Conquer the Flames (Langs Down) (14 page)

You’re getting ahead of yourself
, he scolded silently.
None of this will matter if he wants more than you can give him.

With a miserable sigh, he set Thorne’s gift aside and went back to reading
Dragon Prince
. It didn’t require any concentration, not like a new book would. Instead he could relax into the mindlessness of it and forget for a few hours that he was too broken for anyone to put up with him for long.

Ten

T
HORNE
fought his way through the burning forest, slowed down by the dead weight slung across his shoulder. He had to get free of the trees, but every way he turned, something blocked his path: a wall of flames, a pile of dead bodies, insurgents with machine guns and machetes pointed at him and the precious cargo he carried. He spun to the left only to come face-to-face with a suspended body. From the look of it, it had been hanging there for a few days. The fire hadn’t got to it yet, but the carrion crows had. Bile rose in his throat, but he made himself check the face in case it was recognizable.

Ian’s green eyes stared blankly out of their swollen sockets.

He stumbled back away from the body, trying not to retch. He had to keep moving. If he stopped, they’d both die, and he couldn’t allow that. He’d already failed so many times, so many people. He couldn’t fail this time. He wouldn’t survive another loss.

He veered around the corpse and kept going down the trail. The death was horrendous, but the body wasn’t burned. The fire hadn’t come this far yet, so this path should be safe. He would bring his burden home and everything would be well.

He’d gone another fifty feet when something in the undergrowth caught his foot, and he nearly fell. Catching his balance, he looked to see what had tripped him up. Booted feet lay across the path. He followed the legs up to a body, but he knew right away there was no hope for life. Half the chest was torn away. Nobody could have survived such a wound. Hoping for some identification, he rolled the body over, only to lose his battle with his stomach.

Ian’s eyes were closed, but there was no mistaking his red hair and freckles, or the sweet curve of his lips.

He had to get away. He had to get to safety. He picked up his burden again, running this time despite the weight he carried. The forest was dangerous even without the fire. First the body that had been hanged and now this one, torn apart by a roadside bomb or landmine. They couldn’t stay here if they wanted to live. They had to get back to base, to safety and treatment and the possibility of salvation.

The trail curved off to the right ahead of him. He frowned at that. The fire was to his right. They couldn’t go that way, but he didn’t see a path going any other way, and they couldn’t go back. Danger lay behind them. The fire lay to their right. He would have to take the trail anyway and hope the turn was only a short one to avoid some obstacle ahead of them. He followed the path only to find a line of bodies laid out next to it. Their hands were tied behind their backs and they each had a single bullet wound to the back of their heads. Executions, then, not that it made seeing the bodies any easier. Most frightening of all, though, they all had familiar short red hair. He knew without needing to look that every body in that row bore Ian’s face.

He sprinted past them, desperation riding him hard. The base had to be right ahead. He’d been carrying the body on his back long enough now. The forest blurred as he ran, tree trunks blending together in a crazy kaleidoscope of colors and sensations. Flashes of red against the green and brown of the trees tried to catch his attention, but he ignored them. He couldn’t see another body bearing Ian’s likeness. He couldn’t stop. He had to get his teammate to safety.

With a final burst of speed, he made it through the door of the base just as it swung shut behind him. Carefully, so very, very carefully, he eased the body off his shoulders onto the cot in the medical ward. Ian’s eyes were closed, but Thorne wasn’t deterred. He called for the doctor as he felt for a pulse. It was weak but present, so he hovered at Ian’s side until the doctor got there and started checking him for injuries.

They searched every inch of his body, but they couldn’t find a single mark to explain Ian’s unconscious state. No wounds, no contusions, nothing to give them any hint of finding a cure. He simply lay there unmoving, his breaths coming more and more slowly. The doctor started an IV, pushing fluids or medicine or who knew what into Ian’s body, but nothing changed. And then the breathing stopped, and his chest went motionless. Thorne sprang into action, breathing into Ian’s lungs to keep them moving, putting his fingers on the pulse at Ian’s neck to monitor his heartbeat. That, too, was painfully sluggish, but still there, so he kept breathing for both of them. He could do this. He’d do it for as long as it took. The doctor would find the cause and fix it, and Thorne would provide breath and even a pulse for Ian until that time. He wouldn’t lose him. Not again.

The pulse flickered out and Thorne started CPR. Thirty compressions, two breaths, thirty compressions, two breaths. He had no idea how long he worked to give the doctor time to find a solution, but his arms grew tired and his lungs burned from the strain. Hands pulled at his shoulders, trying to drag him away from Ian, but he resisted. Couldn’t they see? Didn’t they understand? Ian wasn’t dead. He was just sleeping. Thorne just needed to wake him up.

The hands pulled again, succeeding this time in separating him from Ian. As the medics covered his body with a sheet, Thorne threw his head back and howled in defeat.

The sound of his own shout brought Thorne out of his nightmare and back to the present. His heart pounded frantically in his chest, and he gasped for breath as he tried to dispel the dream images and reconnect with reality. He was lying on Ian’s couch, the blankets so tangled around him he could barely move. It was still dark outside, although Thorne thought it must be getting close to morning, but the light from the lamp he’d left on when he fell asleep made it hard to judge the quality of the darkness. He was safe and whole, if a little battered. His back stung where the rocks had cut it the day before, but that was a minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things. The book he’d been reading before bed sat on the table still, waiting for him to pick it up again. In short, his nightmare had been just that: a hypnagogic amalgam of his worst experiences with death and dying, Ian’s face superimposed over the faces of men he had seen murdered, executed, or killed in battle, and finally on Walker’s face. He knew Nick wasn’t dead. Thorne’s stuff was at Nick’s apartment, but he’d nearly died, and Thorne would carry the memory of that frantic flight through the forest for the rest of his life.

