Thomas & January (21 page)

That’s when I saw her and literally lost my balance resting against the door. I scrambled for some semblance of cool but couldn’t tear my eyes away.

“Oh Jesus,” I heard behind me.

I turned to find Jason. “What?” I asked, knowing full well what he meant and who he meant it for.

“I had no idea.”

“I did,” I told him, staring after the most breathtakingly beautiful woman I’d ever seen in person and Christ was she a natural at it. She looked supremely uncomfortable, but I was willing to bet I was the only one who would have been able to tell that in the way she held her arms a little stiffer than usual.

“And you’re in love with her,” Jason said matter-of-factly.

“I am,” I said without reservation, still staring at her.

“This time it’s real,” Jason said, folding his arms and leaning against the wall next to me.

“I know it is.”

“Then why the hell have her come here alone?” he asked me.

“Because...” I offered, not really sure what to say.

“She’s in love with you too,” he said, trying to get my attention but I still was unable to tear my eyes away.

“No, she’s not.”

“The hell she’s not,” he told me. “I was with her all day and I know January. She’s in love.”

“Yeah, with Jonah,” I said, not really knowing if that was true.

Jason laughed so loud it caught the attention of one of the security guards at the entrance. “That’s rich,” he said, sucking in a breath. “My God, you really are the world’s biggest fool.” He walked away, shaking his head, and muttering, “What an idiot.”

January was approaching the end of the walkway so I sank into the shadows a bit and watched her break the threshold. She brought the backs of her hands to her flushed cheeks and smiled to herself, but her expression quickly turned to worry and what looked a little like determination. I never wanted to touch someone so badly as I did January in that moment. I fisted my hands at my side, bolstering myself with the memory of that phone call. I needed to talk to her about it but tonight was not the night. We had a job to do and it needed to be done before Jonah showed up. That R&D spot was mine.

Inside, the club was noisy and ridiculously crowded and I lost January pretty quickly but somehow found Jason again.

“Have you seen January since she’s come in? I need her to be there when the band shows up.”

“No, I haven’t,” he said, taking a swig of a dark liquid.

“I’ll have to look around then. I might have to meet the band without her.”

Jason was called to the bar for some kind of alcohol emergency and had to leave me to myself. I scanned the crowd below me and tried to see through the smoky, dark room. Intermittent laserlike lights would cascade over the heads of the club patrons and would highlight randomly, allowing me to see for short periods of time. My second sweep across the floor provided me a glimpse of her and my eyes strained to see through the fog so I inched closer and got the biggest surprise of my life.

January.
Hugging
Jonah.

My heart pounded severely against my ribs and my mouth went dry. I gripped the handle of the railing and leaned over as much as I could without falling to my death.

What a traitorous bitch
, I thought to myself. My heart turned to mush inside my chest and for the first time in
years
I wanted to cry.
Well, if I wanted to know what it really felt like to lose the love of your life, the one person truly made for me, I’ve definitely gotten my fucking wish.
I scrubbed my hands over my face and through my hair. They were unsure what to do with themselves.
I’ve got a job for you
, I told my hands as they fisted into white knuckles. I pushed myself from the railing and booked it down the stairs into the belly of the beast. I’d lost sight of them through the undulating crowd so I pushed through without regard for the guests around me.

I broke through close enough to catch another glimpse of them but stopped cold when I saw she wasn’t hugging Jonah, she was
shoving
Jonah, fighting his roaming hands and
crying
. The adrenaline hit me like an atomic bomb, realizing I was the biggest dumbass in the world. She wasn’t the traitor,
I was
. I was so quick to think ill of her, afraid that I’d get hurt, that I was willing to jump to ridiculous conclusions, despite the fact that January hadn’t ever done anything for me to distrust her so wholly.

I pushed harder and with new vigor. I needed to get to her. She needed me and I hadn’t been there for her. My heart tore in two, aggravating an already ragged wound. I’d been the betrayer, not the betrayed. I felt sick to my stomach as I made my way through the thick group of people.

