“I could’ve gotten the doctored one just as easy as him. It was a fair deal. In the end, Ro, it was all of us killed Jim. All of us doing what we do, getting him to do it, too. And everybody had the same chance. I didn’t want it to be you, even though I saw how you looked at me when I said how we’d get a lawyer over the baby, how my ma was going to raise her. I saw how everybody looked at me because I was alive, and Jim wasn’t.”
She couldn’t outrun a bullet, Rowan thought as her heart kicked in her chest. Before much longer, she wouldn’t be able to outrun the fire.
She could hear the whoosh and the roar as it built, as it rolled toward them.
“We need to go, so you can be there for the baby, Matt. She needs a father.”
“She has my parents. They’ll be good to her.” Fire glowed red and gold on his sweat-sheened face. His eyes had gone from sad to mad. “I broke it off with Annie last night. I’ve got nothing for her. And I knew when I got in the door today, it had to be the last time. One way or the other. I thought it would be me, going like Jim did. The fire’s all I got left.”
“You have the baby.”
“Jim’s dead. I see him dead when I look at her. I see him burning. It’s just the fire now. I liked it. Not the killing, but the fire, making it, watching it, seeing what it did. I liked making it more than I ever did fighting it. Maybe I’ll like hell.”
“I’m not ready to go there.” She rolled to the balls of her feet.
A tree fell with a shrieking crash, shaking the ground when it landed less than a yard away. Rowan sprang to her right, dug in to run blind. She heard the crack of the gunshot, her spine snapping tight as she braced for a bullet in the back.
She heard a whine, like an angry hornet wing by her ear, then jagged left again as a firebrand burst at her feet.
If Matt didn’t kill her, the fire would.
She preferred the fire, and like a moth, flew toward the flames.
For a moment, they wrapped around her, a fiery embrace that stole her breath. The scream shrieked inside her head, escaping in a wild call of fear and triumph as she burst free. Momentum pitched her forward, had her skidding onto the heels of her hands and her knees. Her pack weighed like lead as she struggled up again, hacking out smoke. Around her, the forest burned in a merry cavalcade with a deep, guttural roar as mad as the man who pursued her.
At the snap of another gunshot, she fled deeper into the belly of the beast.
She heard him coming, even over the bellow of the fire. The thud of his footsteps sounded closer than she wanted to believe. She scanned smoke and flame.
Fight or flight.
She was done with flight, finished letting him drive her like cattle to the slaughter. With the burn towering around her, she planted her feet, yanked out her Pulaski. Gripping it in both hands, she set for fight.
He might kill her. Hell, he probably would. But she’d damn well do some damage first.
For herself, for Yangtree. Even, she thought, for poor, pathetic Dolly.
“You’ll bleed,” she told herself. “You’ll bleed before I’m done.”
She saw the yellow shirt through the haze of smoke, then the silhouette coming fast.
Deliberately she panted air in and out, pumping adrenaline. She had an instant, maybe two, to decide whether to hurl her weapon, hope for a solid strike, or to charge swinging.
Charge. Better to keep the ax in her hands than risk a miss.
She sucked in more filthy air, cocked the Pulaski over her shoulder, gritting her teeth as she judged the timing.
Coming fast, she thought again—then her arms trembled.
Coming really fast. Oh, God.
“Gull.” She choked out his name as he tore through the smoke.
She ran toward him, felt his hands close tight around her shoulders. Nothing, she realized, no caress, no embrace, had ever felt so glorious.
“Matt.”
“I got that.”
“He’s got a gun.”
“Yeah, I got that, too. Are you hurt?” He scanned her face when she shook her head, as if verifying for himself. “Can you run?”
“What do you take me for?”
“Then we run because Matt’s not our only problem.”
She started to agree, then stiffened. “Wait. Do you hear that?”
“You’re the one with ears like a . . . Yeah. Now I do.”
“He’s coming. That way,” she added, pointing. “It sounds like he’s crying.”
“I feel real bad for him. Best shot’s south, I think.”
“If we can reach the black. But if we can, so can he.”
“I sure as hell hope so. That’s where we’ll take him down. Run now; talk later.”
“Don’t hold up for me,” she began.
“Oh, bullshit.” He grabbed her hand, yanked her into a run.
She bore down. She’d be damned if he held back because she couldn’t keep pace. It didn’t matter if her lungs burned, if her legs ached, if the sweat ran into her eyes like acid.
She ran through a world gone mad with violence, stunning in its kaleidoscope lights of red and orange and molten blue. She flung herself through fetid smoke, leaping or dodging burning branches, hurdling burning spots that snapped over the ground like bear traps.
If they could get into the black, they’d fight. They’d find a way.
She risked a glance at Gull. Sweat poured down his soot-smeared face. Somewhere along the run he’d lost his helmet, and his hair was gray with ash.
But his eyes, she thought as she pushed, pushed, pushed herself on. Clear, focused, determined. Eyes that didn’t lie, she thought. Eyes she could trust.
Did trust.
They’d make it.
Something exploded behind them.
Breath snagging, she looked back to see an orange column of smoke climb toward the sky. Even as she watched, it brightened.
“Gull.”
He only nodded. He’d seen it as well.
No time to talk, to plan, even to think. The ground shook; the wind whipped. With its roaring breath, the fire blew brands, coals, burning pinecones that burst like grenades.
Blue-orange flames clawed up on their left, hissing like snakes. A snag burst in its coils, showered them with embers. The smoke thickened like cotton with the firefly swirl of sparks flooding through it.
