First Surrender (Chance Encounters #3)

Chapter Six

Natalie

“ W hat was your favorite part?” I ask Dec as we walk side by side down the sidewalk, the street lamps guiding our way home. It was dollar movie night at the Olde Time Cinema downtown, but one dollar turned to fifteen pretty quickly after popcorn, slushies, and cookie dough bites were added to the bill.

“I liked it when the mummies were chasing everybody.” He giggles, his little boy humor at full peak when it comes to scary, creepy, and grimy things. His happiness is worth the money spent, though I admit I didn’t mind watching two hours of Brendan Fraser gallivanting through Egypt and saving the day.

It’s a nice distraction from real life. I haven’t had the heart to explain the entirety of the situation about his dad to him yet. Dec knows that our mom died from drugs. He’s too smart for his age and he knew she had a problem that his friend’s moms didn’t have.

He knows that his dad gave her the drugs that killed her but not that I think he did it on purpose. He’s so young, I’ve wanted to protect him from the dark realities that I can. He’s dealing with the loss of two parents, no need to make it worse for him just yet with the full details.

Truthfully, his relationship with Declan was surface-level. He’d show up on Dec’s birthday sometimes, and once or twice for Christmas. He would give him a gift and Dec would think it was the coolest thing ever, but he also knew that his dad wasn’t around like he should be. Dec missed him a lot and still does.

He’s young, hopeful, and sees the good in people. My mom would tell him elaborate lies like Declan was in the Everglades hunting crocodiles. Or, he was learning to fly airplanes in Alaska. I hated it, but it wasn’t my decision to make. When Dec would ask me, I tried to stick as close to the truth as I could. Declan’s job and his friends were keeping him away.

Being a drug dealer doesn’t equate to a good family life and he was selfish for procreating in the first place. So was my mom.

I’m glad I have Dec, but I can’t imagine what his life would be like if I didn’t exist.

Would he have been taken from them? If things were different would Declan have tried to steal Dec away from my mom?

Sometimes I wonder if I wasn’t around if my mom would have gotten her shit together without me. Maybe my presence was a hindrance to her sobriety because I was a scapegoat. She knew that I would take care of Dec when she couldn’t.

That’s why I went to New York. I decided to give her a chance to do it on her own and it was the worst decision of my life. But, in some twisted way, I think I was born so many years ahead of Dec just so I’d be around to take care of him.

At least I have that to hold onto. Neither of us has been subjected to the system that would inevitably fail us like so many other orphans.

“Do you think you still want dinner when we get home or are you full from your snacks?”

“Umm. I might be hungry again,” he says with uncertainty. He’s still a little boy but he’s growing fast and I am not ready for full-blown puberty to hit. I hope I get a few more years of my little brother being smaller than me but he’s catching up quickly.

I have no idea how I’ll handle it when he does turn into a man. I hardly know how to raise a child, let alone a man. One that will be good and kind. Someone who will take care of others and not hurt them.

“How about I make you one of my famous cheeseburgers?” It’s his favorite and I always keep the ingredients on hand. I love to cook and I love when people eat my food. It’s a shame that I’ll only ever get to put that to use at home but Dec’s a good customer.

“Yeah, that sounds good! It kind of smells like a barbecue out here already.” He giggles. “Or, a bonfire. I think I want some marshmallows.”

He continues to ramble on about other things that he could put on a stick and make over a fire as my senses pick up on what he’s talking about. It does smell like a campfire out here… I guess there is some smoke in the air. I thought maybe it was fog.

We round the last street corner that takes us toward the little gravel lot below our apartment and that’s when I see it. Smoke is billowing out the windows of our apartment, flooding the street lights and making it even harder to see this late at night.

My feet stay rooted to the sidewalk, frozen in disbelief. This isn’t real.

We already have nothing, this can’t be happening to us.

But, it is.

“Dec, stay here!” I shout at him, taking off and running toward our little home.

“Natalie! Stay back, honey! I already called 911,” the neighbor from the next business over shouts at me from the street. I ignore her. Our life cannot go up in flames. It can’t!

All of the stuff we own is in there. The court paperwork, guardianship papers, Dec’s birth certificate, and our pictures. Our memories. I can’t lose them. It’s his identity, his life. I know what it’s like to grow up without memories.

My mom lost my birth certificate and my social security card numerous times. She moved us around so much that I couldn’t keep more than a handful of photos as evidence of my childhood. Dec can’t go through that, I refuse.

I bound up the metal staircase, grabbing the door handle idiotically before checking it, but luckily it’s only warm and doesn’t burn my hand.

The basic principles of fire safety circulate in my mind but I can’t be bothered to listen. As soon as my key jimmies the lock, I push the door open wide, getting hit full force with black smoke. It fills my lungs and burns my eyes, momentarily stunning me.

My only thought is to drop to my knees and crawl. A sane person would turn around and leave, but I’m not sane when it comes to my baby brother.

I drag my body across the carpet needing to get to the hallway. It’s one box. All of the important stuff is in one box in the hall closet but each breath in is like needles down my throat, stabbing my lungs.

The coughing starts and it doesn’t stop. I can’t keep myself from sucking in lungfuls of putrid air. Hundreds of tiny needles penetrate my throat and chest from the inside out, desperate for clean air. There is none.

I’m diving deeper into the hellscape instead of away from it, stubbornly guiding my way to the closet by memory because my eyes burn too badly to keep open.

I don’t see fire or feel the heat of it, I’m only drowning in smoke. Our apartment is tiny which means there is only one place it could be coming from. Dec’s room.

Poor Dec. He’s going to be so upset. All of his toys, his clothes. They’re going to be ruined. I don’t know if the tears streaming down my face are from the smoke or the guilt, but I don’t cry, ever. It has to be the smoke.

I’m within arm’s reach of the closet, my fingertips brush against the bottom lip of the door when I’m vaulted backward. My body slides against the dated shag carpet of the hallway as I’m tugged from behind by my ankles. “You have to get out!” A muffled voice shouts at me, dragging me back toward the living room.

“No!” I try to fight it but I am no match for the strength pulling me out of the hallway. I flip onto my back, kicking my legs out, and connect with a stiff firefighter’s uniform.

“Are you stupid, lady? The place is on fire!” The mumbled shout lashes out at me.

The coughing overtakes me again and I can’t respond, I can’t fight. He drags me far enough into the living room that he can manage to grab one of my arms and throw me over his shoulder like a rag doll.

Like every other terrible moment in my life, I’m helpless to do anything but suffer. Powerless to the forces acting against me.

I beat on his back until my palms go numb. He has no idea how important that box is. He has no idea how hard I’ve had to fight for my brother already and now it’s only going to be harder. I cough and wheeze, desperately wishing I had the lung capacity to scream.

This isn’t fair. None of it’s fair.