But being a part of the Circle, and helping to organize a fight in unsafe conditions that resulted in the deaths of countless college kids. Even in a dark corner of Vegas, being attacked by Benny’s goons, we somehow still had the advantage. It was a nightmare.ĭespite my struggle to focus, I did hear him say this: “The only thing I’m afraid of is a life without you, Pigeon.” Everyone looked the same, covered in soot, with identical expressions of bewilderment and despair. The sirens, the wailing, the worried and panicked chatter, and the screams of people arriving on the scene to discover that a friend was still inside. It was overpowering, and even though I’d taken a shower, it was still there, mixed in with the mint and lavender scent of the soap I used to scrub it away.

My lungs felt like they were full of cobwebs and flames, and I couldn’t get the rancid smell of charred skin out of my nose. about those who died, and that we had lived. We somehow survived and were sitting alone in his apartment, trying to process it all. So many people died, some of them strangers from State but some were people I’d seen in the cafeteria, in class, at other fights. I could barely focus on that voice I loved so much describing how afraid he was of losing me, and how he was close to escaping when he ran in the opposite direction, toward me. But for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to go alone. Told me to leave to get away, anywhere but here. Sitting in Travis’s bedroom, just hours after the fire, my heart raced and my muscles twitched. I’d felt it moments before the fire, and I was feeling it now.

My father said that the urgent need to run when things were about to go wrong was a like a tic, a defense mechanism inherent in the Abernathys. The more I tried to ignore it, the more unbearable it became: an itch that needed to be scratched, a scream bubbling to the surface. I could feel it coming: a growing, persistent unease that crept just beneath my skin. A Beautiful Wedding CHAPTER ONE Alibi Abby

Walking disaster by jamie mcguire