“I had to,” I whispered to him, lifting my head. Had his lips been on my cheek?

“Had to? Had to?”

It was Louie, my poor wonderful Louie that explained it to him. “Daddy fell and hit his head, and nobody stopped to see him,” he told him, word for word in the same way I’d relayed the story to him in the past, minus a few details. “That’s why you gotta help people who need it,” he ended, his little chest shaking with emotion at the memories I was sure he was living through right now because of me.

Dallas glanced back and forth between Louie and me, his own body continuing with the tremors I’d originally felt. I was pretty sure he muttered, “Jesus fucking Christ,” but I couldn’t be positive.

“Dallas?” Miss Pearl’s soft, creaky voice managed to tear through my coughs.

“Don’t move, Diana,” Dallas barked. Something tender pressed against my temple and cheek. Somewhere in the back of my head, I guessed it was his nose to the side of my eye, his mouth at my cheek. “The ambulance will be here in a second. Don’t fucking move,” he told me one last time before his support left me.

In less than two seconds after he moved, he was replaced by a much smaller body. One that was as familiar to me as my own. One that crawled onto my lap and pressed itself against me, whimpering and shivering just like poor Mildred the cat had been when I found her.

“Are you dying?” Louie asked against my ear as he tried to bury himself inside of me, squishing my hand against my stomach, making it hurt even more.

But I couldn’t tell him to move.

I shook my head, gritting my teeth at the pain. “I just inhaled… a lot of smoke, Goo.” I coughed some more, lowering my forehead until the side of it touched the back of his soft-haired head.

“Are you gonna live?” His voice broke, and that shredded my heart and made me feel like a selfish asshole.

I nodded again as my lungs tried getting rid of more smoke. “I’m gonna live.”

He shivered and he shook even more. “Promise?”

“Promise,” I rasped out, wiggling my arm out from between us to wrap around his back.

The sirens got louder and louder, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the flashing, bright lights as they stopped in front of Miss Pearl’s house. Before I knew it, the firefighters were circling the home, and neighbors from all over the neighborhood suddenly appeared on the streets close by. Josh came back and nudged a glass of water into my hand before promptly coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around my neck, his face pressing against the side opposite of Louie’s. He held me tight.

I gulped down the water and watched as the ambulance pulled up a couple of houses down. The paramedics went straight to Miss Pearl, who I barely noticed was right where I’d left her, next to Dallas who was holding one of her hands with Jackson hovering close by. It only took a few minutes for them to put her on a stretcher with a mask over her face, and it was about that time that another ambulance pulled up the street.

“I was so scared,” Josh admitted into my ear as Miss Pearl was loaded into the ambulance.

There was no way I could tell him I’d been just as scared as he had been.

* * *

I knew it was late when I finally woke up. Too much light was coming in through the curtains when my eyes finally cracked open, my hand giving more than a gentle throb at me finally being awake and able to comprehend the pain radiating from it. It wasn’t too surprising that I was alone in bed when I remembered all three of us piling on to it in the middle of the night. The paramedics had checked me over to make sure I was going to be fine—making me breathe through a mask that had the boys both crying in a way that I never wanted to see again—and bandaging up my hand after I told them there was no way I was going to the hospital.

It was after four in the morning when we finally trudged inside, and I took a shower, coming out to find Josh and Louie waiting for me in my bed already under the covers. It had been years since Josh slept with me. Years. But now… well, I understood and, honestly, I was more than a little grateful. Last night, I had gone to bed confused about Dallas’s reaction to my toolbox, and the next thing I knew, I had run into his grandma’s burning house to get her.

I was freaked the fuck out. The entire night before had scared the shit out of me. I could admit it.

If I could go back, I wouldn’t not do what I’d done, but… I could wish it hadn’t come to it. What would the boys do without me?

Sliding out of bed, my shoulders screamed in protest at what I’m sure had been their usage when I’d helped Miss Pearl out of her house. My hand started throbbing even more painfully at the burn gracing its palm. My knees only stung a little as the sheets brushed against them. I hadn’t bothered with Band-Aids on them. They were scraped, but I’d had worse.

It took me a few minutes to use the bathroom, dab some honey on my scrapes, and brush my teeth awkwardly with my left hand. My head and throat were achy and raw from the night before.

And it was right then, as I was trying to brush my teeth with the wrong hand, that I realized what the hell I’d done.

I’d burned the hand I used to cut hair.

Flipping my hand over, I looked over the area that was covered by gauze. “Fuck. Fuck!” Most of my fingers were fine, but… “Motherfucker!”

My head throbbed. My eyes got watery. I’d burned myself. What the hell was I supposed to do? I used my right hand for everything. Everything. With so much gauze on it, I couldn’t cut hair, or even hold a brush for color. I had a feeling that anything that required me to stretch the skin on it was going to cause a world of pain.