“Go!” I hiss, shoving at Clark and tumbling along after him, scrambling for the tent.
After what feels like forever, we duck inside.
Andrea is still bound up on the ice slab, moaning in pain, whimpering so quietly it nearly kills me to see her when it’s like she’s too weak to even work up full, deep sobs.
That creeping redness against her bare skin scares me.
Clark lets out a hoarse, raw sound, sheer anguish, and rushes over, capturing her face in his hands. “Andrea? Andrea, oh my God, I’m sorry I didn’t get here faster...”
Her head lifts, her eyes opening. She stares at him muzzily through her tears.
“C-Clark?” she whimpers, and Clark smiles, his eyes brimming with tears, his lips quivering.
“Yeah, baby girl. Yeah, it’s me. Gonna get you out of here.”
He grasps at the cuffs drilled into the slab, pulling, but they’re ground in deep, the ice solid.
Ugh, can one freaking thing go right?
I let out a despairing sound, searching for an ice pick, a drill, some kind of power tools, anything—
A blowtorch!
I dive for it, grabbing and thrusting it at Clark.
“Here,” I say, holding his eyes steadily. “You know fire, right? So do what you do best. Quick.”
He gives me a nervous look, so utterly terrified it can only be born from the fact that I think this boy really loves Andrea.
He doesn’t hesitate, though, snatching the blowtorch out of my hand and firing it up, that fear in his eyes turning to grim determination.
I glance nervously out the frosted plastic window of the tent, keeping watch while he goes to work—but what I see makes my heart stop.
Plumes of blinding hot flame. Justin spraying wildly, shouting, his face red, veins bulging in his temples.
I can’t see Blake anywhere.
And everything in me wants to find him, but I know I’d be in the way.
Andrea needs me more right now.
And suddenly I get what it means to love this much.
I don’t know when Andrea crept so close to my heart.
Maybe the same time her father did.
But Clark is fast—so quick and focused, handling the torch with the deftness of an artist with his brush, working his way through the ice sealing the cuffs without ever coming close to Andrea’s delicate skin.
Then she’s sagging, and I’m there, catching her, grabbing Clark’s coat and wrapping her up in it.
I don’t see her clothes anywhere, but I shrug out of my own coat and wrap it around her waist, trying to bundle her up. Clark and I lift her weight so I’ve got her torso and he’s got her legs, and she doesn’t have to touch bare, raw skin to the frigid ground.
She’s still conscious, just barely, letting out a sniffle as she rolls her head against my shoulder, one hand coming up to cling to me, gripping at my sweater with shaking, desperate fingers.
She can still move them.
Thank God.
If her extremities aren’t damaged beyond repair, then there’s hope for the rest of her, too.
My hope turns into a cracking, aching sensation as she whimpers, burying her face against me.
“Peace,” she gasps, sobbing weakly, her tears just barely soaking through to wet my skin.
“It’s okay, Andrea,” I soothe, peering through the tent flap, watching, making sure we won’t get caught. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
“Wh-where’s...where’s Dad?” she sputters out. “I have to t-tell him...”
“He knows about Justin, honey.” I squeeze her tighter. “It’s okay.”
“No!” she gasps out, her fingers tightening against me before she goes limp again. “I...I h-have to tell him...I’m sorry.”
Her tears are downright infectious. I tear my blurry gaze from scanning the flames outside, looking down at her, my nostrils prickling.
“He knows, love. I promise you, he knows.”
Clark bites his lip as another arc of flame rockets into the night, lighting up the tent fabric from outside in hellish silhouettes.
We both flinch.
He tightens his hold on Andrea’s legs. “What’s going on out there?”
“I don’t know,” I say, peering outside again. “But I think we need to make a run for it.”
It’s sheer bedlam now.
Fire everywhere, an unruly mob of scared people in the distance, and I can hardly see through the thick black plumes of smoke, the burning stalls.
Everything catches fire, from the banners stretched between the stalls to the string lights. The bulbs pop with shattering squeals, sending more sparks flying. Louder pops hint at bigger lights breaking, flares of electrical current jumping, catching on display signs and flyers like wild lightning.
Oh my God.
It smells like every nightmare ever, charred and dark and hellish.
I can’t see Blake or Justin.
But in the center of the fairgrounds, I can just make out the shapes of people huddled like damned souls crouching away from the flames of hell, and barely make out familiar voices—Warren, Sheriff Langley among them—begging people to calm down even while screams and sobs of despair rise.
They’re walled in.
Nowhere safe, the flames are closing in.
Nowhere safe for us, either.
Then the tent catches fire with a sudden whoosh!
The scouring winter wind—no longer blocked by the burning wall—washes over the sea of flame and sends a wave of it lapping at us.
Cruuud.
Fear spikes through me, but we have to move. Clumsily, with Andrea heavy between us, Clark and I go stumbling out, skittering away, tripping over fallen debris and around flames burning in powerful clusters with hardly a free space to step.
“Come on,” I gasp, running toward the crowd, practically swinging Andrea between us. “We have to get somewhere safe.”
“Where?” Clark cries. “How do we get out here?”
I don’t have an answer.
Not until I stop, staring at the one thing that isn’t burning. The ice palace is almost gorgeous in the reflected light of the flames, the entire thing lit up in kaleidoscopes of red, blue, gold, purple, and infinite orange.
“We don’t get out,” I breathe. “We get in.” I tighten my grip on Andrea, hefting her. “Shift her onto my back. Come on.”
Awkwardly, Clark helps me maneuver Andrea so she’s riding piggyback, her weight bending me over, but I don’t care. Adrenaline sends me charging forward, raising my voice, using those pipes I’ve trained to project over the years to shout over the sounds of crackling flame and panicked people.
“Sheriff Langley!” I cry. “Leo! Doc! Warren! Get them inside the ice palace! Everyone move; it’ll be safer in there.”
A few heads turn toward me, confused mumbles. I jog closer before Warren cuts through the crowd, his hard eyes drilling into me. He just stares at me, then at Andrea, and he nods sharply, raising his arms, bellowing.
“She’s right—the ice will shield us! Get the hell inside, people!” His voice is ten times louder than mine, a lion’s roar that carries, and people slowly start moving, following his commands. “Stay low! If you have children, make sure you cover their mouths. Cover your own mouth—breathe through your hand, your jacket, your shirt, whatever it takes. Just avoid the smoke inhalation.”