Love Speaks Through: Chapter 9
In Adam’s dream, he heard a baby crying, and then the crackle and hiss of something burning woke him suddenly. He had only meant to come to the guest house to catch up on writing in his journal, not to take an actual siesta, but the bed was so tempting that he must have fallen asleep.
Now, though, he found himself surrounded by thick black smoke. Adam sat up and saw fire eating away at the top bunk of a set of beds across the room. It was inching its way toward the ugly green curtains in one window.
Blindly, Adam felt his way to the other window, and was punching out the screen with his elbow when he heard it. The sound stopped him cold with the realization that he hadn’t dreamed it.
There was a baby in here with him.
--
After alerting Pat and Sandy, Kris had sent Allison up the hill and Tyler down, to alert the house mothers of the danger, and to be sure everybody was accounted for.
Allison ran to both houses. Once she was sure the lower house was accounted for, she took off, running hard up the hill. She shouted that there was a fire. That the guest house was burning.
“Contar a los niños!” she demanded, though she could already see those in charge gathering the children close and counting, to be sure they were all there.
“¿Dónde está Emilio?” Claudia asked, making Allison’s heart clutch in her chest.
Allison spotted Kris running across the prickly grass, without even his shoes.
“Kris!” she yelled. “Emilio’s missing!”
He raised a hand in acknowledgement but kept going toward the guest house, where one window was completely alight, and the curtains burned. Kris had to make sure no one was trapped inside.
--
Adam could barely make out the shape of his bright yellow towel, and reached up to grab it, grateful it was still wet. Then he set to work, feeling around in search of whoever was in the room with him.
The heat was oppressive and the smoke threatened to choke the life out of him. Adam tried his best to stay calm as the fire hungrily consumed the last of the curtains, moving on to devour the lower bunk with dizzying speed.
He was just about to give up and lean out the window to try and get a breath, when he heard the crying give way to a scream.
Draping the towel over his arm, Adam plunged his hand under the bed and felt a hot little body pressed against the cement wall. He grabbed a hand full of clothes and pulled as hard as he could, pressing his neck up against the hot edge of the metal bed, but not caring.
He finally had the baby in his arms. Hot and somehow still screaming and fighting to be put down.
Adam worked as fast as he could, wrapping the little body in his still damp towel and climbing on an unburned bunk to kick out the window screen.
That’s when he heard Kris calling inside.
“Hello! Is anybody in there?!”
Even though it felt like he was passing through the jaws of hell, Adam clutched the baby tightly to his body, and jumped, barely noticing the debris he landed on.
--
“Oh, shit. Adam,” Kris exclaimed, rushing forward.
Adam was black with soot. His right hand and the side of his neck were badly burned - blisters rising there. His eyes watered, showing vivid blue against so much black. His dark clothes were streaked with gray and brown - ash and sawdust, Kris guessed, from the construction. He coughed and gagged, trying to drag in air so he could demand that Kris take the baby and find water.
“Come on! Come over here!” Kris directed spotting a hose in the middle of the grass that trickled was on and running in the grass.
He didn’t wait for Adam to sit, just started dousing them both with water as Adam continued to choke.
The yellow towel - now stained gray - that Adam had used to wrap Emilio had fallen away. Kris could see angry blisters rising on the baby’s hands and face.
“Get the baby,” Adam rasped. “Don’t worry about me.” He pushed at the hose until it rained gently on the little body in the towel, but Kris took it back, intent on sharing the water equally between them.
Behind him, Kris could hear small explosions coming from the house, and prayed that they were far enough away. He heard voices behind him, and turned to ask for help. But instead of assistance, he saw cameramen setting up to get a shot.
Moving in front of Adam and Emilio to shield them, and keep cooling their burns, Kris turned and screamed at them. “No! Get away from here, damn it! Do something! Call for help!”
--
The last thing Joan expected after Tyler burst in saying there was a fire in the guest house was to walk out in the yard and see Kris with a hose, shielding someone from the cameras.
“Where’s Allison?” Joan demanded, finding herself suddenly terrified that she could be in harm‘s way, forgetting that she had already come and gone.
“She was just here… She‘s at the other house now, helping with the kids” Tyler explained.
That’s when Joan knew who the person inside had to be.
“Stay here. Keep the kids inside,” she said succinctly. Then, she gathered her skirt and ran to help.
--
Kris was still screaming at the cameramen and producers who had gathered around, aware that Adam and Emilio were in agony and nothing was being done. Suddenly he heard a familiar voice behind him, and breathed a sigh of relief. His help had come in the least likely person.
