Dishonoring Jack

Chapter Thirty Six

 A cough wracked through Jack's body as someone hefted her lifeless body onto their shoulders and her eyes fluttered open--flames everywhere. There was a fire, and it had taken control, ravaging everything in its path. She remembered. Max Slate. Margaret. The deed. Donovan. Her body sprang to life at his name--Donovan, was he alive? Had he made it out? She couldn't remember--the last few minutes were a haze.

"Donovan!" she yelled, hitting the man who carried her with her fists.

"He's safe, Miss," the man answered. "We have to get her out of here!" he yelled and Jack lifted her heavy eyelids again as she saw herself pass through the window.

A man caught her in his arms and Jack saw blue sky. She gulped in air so quickly that she choked--it was fresh and clear. The man set Jack on the ground a few hundred feet away and Jack sank back into the grass, her chest heaving.

She was alive, and so was Donovan. She gulped in great breaths of air and closed her eyes; slowly, her mind began to clear, and pain returned to her body. She felt the burns on her hands and her legs and the cuts on her face from glass, and she moaned.

"Jack, are you alright?"

Jack opened to her eyes and smiled when she saw Dr. Benjamin. He knelt at her side, his thick eyebrows narrowed in concern. Her throat was constricted and tight as she pulled in short, shallow breaths.

Alright? How could anyone be alright after everything that had happened? No, she wasn't alright. She wasn't sure she ever would be.

"Donovan?" she croaked as Dr. Benjamin brought a cool rag to her face, cleaning off the soot. The motion stung and Jack remembered the shattering glass and her collision with the floor. Thank goodness there wasn't a mirror nearby.

"He's fine, Jack. Look, he's over there with Julius and Minnie."

Dr. Benjamin helped Jack sit up, his hand pressing into her upper back so she could lean against him. Jack turned and saw Donovan sitting up with Julius and Minnie fussing over him. Corrie was by his side as well, cutting the material from his back to tend to the burn from the fallen beam in the house. Relief washed through Jack, loosening the tense muscles in her body.

"Is he alright? Go tend to him, Dr. B. I'm fine."
"I already did, Jack. You'll both be fine," the doctor said in his low, soothing voice. "But I need to pull a few shards of glass from your arms and tend to your burns."

Part of Jack wanted to protest--she needed to talk to Donovan to make sure her eyes weren't deceiving her. They had just been saved from a burning building only moments before. Was he really alright? And there was so much to tell him. They couldn't fight anymore. This had to end, and Jack swore it would end with the two of them together. Still, the fire had sapped Jack's strength and she couldn't fight the doctor as he brought her head to rest on the ground and began to pluck bits of glass from her arms.

With the adrenaline of the moment gone, Jack's lungs, hands, legs, arms, everything ached from the smoke and the burns. The doctor's hands were cool and light as he treated everything with a light balm that eased the pain on the burns.

"Jack, what in the world happened to you!"

Jack grinned at Minnie's voice, strong despite her house burnt to ashes. The woman came to squat next to Jack, her face drawn and her lips pursed.

"Nothing," Jack protested as Dr. Benjamin left her to Minnie. "I promise, it looks worse than it feels."

"Oh, really?" Minnie said with a frown, touching the burn on Jack's hand where she'd touched the door handle. Jack winced involuntarily. "What happened, Jack?"
"I'm sorry about the house, Minnie. I couldn't save it--it was already almost gone when I got here, and I had to save Donovan--"