Burned(68)

The smoke has gotten impossibly thicker and I know I don’t have much time. My lungs burn with every breath I take and I’m starting to get lightheaded from not having any good, clean air in my system for so long.
Jordan is still unconscious out in the hallway and doesn’t even budge as I grab both of his wrists, pull them up over his head and drag him back into the room I just came from. As soon as I get to the window and crouch down next to him to heft him up over my shoulder, his eyes suddenly pop open and he shoves me roughly away. My body is so weak that I immediately fall backwards, my ass slamming into the ground.
Jordan begins coughing violently as he crab-crawls away from me, screaming at me as he goes. “STAY AWAY FROM ME! STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!”
I dive forward, grabbing onto his ankle and yank him towards me.
“Stop being an *! I’m not going to hit you again. We need to get the f*ck out of this house right now before it collapses.”
He kicks his leg out, his foot connecting with my chest and I drop my hold on his leg while he scrambles up to his feet.
“No, no, no! Leave me, just f*cking leave me!” he shouts.
I jump up to my feet and charge him. This motherf*cker is the reason all of this happened. He started this fire, he hurt Finnley and now he won’t f*cking cooperate so I can get us both out of here without being killed.
I grab onto the front of his shirt and pull him towards me as hard as I can. He loses his footing and stumbles to the ground. I don’t even bother trying to get him back up on his feet. While he screams and struggles against me, his feet digging into the carpet, I pull him towards the window using every last bit of energy left in me.
“COLLIN! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, GET DOWN THE LADDER!” I hear D.J. yell from down below.
“Get your sorry ass up right now!” I shout down at Jordan as he continues to try and struggle away from me.
The sound of a small explosion downstairs rattles the entire house, sending me backwards. I let go of Jordan as my ass slams into the windowsill and I have to throw my arms out to either side of the window to prevent myself from tumbling backwards out to the ground below.
Smoke curls around me as the flames from down below make it upstairs, climbing along the hallway and bursting into the doorway. Jordan turns and stares at the fire, frozen in shock as it inches it’s way across the floor towards him.
“I just wanted you to burn,” Jordan mutters to himself, staring wide-eyed at the fire that’s dangerously close to his legs.
I could tell as soon as I saw him out in the hallway when he first confronted me that something wasn’t right with him. His eyes were unfocused and he had all the telltale signs of someone under the influence of something bad. He’s not making any sense right now and, as much as I want to continue shouting at him to get the f*ck out of the house, something tells me he’s so far gone that he doesn’t even care anymore.
I soften my tone just like I would with any other victim I encounter out on a call to do what I can to ease their fears. “Hey, it’s alright. I don’t care about any of that. Let’s just get out of here, okay?”
Jordan shakes his head back and forth as he continues to stare at the flames. “I wanted your heart to blister with the pain of losing her, just like mine did. I know I never deserved her, I know I f*cked everything up, but she was mine. You shouldn’t get to make her happy if I couldn’t.”
The inflection in his voice has a singsong quality to it like he’s reading from a children’s book and that’s when I know he has officially lost his f*cking mind.
I want nothing more than to just turn and race down the ladder right behind me and let him burn down with the house, but my conscience won’t let that happen. Everyone deserves to be saved. I push away from the window to try to grab him one more time when he speaks again.