The Firefighter Who Rescues Me

Chapter 22 ♚ Feel Safe

The fact I was just about to eat a slice of sombrero con todo should've given me a hint something was up. The humongous burger stuffed with meat, ham, cheese, cabbage, chips and more sauces than the bun could even absorb, was the creation of the street food vendors of my hometown. No way the diner at Silver Grove had anything like it.

I looked down at myself, sitting on a plastic chair of those cheap ones that quaked when you breathed too hard. The matching plastic table was loaded with the sombrero and single burgers, hot dogs and cups with watered down soda. Someone laughed and I looked up, seeing Josue, Yadira, Maikol and Boris. People I hadn't talked to or thought about ever since I left Venezuela.

Which meant the leader of their pack must be around.

The way my heart kicked in my chest was very real.

"No," I whispered to myself, but no one heard me over the sound of chatter and laughter.

A chair scraped against the asphalt and I felt him sit beside me, his presence alone chilling me even in the cloying heat of the evening. I refused to ascertain with my own eyes if he was there, but Rodrigo hated when I ignored him, and soon enough he made himself known.

"Que opinas, Cora?"

I had no idea what he was asking about. It didn't feel like I'd been present for the conversation at all, and yet the entire group looked at me as though I wasn't Coralina Diaz but the Supreme Commander of the revolution himself.

"No sé de qué hablan," I admitted.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Rodrigo asked me in English, which struck me as so bizarre I finally looked at him.

He looked good, his dark hair curling over his ears and obscuring his eyes. I used to find it endearing. How I never saw it as a way to disguise the cruelty in his eyes, I didn't know.

His lips curved in a smile that raised goosebumps all over my skin. "We were talking about how you can't possibly have another guy's kid, or it would make you a whore."

"What?"

I wanted to stand up but someone must have poured glue on the chair. When I tried to move, the whole thing rattled and threw my balance off. My breath came out labored, not as if I were sitting but running.

Rodrigo grabbed the armrest of my chair and pulled it, and me, closer to him. He leaned forward, seeming to grow bigger before me as he said, "If you stay with him I will kill you."

He would.

He would kill Pace and then me. He'd tried to do it once, nothing would stop him from trying again.

I wrenched myself away from him because I'd ran away from him once. And I would do it again.

Just not alone. I had to find Pace and keep him safe. No matter what it took.

But the asphalt beneath me swayed like an ocean, threatening to swallow me. I screamed, but the people around me just laughed as the ground opened up and I fell.

I woke up screaming my throat raw. A pair of arms came around me but I fought them off with everything I had, punching, kicking.

"Cora, calm down. It's me."

Bile rose up my throat so fast I could barely clamp my mouth shut in time. I ran into the bathroom and emptied the contents of my stomach with the violence of a geyser. Pace was with me in a second, not even rattled by the mess I made in the bathroom or after I'd boxed him in bed.

"Let me help you," he said, his voice soft but firm as though I were a patient, and not his fiancee. His hand pushed my head forward, which ironically helped me puke better. With his free hand he patted my back.