I aim at the center of the target, close my eyes and shoot. The recoil on the gun tosses me backward and I almost spill to the ground from the force.
“You ok there, Miss Kelsey?”
“Yeah, just wasn’t expecting that,” I say, rubbing my right shoulder. I have no doubt there will be a giant round bruise by nightfall. Now I have two injured shoulders.
“You didn’t actually hit anything,” Jax says, his nose wrinkled as he observes the burlap sack. “I mean I’m sure the bullet hit something somewhere, but not the target.”
I glance up and sure enough, the target remains as unmarked as a second ago. I groan in frustration and raise the weapon to try again.
Jax steps forward “Hold on, hold on. You’re doing this all wrong.”
Before I can reply, he moves behind me to help guide the weapon up a few inches and rotates my shoulders into a better position. His arms are wrapped around me, his chest pressed against my back and I seem to have inexplicably lost all ability to focus on his directions.
“Stand with your feet wider apart. It’ll help you control the kickback,” he instructs, his breath against my ear as he nudges my back foot with his boot. Then he places a palm flat on my stomach. “Tighten up here to help keep you stable. And don’t close your eyes this time. You need them to see.”
“You two make an awfully cute couple,” Daniel chuckles from his safe zone, his dark eyes glittering.
“We are not a couple!” both Jax and I bark at the same time as he immediately backs away from me, as though we’re ashamed to be seen so close together.
“Whatever you say,” Daniel replies, a grin still plastered across his wrinkled, sun-spotted face. Heat creeps up my neck and across my cheeks and I look away before anyone makes a comment. I lift the gun, angling myself the way I’d just been taught, and pull the trigger. Four pops echo through the forest in quick succession, each landing inside the rings of the target.
“So there is hope for you after all,” says Jax. “Of course, it’s a little different when it’s an actual person.”
“Have you shot an actual person?”
Without warning, his face clouds and his jaw presses taut. “I think we’ve accomplished enough for the day. Let’s head back.”
He whistles for Tisis who comes creeping from the trees and trails Jax back to the road. He moves so quickly, I don’t even have a chance to grasp what just happened.
“I said something wrong, didn’t I?” I ask Daniel.
“With Jax, it’s nearly impossible to say something right,” he replies. The old man’s eyes follow Jax the way a father would look at a son, one who he knows is hurting but is powerless to ease their suffering.
Daniel turns, fixing me in his suddenly very serious gaze. “I think you’ll be good for him.”
“Me? Why?”
“This is the closest I’ve ever seen him really interact with someone other than myself. I’ve been worried about him, you know? I’m not getting any younger and he needs someone his own age, a friend, girlfriend, drill sergeant, whatever. Someone to keep him from being reckless, to give him a reason to keep living because there have been times where I think he just about gave up.”
“And why do you think that person will be me?” I ask with timid incredulity. A part of me likes Jax, now that he’s no longer pointing a gun in my face, but something like this… something this important, I don’t know if I can handle such a weight on my shoulders.
Daniel twists to face me, his eyes sharp and boring into my own with a hint of desperation. As if Jax’s life depends on my understanding.
“Because there’s something between you two,” he says. “I know you may not see it yet, or even like it, but there’s something there.”
Then he quickens after Jax’s vanishing form and I’m left standing in the middle of the small clearing staring in shock after both men.
* * *
The tension at dinner that evening continues to hang like a heavy, suffocating cloud over our group. Jax hasn’t really spoken and seems distracted and angry. I haven’t said much either because I don’t know what to say or if I should apologize or what so instead, I push food around my plate. Daniel quietly eats and glances back and forth at us as though he finds the whole uncomfortable situation hysterical and is barely able to contain laughter. The only sounds are utensils scratching the mismatched china plates and Daniel occasionally clearing his throat.
I keep thinking about what the man said earlier, about me becoming Jax’s reason to continue. I don’t want to be, I don’t want that burden and whatever does or doesn’t happen to Jax isn’t my responsibility. It’s not fair for Daniel to expect that from me just because he’s old and won’t be around forever.
“Miss Kelsey, how about a joke,” Daniel says, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
Jax, a forkful of food paused a few inches to his mouth, glances sideways at Daniel. “I swear if it’s the piano, tuna, glue one, one more-“
“What’s the difference between a piano, tuna and glue?”
Jax emits an irritated groan and drops his fork back to his plate with a clatter before rubbing at his eyes.
“Uh, I don’t know,” I reply uncertainly.