“Get off of me!” I heard her scream, tears streaming down her face. “Stop!”

“January!” I yelled but she couldn’t hear me over the pounding bass. “January!” I tried again but it did no good.

I felt like I was making no progress. I was failing her. No one around her noticed her predicament except me and I was failing her. Her arms were red and swollen from his mishandling her and I couldn’t fucking get to her!

Suddenly, I heard faint but gut-wrenching screams come from the direction of the DJ booth and everyone’s heads whipped that direction.

“Feu!” I kept hearing, the panicky words screaming from invisible lips. I had no idea the meaning until I saw January’s eyes had grown round in her head. She searched the crowd around her and her eyes fell on me.

“Fire!” She screamed at me.

No.

“January! Come to me!” I yelled at her as Jonah fled, cowardly leaving her there to fend for herself.

I reached my hands toward her and she extended her arms, desperation lacing her expression. We pushed and strained for one another, the tips of her right hand brushed mine and for the first time, I felt slightly relieved that she was close to my possession. I grabbed for her, but her grip escaped mine just when I thought I had her.
No
! I pushed and tossed people away from me but the panicked cloud of people clambering for the nearest exit seemed to swell in numbers and January was too light to fight back. Every time I made an advance, people would push her back.

“Help me!” She screamed, making my heart wrench.

“Move!” I hopelessly yelled at the people in front of me, but it did no good. My stomach dropped to my feet. January was swallowed whole and I was helpless to watch. I’d failed her. Completely.

Chapter Eleven

All the Pretty Girls

Thomas

I followed the direction I thought she was being pulled as black, billowing smoke engulfed the massive ceiling of the club. I had maybe a minute. People’s piercing screams haunted my ears as I spun around feebly in frenzied haste.

              “January!” I hysterically called out. My body was begging me to run, to act, to save, but I couldn’t see her, fear locking up every ounce of common sense.
The crowd was thinning out and I breathed a slight sigh of relief, hoping I’d get to her. The smoke was becoming so thick and lower to the ground, I had to bring my shirt over my mouth. It didn’t help much and I began to choke and cough as I inhaled the charred remains of the building burning down around me. The heat was becoming unbearable but I was determined to find her. I would have died before I left her in that club.
              I frantically searched the people around me, gripping them as I went and ensuring they weren’t January. I went from person to person until the black cut off my view and two hands reached for me.
              “No!” I told the person dragging me toward what I assumed was some sort of exit. “No!” I exclaimed, pushing back but they succeeded in pushing me into the night air. I coughed and gagged as I reached soil and fresh air but immediately got back up, determined to find her.
              The fireman who pulled me out, pushed me toward the crowd, unwilling to let me back in. “January!” I yelled at the building, begging her to come out.
              I immediately turned toward the crowd surrounding the burning building and searched for her face. I hysterically wound my way through the throngs of stunned faces calling out her name.
              “Tom!” I heard to my left and ran toward the voice.
              “Jason!”
              “Are you all right?” he asked. “Where’s January?”
              “I don’t know! Help me find her!”
              “I got out pretty early,” he told me as we weaved our way back through the gathering. “I didn’t see her come out, Tom.” His own voice was struck with fear she hadn’t come out.
              “She’s here,” I told him confidently, desperately. “She has to be here.” I was trying so hard to hold on to that. My blood began to run cold as we reached the edge of people with no sign of January. “She’s here. She’s here.” I repeated over and over.
              “Okay, okay,” Jason said, pacing the outside of the crowd. “We must have missed her. We had to have.”
              My body began to shake in trepidation, in terror. I noticed a police cruiser nearby and ran to it. The back doors were open and I noticed a bullhorn sitting on the floorboard in front. I ran to the passenger’s side and opened the door, grabbing the horn. My trembling hands fumbled with the on switch and I numbly tried to work the buttons. I leaped onto the hood of the car and peered over the crowd.
              “January!” I yelled as everyone’s shocked expressions turned my direction. “January MacLochlainn, are you there?!”
People began to search around themselves, searching for the name I’d just called out, but there was no answer and the dread began to run icy in my veins.
              “January?” I asked them. “Please,” I begged as horror slowly thread through my words. “January, please. Please, answer me.”
But nothing.
              My eyes searched rapidly but my body shuddered at the realization that she wasn’t there. The bullhorn slipped from my fingers, tumbling to the cobblestone below. Women surrounding the car drank in my shaking body and knew what the silent response meant. Many of their hands went to their mouths, a recognition of my supposed loss. The sight of their conclusions made me want to vomit. I jumped from the hood and ran smack into Jason who stood there, drawing the same conclusion of those around me.
              “She just couldn’t hear me,” I told him.
              “Of course,” he said, but his glassy eyes betrayed his words.
              “Don’t,” I pleaded. “She’s here. She’s here.”
              “Tom,” he said quietly, placing his hand on my shoulder.
              “No!” I said, throwing it off, but my body shut down and I was forced to drop to my knees. “She’s here. She’s got to be. She’s got to be.”
              An ambulance blew by and the hope that’d been dying in my chest roared back to life.
              “The hospital,” I told the ground.
              “Come on,” Jason said, dragging me to my feet.