Joan stood with her arms crossed, her face inches away from all three lenses. “You will not film this!” she was insisting. “Turn it off. Now!”
Behind her, Joan could hear Kris speaking in soft tones as Adam swore so desperately that she could picture his face, lined with pain. A baby was screaming, a sound so far beyond a normal cry. Her heart broke, and it made Joan even more determined that they would not use one second of this baby’s or Adam’s suffering for their own gain.
“Well, don’t just stand there!” she insisted to the producers who were being just as useless as the cameramen. “Call for help!”
“Ambulances don’t always respond right away,” Patrick hedged, coming up beside Joan.
“We can pull some strings,” one producer said.
--
“It’s okay,” Kris soothed. “I heard them. They’re calling an air-ambulance,” he told Adam, and then said soft, calming words to the baby.
It was only when Adam heard Kris whisper the Emilio’s name that he realized just who he had rescued.
“What the hell was he doing up there?!” he exclaimed. “Send him in my place,” Adam told Kris fiercely - his voice coming out in a breathy rasp.
Without a second thought, Kris turned and relayed Adam’s message, only editing it a little. “Arrange for a second one! Send the baby first!”
Joan knew Kris was close enough to pass along messages but not necessarily close enough to hear the mumbled and reluctant responses about unnecessary expenses.
She gave the cameramen, who were busy dismantling their equipment an evil eye before addressing the producers gravely. “You know, I have some friends back home in the journalism field. I’m sure they would eat up a firsthand account like this of heartless bastards like you putting a child’s life at risk to take care of your star and cover your own asses. He’s telling you to put the baby first. Put the baby first. Or I will make your life a living hell,” she promised, satisfied when a second call went through.
--
Allison did her best to keep busy, putting supper together with Claudia and the rest, while Tyler entertained the kids there, and McKenna remained at the other house. They both knew Emilio was missing, and could hear him screaming through the open window. She had also come to realize that Adam was missing, too. And that shook Allison to the core.
She prayed harder than she had for anything, that both Adam and Emilio would be okay, but not knowing was like torture.
Allison’s hands shook, and she dropped the bowl of salad she was carrying. She cried, helplessly as she tried to put everything back the way it had been, knowing it couldn’t be done. She was barely aware of Claudia’s kiss on the crown of her head, or her assurance that it would be okay.
--
It seemed like hours had gone by, but Kris was sure it had only been minutes. The first air-ambulance had arrived and taken Emilio with it. The cameras were gone. Pat and Sandy were nearby, and the construction team was working diligently to put out the fire.
Joan knelt on the wet grass, heedless of her pretty skirt. She gripped Adam’s good hand in her own. “Here, honey. You squeeze as hard as it hurts. You understand me?”
The bottom line was, these kids were somebody’s kids. They didn’t have their mothers here to look after them, and Joan knew that if the situation were reversed, she would pray that even someone who had petty differences with McKenna would put those aside to be there for her, if she needed it. Joan was well aware of how she’d failed these young men, and Allison, judging them before she knew their hearts. She was humbled to realize that Adam, who she had deemed unfit to serve with them, was the first to react in a crisis. He had presumably forgone his own opportunity to escape unhurt to put himself in danger and rescue a baby.
Adam nodded. He had been extremely quiet, but for the wracking coughs, as he tried to take a breath that didn’t hurt. He could barely speak - couldn’t tell them that it still felt like he was being burned. The pain was horrific, but nothing compared to how it killed him to not have known Emilio had wandered into the guest house as he slept.
With permission, Adam squeezed Joan’s hand so hard she thought he might break some bones.
“You’ll be all right,” she reassured, more sure of that than she had been about anything.
And when the air-ambulance arrived and he was loaded onto it, Joan held onto Kris, telling him the same, not able to hold this shaking boy, who smelled like hopelessness and burning skin and hair - and not feel like she was holding her own child.
--
The producers had insisted that Kris and Allison leave immediately and fly back Stateside, but both had only to look at each other to know that they were staying. Pat and Sandy still needed the extra help. The kids were in upheaval over missing Emilio and their routine being disrupted. It was no time to go, and leave these people in the middle of a mess. They all needed each other.
Allison and Tyler both stuck close to Kris, standing outside the bathroom door in the main house as he showered off dirt and smoke. Neither one moved, even when McKenna brought them a paper plate with fruit salad and spaghetti.
Kris was barely out of the shower when he remembered Adam’s phone in the pocket of his shorts. He prayed it was still okay, and scrolled through the numbers until he found the one he was looking for.
--
“Leila? This is Kris,” he said, his tone hushed.
And then he told Adam’s mom that her son was a hero.