If I Stay✔️

81

chapter song: kodaline - brother.

Crackle, crackle, crackle.

Seeing the flames only grow larger in form, Carter, like the brainiac he insisted he was and always had been, instructed a very tired, yet determined Rowan to lift Leo whilst he took the task of carrying the kid with the deader weight.

He was much stronger, handsomer, and wiser after all. Really, he was. Ask anyone and Carter bet they'd say the same.

Plus, he had this gut feeling that he could trust this stranger with his brothers care.

"We need to head in the opposite direction of the flames," Captain Obvious announced, earning a scoff from Presley.

"No shit, Sherlock," the girl grumbled, panting as she pushed herself to her unsteady feet. She couldn't believe that less than an hour ago, she'd deemed this sack of shit as a snack.

She highly regretted her words now, no matter how good he looked, he was, indeed, an idiot, a bigger idiot than Felix and that was really saying something.

"I don't like your attitude," Carter huffed, adjusting a very unconscious Oliver in his hold. "Positive and encouraging words only, please and thank you."

"Well done, Car." Leo praised, words soft due to his laboured breaths. Carter's vocabulary was really beginning to improve, Leo couldn't wait to share said fact with Killian, he sure would be over the moon.

"I know, I'm a hero, Leo." The true meaning going straight over his head, Carter tried to puff his chest, only to end up in a very embarrassing coughing fit. Clearing his throat, he readjusted his arms around Oliver once more and began walking ahead. "Let's go."

"C'mon, Fee, we need to go." Arlo whispered, tugging on his best friends wrist, albeit a lot more breathless than moments ago. "Please, I r-really want out of here."

"Inhaler," Felix said, ignoring everything the younger boy said as he rummaged his way through the rubble towards their busted bedroom door on his hands and knees.

Knowing Arlo better than he knew himself, Felix could tell a mile away that the boy was on the verge of death by asphyxiation. And no matter how lost in his head he was, Felix managed to push past everything that was proving to be a block to his own thought process and focus on finding the boys medication.

"Felix," Arlo took in a wretched breath. He really just wanted to get outside, he'd deal with the unbearable force pressing against his lungs then, not now. Not whilst they were still in the thick of the smoke and flames. "I d-don't need it."

Felix turned to him, one eyebrow raised as his hazel eyes roamed the boys face. It was pale, too pale, even for Arlo's familiar milky bar kid skin tone. Patches of black surrounded his mouth and nose like puddles of melted liquorice, only highlighting the hues of blue that coated the boys cracked lips.

Yeah, he really doesn't need it.

"Shut up," Felix demanded, pulling his eyes away as he slid his body through the blown hole of their bedroom door.

For anyone else, the route to Arlo's medication would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. Not for Felix, though. He really did know the blonde boy like the back of his hand; effectively finding the blue inhaler in a whopping seven seconds.

Manoeuvring his body back through the gap and towards Arlo, Felix coughed and spluttered as large particles of ash clogged the back of his throat like a drain blockage, suffocating him from inside out. He shook Arlo's inhaler, inhaling the medicated air between his coughs, sighing as it thankfully done the job and slowed his splutters.