“Well, you can tune a piano, but you can’t piano a tuna.”
“Don’t ask about the-“ Jax begins at the same time I ask, “and what about the glue?”
Daniel’s grin turns into a full ear-to-ear smile. “I figured you’d be stuck on that one.” Like last time, he erupts into a fit of laughter, holding his stomach as he leans back in his chair and slaps his knee with his other hand. I can only cast a confused look at Jax, whose face is pinched and appears generally unamused.
“You know, you’re not supposed to laugh at your own jokes,” he points out.
“Look kid, someone’s got to laugh around here, especially with you being a grumpy jackass again.”
Suddenly I’m pulled from their bickering by a drumming on the roof of the home, as though someone pours jars of tiny pebbles. In panic, I whip my head upward, half expecting the ancient structure to cave in, but neither man seems concerned. I clamber up from my chair and rush to the window in the back door, pressing my face against the glass and ready to run at the first sight of danger.
“Kelsey, what are you doing?” Jax asks as Daniel says, “it’s just rain.”
It’s rain.
Before they can say another word, or even rise from the table, I’ve flung open the back door. Tisis lies on the porch and she lifts her head as I race down the steps and into the night.
Water beats down on me, cool and wet, like hundreds of fingers touching my skin. It soaks my hair, my clothes, my body, and as I lift my face to the darkened sky, it cascades down me in tiny rivulets. I open my mouth, allowing it to slip across my tongue, and down the back of my throat. Pure, fresh water, unlike anything I would ever taste in ROC.
Someone approaches and I turn to find Jax, his hair already plastered to his head as the water beads down in little droplets. Daniel stands on the porch, leaning against the exterior wall, arms crossed. From all the lanterns lit and glowing inside, I can see he watches us with a half-smile on his face. Then he returns to the kitchen, leaving the door ajar.
“What are you doing?” Jax asks me again, his head ducked and shoulders hunched as if that will spare him from getting any wetter.
I spread my arms to the sides with glee. “It’s raining!”
“So I’ve heard. Must explain why I’m now drenched, but not why we are standing in it.”
“I don’t know why you’re standing in it, but I think it feels amazing.”
He moves forward until we are barely six inches apart. I find I don’t really care much about the rain anymore as I gaze up into his face. His skin is smooth and tanned to a golden brown with the slightest hint of sunburn on his nose and cheeks. I can see the faint hint of a handful of freckles and an old faded scar just under his right eyebrow.
With two fingers, Jax lifts a
strand of wet hair from my cheek and tucks it back behind one ear, his fingertips lingering on the side of my face as he traces the line of my jaw. Where the rain had been cold and refreshing, anywhere Jax’s fingers touch my skin they leave a trail of burning warmth and a gentle tingle.
I stare, unable to form words, and for a moment a weird expression crosses over his features, the way I caught Rey looking at me once. It didn’t make much sense to me then and makes even less now.
Jax shifts his weight slightly forward, almost imperceptibly, but my breath catchs in my chest anyway and my heart hammers. I think he’s about to kiss me, but that’s crazy. Why would Jax kiss me? I’m a Sub and he hates Subs. I’m not entirely sure I want him to kiss me, but I don’t move and I don’t push him away, instead standing perfectly still.
Then he straightens up, his features a hard mask of stone once again.
“Come on,” he says, taking my arm. “We’re going back inside. The last thing Daniel or I want to do is take care of a sick Sub.”
We don’t make it to the back porch though, because a bolt of flashing white light blazes across the sky. A powerful boom rips into the peaceful calm of the night, rattling inside my ribcage and I scream because I think it must be a bomb. Then the light hits an old rusted weathervane the shape of a rooster on top of one of the homes closer to the far section of the wall. The electricity lights up the tin roof, blazing and crackling down the drainpipes and running along the old wiring system that hasn’t been used in a century. Immediately the old home made of nothing more than cedar shingles and dry wood bursts into flame.
I’ve seen fire before, but only the little bit from the stove when Elsa cooked, and of course the lanterns and torches everyone on the surface uses. However, the fire that now burns before us is so much larger. Crimson and orange fingers threaten to devour the home in a matter of minutes.
Jax curses and races toward the blaze and I am only a step behind. A door slams and then Daniel’s voice shouts after us, but I can’t hear what he’s saying over the roar of the crackling flames. They’re overwhelmingly hot, hotter than I could have imagined and even from twenty feet away it feels like my flesh will melt off my bones. But Jax and I don’t stop running toward the growing inferno; a hungry beast resolved to destroy its prey.
