35

Keturah's POV

You see the ear ping you hear when a grenade or a bomb explodes in a movie, that was the same thing I was experiencing.

My whole body had shut down; I was immobile and unaware of my consciousness.

Darien...Darien...Darien

Save him....Darien......save him

Were the only words my mind could process at that moment. I had totally blanked out and all I could think of was him.

My hand and body were literally shaking and all hell broke loose.

I thought I was doing better. I knew I was doing better so where from this?

He couldn't die. I knew this wasn't his time, but I felt defeated and just like how every soldier in a movie lost a life to a bullet, I deflated to the ground.

I could feel it deep inside of me, the entire universe was mocking me. This was my sad ending, but my mind kept me going.

It continued to chant his name, telling me to do something and when I snapped out of my daze, I realized I was muttering his name coherently. I had to be there, at his estate but how?

The bus was going to take me some forty five close to fifty minutes and I wasn't taking any chances.

Then it snapped. I had forgotten Dany had a car.

"Keys, Keys, Keys." I started mumbling getting up from the floor, my best friends looked at me bemused and scared thinking I was going mad. The truth is, I was.

"Give me your damn keys Dany!" I didn't mean to yell at her but she was wasting time and we needed every second.

They ran after me to her car when I picked her keys from her pocket.

Truth be told, I don't remember how we got to the estate but all I know was that I was just following the ambulances and police cars who had managed to pave way to Darien's place and even from the outskirt of the hood, you could see the huge dark smoke in the air.

The screams from the familiar people in the hood made it painful for me to think the worse but, I wasn't going to.

I was an over thinker, and I didn't want to open that part of my brain because I knew that immediately I let the dark thoughts in, everything would go down.

We got to his place in no time but was blocked by the police. They had their yellow 'crime scene' tape infront of the gates and were scurrying off people and the media who wanted information.

"K, we can't go up there." Cheryl wailed pulling me back like the others. I understood though, the police were just doing their jobs because even at the bottom of the hill, we could feel the heat from the fire.

"I need to get up there, take this." I retorted giving my phone and everything I had on me to my friends. I pushed through the crowds and managed to get upfront.

"Sir! Sir! I need to get up there, my family is in there." I lied to the officer who stared at me up and down clearly not believing me but I didn't care. All I needed was to get up there and that is what I did.

Immediately the officer turned his attention to the people on the left, I ducked under the tape and ran. The people who saw me screamed and that's when I heard the officer shouting at me to get back.

He caught up with me and grabbed my jacket but I didn't budge. I rather removed my jacket and sped up to the compound mixing with the people there. I looked around praying that I'd see him but he wasn't anywhere and that's when the tears decided to fall down my cheeks.

It can't be. No please, don't take him away from me.

The other part of my mind broke loose. Was he still in there? Oh God, what will I do if he was.... I couldn't even bring myself to say it.

"Keturah!" I jumped at my name and turned to see Rosa covered in a huge blanket, I ran to her and hugged her wiping the tears from my cheek.

"Where is he? Please tell me he's not in there? Please." But she confirmed my horrible nightmare. Darien was in there, with his father.

"H...his dad told me he was going to look for him but-"

"No you can't go in there. Ketrurah!" but I was already on my way inside. The firefighters at the door ran up to stop me but I had already entered the house.

The place was extremely hot leaving me no choice but to remove my shirt. I made my way into the burnt living room but was blocked when a huge wood fell down.

The place was covered in flames and heavy smoke and I had nowhere else to go. I started coughing, choking on my breath as the place had absolutely no room for oxygen.

I began to feel nauseous and took off my pants and tried to clear the smoke infront of me. I managed to get into the kitchen but there was worse, everything in there was covered in fire. This was extremely difficult than I thought!

"Darien! Jacob!" I screamed with my last hope, praying that they'd respond back but I received none.

Maybe they were up there, I had to get there, but how? I had only one choice and that was to walk through the fire.

"Come on K. You can do this, just ran through it, you wouldn't feel anything."

I gulped completely horrified but did it anyway. I sped up to the first room but the fire shoved me back to the floor and did same for the other rooms.

Come on, where can they be? "Please Lord I'm begging you, show me. Show me where they are Lord." I whispered blinking twice to stop the tears from falling again.

I yelled for them and this time, I heard a faint response. It was from the last floor. I had to walk through that fire again and I did just that.

"Darien! Jacob!"

"In here! Please help us!" I could hear them loud and clearly, they were in the library. Oh God. How do I even get there? The place was up in flames, more than the other rooms. I wore my burnt pants and stepped back to jump into the room.

Mr. Walls was crying trying to remove the huge burnt wood from Darien who was already unconscious. I wasted no time and joined but hissed forgetting the wood was on fire.

"Jacob on three, one two three." We both groaned and screamed smelling the burnt flesh from our skins. The wood miraculously snapped into two and we pushed it away. "Darien, hey! You need to get up" Mr. Walls brushed his cheeks and Darien moaned in pains making me cry.

The skin on his thighs were completely burnt. All we could see was blood and shredded thin flesh.

"Can you carry him, I'll clear the way so that we can get out quickly. Here, use this to cover him." I tore my pants, making it into a somewhat cloth since it was already burnt and gave it to Mr. Walls.

"Try not to breathe." I added coughing into my arm. I picked up the burnt wood to clear away the smoke and the fire but that was not even working. The house was already coming down.

"We have to run through the fire." Mr. Walls coughed through his words and I nodded. That was the only option we had.

We counted to three and made our way to the stairs dodging some blocks of wood that was raining down from the ceiling. I hissed when I realized my shorts had caught flames but we had no time to stop, the house was tearing down.

We made our way to the living room and ran outside catching the attention of everyone on the compound.

The paramedics ran to us quickly but I screamed at them not to touch me. Were they serious right now? Their focus should be Darien not me.

They picked us up and placed us in an ambulance after finishing with Darien and his father. My eyes stung looking at him. I was hoping, praying his legs would work again because it wasn't looking good.

Rosa took his hands in hers trying to soothe him with her voice as he moaned in pain.

"K, where is K mom. I..I need her."

"She's here with you baby, see?" I wiped my tears with the back of my hands and wrapped my hands with his.

"K...K...K." He continued to chant my name till we got to the hospital. The doctors were already outside waiting for us immediately we got there and they quickly pushed Darien out straight to ER.

I saw Jacob and Rosa running after the nurses but I couldn't, my body felt too heavy. The adrenaline had begun to wash off replacing it with a lot of pain and before I knew it, my body was on the ground.