Being brought into the hospital on a gurney was a totally different experience that my usual entry as a volunteer. It was kind of disorienting and confusing. I don’t usually watch the ceiling tiles pass by and have nurses that I know checking my vitals. Pierce greeted me with a worried smile. He gripped my hand and asked if I was ok. I nodded and then he whispered in my ear, “Your dad is going to flip out over this, you know that, right?” I nodded again and we shared a commiserating glance. We both remembered how panicked dad had been when I was nine and got the flu. My fever had spiked and wouldn’t go down, so dad brought me in to see Pierce. Dad was not patient and methodical when it came to my health. He wanted to know everything, and he wanted answers right away. There was no “the doctor knows best” attitude in him.

“Don’t remind me. He’s on his way. If you see him first, tell him I’m ok, Pierce. I’m just really tired.”

To help calm dad down, I’d had Eva call Uncle Magnum while we were still in the ambulance and ask him to come to the hospital as soon as he could. She’d stressed that I was fine, but that dad wouldn’t be. I heard him laugh at that, even though Eva didn’t have him on speaker. When she’d hung up, she said that he would be right over.

“I’ll see if I can get you a private room. Maybe in the basement. That way the yelling won’t disturb the other patients too much.” He smirked at me and I groaned, which caused him to laugh at me some more.

“I think that you’re enjoying this too much, Pierce.”

“Yes I am, Abby. You did something wonderful, but really, really, stupid. You deserve to get yelled at and I’m going to be there to watch the fireworks and enjoy every minute of it. Besides, this means that you won’t be available for your shift tomorrow and I’ll need to arrange for someone to replace you. I hope Eva can still come though.”

“Why can’t I do my shift tomorrow? I’ll be fine once I’ve slept for a few hours.” I tried to cover my mouth as I yawned, only to be stopped by the breathing mask.

With a dubious look on his face, he answered, “We’ll see how you’re doing in the morning. In the meantime, let’s get the rest of your vitals and have you checked over to be sure that nothing was missed on the way.”

After that I was poked and prodded and asked to open my mouth and cough. They drew blood and even asked for me to pee in a cup. They were very thorough, but they were done by the time dad showed up and so there wasn’t anyone there to distract him or calm him down. Well, Eva was there, but when she caught sight of him, she made for the door. Some friend. I saw James in the open doorway behind dad and he gave me a thumbs up gesture before taking Eva’s hand and walking away. I really needed new friends. These two weren’t any help at all.

Dad stood there for a moment looking at me, making sure that I really was all in one piece. I looked up at him and then away. I couldn’t look at him. He loved me so much and was worried about me. I almost felt like I’d let him down, but he came over and hugged me and everything felt so much better. I started tearing up a little but managed to hold myself back from crying. That would only make him more worried.

He slowly released me from his embrace and in a not too quiet voice asked, “What the hell did you think you were doing, Abby??! Running into a burning building? Who does that? You know who does that? Firefighters do that! It’s their job. It’s what they train for and they go in with full protective gear and there’s a team of them to help out if things go wrong. You’re sixteen-year-old with no training at all and you went into a burning building alone and with no protective gear. What were you thinking? How can you put so little value on your own life?”

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It only got worse from there. He brought up what my death would do to him and to Uncle Magnum, my grandparents, even to my friends. The guilt kept piling up. I wished that I could just sink into the bed and disappear and realized that I could. I could be in R1 in less than a second, but I held back. This was the price of keeping my abilities a secret from everyone and I was just going to have to pay it.

A knock at the door saved me. I was expecting to see Uncle Magnum there and was surprised to see a stranger instead. He was tall, with broad shoulders, well dressed and looked to be in his mid-fifties. As I stared at him, I realized that he looked slightly familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

Dad had also turned around to see who was disturbing his tirade. He had been working himself up into quite a rant and the stranger threw him off.

“Hi. I’m very sorry to disturb you. My name is Andrew McKenzie. I couldn’t help but overhear your discussion.” Discussion. That was one word for it, but I’d always felt that a discussion had at least two participants. He was interrupting a monologue or more correctly a rant. “I wouldn’t normally interrupt, but I just needed to thank Abby for saving my son’s life.”

“That’s why you looked so familiar. You look just like Mark!”, I blurted out.

He smiled like I’d just complimented him. I suppose that I did. “He’s my eldest. How did you know his name? Are you his friend?”

“No. My friends and I saw smoke and we ran to see what was going on. When we got there, we saw someone being led out of the house and he said that Mark was still inside the house. That’s why I know his name.”

“Oh, that’s what he said. The video didn’t pick that up.”

“The video?”, my dad and I asked in unison. Both of us were shocked. I suppose that I shouldn’t have been, because I could remember seeing people with their phones out when I got to the burning house.

“Yes. There are quite a few of them up by now. Most are from the park across the street. The one I’m referring to shows Jerry being led out and saying something and then a girl runs into the house. You Abby. You ran in and then there’s nothing except the burning house. If I didn’t know how it all ended, I’d have sworn that there was no way you could survive that. A few minutes later, it shows you stumbling out from the side of the house with Mark over your shoulder. You looked too small to be able to carry him.”

“I know that you need your rest, so I won’t keep you from it. I wanted to say thank you. Mark is doing fine. He’s inhaled a lot of smoke and he’s being treated for that, but the doctors say that he should be much better in a week. Given the fire, they’re amazed that he wasn’t burned. I hope that I can come visit you later with my wife. She’s with him now. I’m supposed to give you her thanks as well, for now.”

Before he left, he shook dad’s hand and thanked him too. I wanted to thank him for interrupting Dad’s tirade, but I didn’t think that it would be a good idea just now.

Uncle Magnum walked in just as Mr. McKenzie was leaving. “I’d have been here earlier, but when I came in everyone was watching a video and I had to see what all the fuss was about.” He calmly said hi to dad and walked over to give me a hug. Then he let go and quietly asked, “What the hell did you think you were doing, Abby??! That video was the scariest thing that I’ve ever seen. I knew you were ok, but I was still sweating just from watching it.”

“Excuse me. I need to go watch a video.” Dad walked out the door and I knew that I’d be grounded for at least a month when he got back. Pierce walked in as dad left and asked, “It’s over already? I was only away for ten minutes and I missed all the yelling?”.

“Stick around for a bit. Josh just stepped out to watch the video. Round two is about to start.” Uncle Magnum was not being very helpful.

“There’s video? No way! I’ll be right back.”, and then Pierce was gone as well.