’re in the main room…”
“Through the fucking fire?”
He froze suddenly, turning to look behind me. “Hang on. Lemme check my office. Grease was on about us increasing safety shit, so he was gonna put one in there. Check his office too.” He ran off to his office, which he had to unlock with a key, which made me groan, because if we’d had that, the ladieswould have been safely locked in there, instead of behind a broken fucking door. I ran back into the office to check for fire extinguishers, finding Sophie and Lissa back in there with Camille, each holding one of her hands.
“Lissa’s back with us?”
Camille watched me search the office grimly. “No. But we told her she’ll see more fairies if she holds on to me.”
“Good call. She was trying to get into the… uh… out of the… uh…”
“Fire,” she finished flatly, “I know, Stitch. The smoke is reaching us now.”
Fuck.Smoke. That’d kill us before the fucking fire had a chance to.
“Micro, where’s that fucking extinguisher?!” He appeared in the doorway holding a single fucking canister, trying to read the instructions before I snatched it from him, and released the hose, activating the spray, and praying it’d at least cut us a path through to get more help. The fact that he had to take over, because my fucking arm was all but useless, was just something I’d have to bear.
Harley
Icouldn’t find myhorse. One minute, she was right beside me, and then she was just gone.
“Harley!” I called out for her, pushing my way through too many people who might be scaring my poor girl, but she wasnowhere to be found. How could she just have disappeared? She was my everything, dammit.
I grabbed the nearest guy and spun him around.