A fountain of yellow flame spewed up in front of them, forcing them to angle away from the ferocious heat. Gull grunted when a burning branch hit his back, but didn’t break stride as they flung themselves up an incline.
Rocks avalanched under their boots, and still the hellhound fire pursued. Came the roar, that long, throaty war cry, as the blowup thundered toward them.
A fire devil swirled out of the smoke to dance.
Nowhere to run.
“Shake and bake.” Gull yanked the bandanna around Rowan’s throat over her mouth, did the same with his own.
It screamed, Rowan thought as she tore the protective case off her fire shelter, shook it out. Or Matt screamed, but a madman with a gun had become the least of their problems.
She stepped on the bottom corners of the foil, grabbed the tops to stretch it over her back. Mirroring her moves, Gull sent her a last look and shot her a grin that seared straight into her heart.
“See you later,” he said.
“See you later.”
They flopped forward, cocooned.
Working quickly, Rowan dug a hole for her face, down to the cooler air. Eyes shut, she took short, shallow breaths into the bandanna. Even one breath of the super-heated gases that blew outside her shelter would scorch her lungs, poison her.
The fire hit, a freight train of sound, a tidal wave of heat. Wind tore at the shelter, tried to lift and launch it like a sail. Sparks shimmered around her, but she kept her eyes closed.
And saw her father, frying fish over a campfire, the flames dancing in his eyes as he laughed with her. Saw herself spreading her arms under his on her first tandem jump. Saw him open his as she ran to him after he’d come back from a fire.
Saw him, his face lit now by an inner flame as he told her about Ella.
See you later, she thought as the impossible heat built.
She saw Gull, cocky grin and swagger, pouring a helmet of water over her head. Saw him tip back a beer, cool as you please, then fight off a pack of bullies as ferocious as a fire devil.
Felt him yank her into his arms. Turn to her in the dark. Fight with her in the light. Run with her. Run to her.
He’d come through fire for her.
The fear speared into her belly. She’d been afraid before, but she realized most of it was because she damn well wasn’t ready to die. Now she feared for him.
So close, she thought while the fire screamed, crashed, burst. And yet completely separate. Nothing to do for each other now but wait. Wait.
See you later.
She held on. Thought of Yangtree, of Jim. Of Matt.
Cards—God, Cards. Had Matt killed him, too?
She wanted to see him again, see all of them again. She wanted to tell her father she loved him, just one more time. To tell Ella she was glad her father had found someone to make him happy.
She wanted to joke with Trigger, rag on Cards, sit in the kitchen with Marg. To be with all of them, her family.
But more, she realized, even more, she wanted to look into Gull’s eyes again, and watch that grin flash over his face.
She wanted to tell him . . . everything.
Why the hell hadn’t she? Why had she been so stubborn or stupid or—face it—afraid?
If he didn’t make it through this so she could, she’d kick his ass.
Dizzy, she realized, sick. Too much heat. Can’t pass out. Won’t pass out. As she regulated her breathing again, she realized something else.
Quiet.
She heard the fire, but the distant snarl and song. The ground held steady under her body, and the jet-plane thunder had passed.
She was alive. Still alive.
She reached out, laid a hand on her shelter. Still hot to the touch, she thought. But she could wait. She could be patient.
And if she lived, he’d damn well better live, too.
“Rowan.”
Tears smarted her already stinging eyes at his voice, rough and ragged. “Still here.”
“How’s it going there?”
“Five-by-five. You?”
“The same. It’s cooling down a little.”
“Don’t get out yet, rook.”
“I know the drill. I’m calling base. Anything you want me to pass on?”
“Have L.B. tell my dad I’m A-OK. I don’t know about Cards. There was blood. They need to look for him. And for Matt.”
She closed her eyes again, let herself drift, passing the next hour thinking of swimming in a moonlit lagoon, drinking straight from a garden hose, making snow angels—naked snow angels, with Gull.
“Cards made it back,” he called out. “They had to medevac him. He lost a lot of blood.”
“He’s alive.”
Alone in her shelter, she allowed herself tears.
When her shelter cooled to the touch, she called to Gull. “Coming out.”
She eased her head out into the smoky air, looked over at Gull. She imagined they both looked like a couple of sweaty, parboiled turtles climbing out of their shells.
“Hello, gorgeous.”
She laughed. It hurt her throat, but she laughed. “Hey, handsome.”
They crawled to each other over the blackened, ash-covered ground. She found his lips with hers, her belly quivering with a wrecked combination of laughter and tears.
“I was going to be so pissed off at you if you died.”
“Glad we avoided that.” He touched her face. “Heck of a ride.”
“Oh, yeah.” She lowered her forehead to his. “He might still be alive.”
“I know. We’d better figure out where we are, then we’ll worry about where he is.”
She took out her compass, checking their bearings as she drank what water she had left in her bottle. “If we head east, we’ll backtrack over some of the area, plus it’s the best course for the camp. We need water.”
“I’ll call it in.”
Though her legs still weren’t steady, Rowan got to her feet to examine the shelters.
“Inner skin’s melted,” she told Gull. “We hit over sixteen hundred degrees. I’d say we topped a good one-eighty inside.”
“My candy bar’s melted, and that’s a crying shame.” He reached for her hand. “Want to take a walk in the woods?”
“Love to.”
They walked through the black with ash still swirling. Training outweighed exhaustion, and had them smothering smoldering spots.