He could have done without the nightmares, though.

He’d had enough experience with bad dreams and his reaction to them to know he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, so he untangled himself from the covers, folded them neatly, and went to shower. He’d clear the cobwebs from his head and get an early start back to the fire line. He couldn’t change the past, but he could bloody well make sure Ian had a home to come back to when the doctors released him in a few days.

“
A
NYBODY
seen Thorne this morning?”

“No, why?” Neil asked, looking up from his breakfast.

“Because he didn’t come back to the main house last night, and his ute isn’t with the others,” Caine said. “Did he come back to the station at all?”

“He did,” Neil said. “I heard him go into Ian’s place last night. Maybe he parked by Ian’s house instead of with the other utes?”

“I don’t think so,” Caine said, but he went to the window to check. “No, I don’t see any sign of him.”

Neil frowned. Thorne had risked his life yesterday to save Ian, winning Neil’s loyalty almost as fully as Caine had it for saving Neil’s own life. “Bloody hell, I hope he hasn’t gone and done something stupid.”

“Is that a concern?” Macklin asked, joining Caine at the window.

“Maybe.” Neil gestured for them to join him. Ian wouldn’t appreciate Neil revealing any of what he was about to say, but it would be even worse if he shared it with the whole canteen. “You know Thorne’s got issues, right?” Caine and Macklin nodded. “Well, he’s apparently latched on to Ian as someone safe. Two nights ago, he almost lost it again, and he let Ian stay with him while he calmed down. They talked for a while and Thorne slept on his couch. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything, but when Thorne found out Ian was missing yesterday, he was like a madman. Ian’s my best friend, but I wouldn’t have gone back into that hellhole to look for him. I wouldn’t have known where to start, for one thing. Thorne threw himself down into the inferno like it was nothing, and he came back with Ian. And….”

He hesitated a bit now. What he’d told them so far was pretty much public knowledge, things Neil had observed, not things Ian had shared in confidence, but to continue would break Ian’s confidence. He looked at the two men sitting across from him. If anyone on the station needed to know what Ian had said, it was these two, because any kind of long-term relationship would require their blessing. “And I think Ian likes him. I mean, is interested in him.”

Macklin raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Ian?”

“Yes, Ian,” Neil said. “I’ve known him a long time, and he’s never shown any interest in anyone. I don’t know Thorne well enough to know if he returns it, but he saved Ian’s life. I kind of feel like we owe it to Thorne to make sure he gets the chance to make up his own mind.”

“Not to mention you’d like to see Ian happy,” Caine said.

“Yeah, there’s that too. He has a smile for everyone and a kind word, but have you ever looked at his eyes?” Neil asked. “He’s always alone, even in a crowd. Even with me. If Thorne can take that look away, I’ll do whatever it takes to let him.”

“But you think he’s gone and done something stupid,” Macklin said.

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Neil said, “but while I’m thrilled with the results, going after Ian yesterday was pretty much the definition of something stupid, and he stayed at Ian’s place again last night instead of going back to the guest room that has to be more comfortable than Ian’s couch. I’m not even going to guess at what’s going through his head, but I’d put money on it not being rational.”

“So what do you suggest?” Caine asked.

“Keep an eye on him,” Neil replied. “Maybe I’m wrong and everything will be just fine, but if I’m right and he starts doing stupid shit, maybe we can make him see it, and if we can’t, maybe we can protect him from himself.”

“There are kids on the station,” Macklin said. “We can’t have him here if he’s a threat to them.”

“I know,” Neil said. “One of those kids is mine, and about to be two, but the kids can learn to respect his boundaries just like adults can, and he didn’t actually hurt Laura. He saved Ian’s life. Isn’t that worth giving him the benefit of the doubt?”

“Yes,” Caine said before Macklin could reply, “but there’s still a line he can’t cross, and if he does, we’ll have to ask him to leave.”

“That’s fair,” Neil said. “Thank you. I’m going to grab a passenger and head back to the fires. I don’t like the idea that he’s out there by himself.”

“You know the other Firies are out there too,” Macklin said.

“Yeah, but I don’t know them. I trust our men to watch his back.”

“We’ll meet you there as soon as we can,” Caine said.

“Thanks,” Neil said. He grabbed his hat and the keys to one of the utes and found a jackaroo who’d already finished his breakfast. The other man grumbled a little about being pulled away, but Neil was the foreman. None of them would argue with him for long.

T
HE
fire had moved from where they’d been fighting it before, Thorne discovered when he reached the base camp. The flames in the deadfall and surrounding woods had burned out overnight for the most part, although Captain Grant had ordered a crew to check for hot spots and put them out if possible. The firebreaks had worked on one side, but it had jumped the break on the other side and was creeping through the fields to the west of the ridge where they’d fought the day before.

“We’ve got to put it out,” Thorne said. “It’s not enough to try to contain it. Each time we do, it jumps the firebreak and keeps going.”

“I don’t have the men or the equipment to fight it directly,” Captain Grant protested.

“You will,” Thorne said. “When the Lang Downs folk get here again, their utes can go into the grasslands. They were useless in the woods, but they won’t be out in the open. Have them start at the firebreak and work inward, dousing the fire as they go. If they maintain a fairly tight line, they should be able to put a huge dent in the fires.”

“That’s asking a lot of them.”

“It’s their lives and their livelihoods at stake,” Thorne said. “I don’t see them saying no.”