We ran up the block and hailed a passing cab. Jason told the driver to take us to the nearest hospital using his pocket translator. I was relieved we were moving but no matter how fast we were moving, it still wasn’t fast enough for me and I sat at the edge of my seat, hunched over the window, staring at the traffic ahead. My knee bounced at an ungodly pace.

I examined Jason’s face quickly, noting that neither of us seemed to have inhaled any smoke. Our mouths and noses were clear of black unlike a few I saw back at the club. I thanked God for small favors.

“She’s going to be there,” Jason said, reassuring me.

“I know,” I said, but not as confidently as I’d have liked.

I rubbed the palms of my hands together quickly and silently prayed that she would be there. We pulled up to the entrance of the hospital and jumped from the cab, leaving Jason to handle the transaction. I ran through the emergency doors and frantically searched the blackened faces of those who’d already arrived, but none of them matched my January’s. My heart flipped in my chest.

              I ran up to a nurse. “I’m sorry. Do you speak English?”

She gave me a sympathetic smile and searched around the desk around her, finding a girl sitting at a desk nearby. She grabbed the girl’s sleeve and said something in French. The girl jumped up and took in my sooty clothing.

              “Yes? I speak English.”
              “Oh, thank God! I’m looking for a girl. She was in the fire.”
              “What is her name?”
              “January MacLochlainn,” I told her.

The girl typed on her keyboard and began shaking her head. “I’m sorry but there is no one here by that name.”

“What?” I asked in disbelief. “Are you sure? Can you check again?” I asked, my body back to trembling status but this time in exponential form.

“Of course,” she said and typed yet again. The expression on her face told me she’d gotten the same result.

“No, I’m sorry, sir. I have no one by that name. Can you describe her for me? There were several patients who couldn't be identified.”

“Uh, she was wearing a black dress,” I told the nurse. “She’s about five ten, or, uh, two meters tall, long brown hair, green eyes.”
She’s amazing, unselfish, intelligent, sexy as hell. Her mere existence justifies mine.

“Just a moment,” she said and ran to the back.

Jason came up to me, his eyes asking me the news.
              “They don’t have anyone in their system with January’s name,” I explained, feeling like my body was on autopilot. “She’s checking the patients who couldn’t be identified.”
              Jason nodded.

I nervously paced the length of the receiving desk, running my fingers through the length of my hair over and over. Jason sat in a nearby chair, his thumbs drumming his thighs. Both our gazes were riveted by the doors for what felt like hours before the nurse came through with a smile on her face.

“She’s here,” she told us.

“Thank God,” Jason told me, slapping his hands to his face.

The worry, anxiety and helplessness I’d felt for the past hour came flooding from my body and I collapsed to the floor, unable to hold myself up. She weakened me in every way possible.