Two figures emerge from the home, what appears to be a man half carrying, half dragging a woman who screams and fights against him.
“NO!” she cries, choking and coughing from the black plumbs of smoke curling out of the home and blending into the dark sky. “No, let go! She’s still in there! We have to get our baby!”
I take one look at Jax and I think he’s about to tell me no, but he’s too late because I’ve already launched myself past him. He yells something that sounds like “yellow rain”, but I think must have been “you’re insane” because that makes more sense. Either way, I’m through the front door of the home before anyone can stop me.
While it had been hot from the outside, the temperature inside the home is a hundred times worse. Sweat beads onto my skin and the heat burns my eyes until I can barely see. Smoke immediately fills my lungs and I drop to my knees and elbows, trying to cover my nose and mouth with the neck of my shirt. It does little good. The fire sears my chest and each breath is strangling, fiery agony, cooking me from the inside out. Still I press on, crawling through the first floor of the tiny home until I reach the stairs.
The crackling crescendo of the fire makes it impossible for me to call out or hear any response. Judging by the size of the blaze, which has already consumed the back portion of the home, I have two options; search the downstairs and pray I find the child before the second floor collapses, or search the upstairs and pray I find the child before the second floor collapses. Either way, I don’t have time for both.
Hoping I made the right choice, I drag my body up the stairs, pressing as close to each worn rung as possible. It takes forever and by the time I reach the second floor, sweat drenches my face and my hands have turned grey from the smoke and ash. A horrendous cough racks my body and it burns as I expel black mucus from my lungs. I won’t last much longer, and my time runs shorter and shorter each moment I spend in the home.
The fire is worse up here, the entire far end engulfed in flames and a portion of the roof already caved in. Shoving open the door of the first room on my left, I squint through the haze and see it’s the parents’ bedroom. I turn to my right and immediately smack into a body. I scream.
Dark hair and turquoise eyes stare back, Jax climbing up the stairs behind me. Calming myself, I point to the second door and he nods, pushing it open and we’re in a child’s room. A crib sits under the back window and even over the angry sounds of the hungry inferno I can hear shrill crying.
Because the door had been shut, the smoke isn’t as bad here. We both surge to our feet and rush to the crib. Inside we find a little girl no older than eighteen months, sitting up and shrieking in fear. Bits of ash cover her skin, tears and snot winding their way through the blackness, and when she sees us, she reaches for me with chubby little hands. I grab her, folding her tiny body into my arms and then look at Jax.
“I can’t carry her and still crawl under the smoke.”
Snatching a blanket hanging on the side of the crib, Jax winds it around me and the child, securing it around my waist and latching her to my chest.
“Keep your head down,” he says. “And follow me.”
We drop to our knees and return to the hall. The stench of charred wood overwhelming and the air more smoke than oxygen at this point. I move carefully to not injure the little girl or risk hitting her head against the floor. It’s difficult and her cries still pierce through the noise of the flames, grating on my already shredded nerves.
The fire surges closer and the whole far side of the house will collapse any minute. Making our way to the stairs, I choke and gag so badly my head spins and I’m worried I’ll black out before I can make it to the bottom floor, but the need to save the poor girl pushes me forward and renews my focus.
Jax swings his legs down the stairs, turning to help me as we crawl backward down them. I try to keep my head down so it’s under the smoke, but there’s so much at this point, I’m not even sure where down is anymore.
The little girl continues her screams, which I suppose is at least a good thing because she can still breathe enough oxygen to do so, but the shrillness of her sound vibrates in my ears and only makes me more disoriented. Twice I almost tumble backward down the staircase and Jax tosses out an arm each time to stop me.
Reaching the bottom floor, I hear a loud groan and a moment later part of the second-floor collapses into the kitchen creating a sweltering blaze of broken furniture, smashed walls and burning wooden support beams. Red-hot embers scatter into the air, falling onto the living room rug and setting it ablaze like everything else.
“Let’s go!” Jax shouts, tugging my arm and we crawl across the floor, avoiding the carpet and aiming for the front door. My hands burn against the hot wood beneath us, skin peeling and palms blistering, but we make it. Jax propels the door open and we both stagger into the cool night air.
We tumble forward, down the porch steps and onto the lawn. Rain splatters my face, washing away the soot. Holding the child tight against me, I suck in huge breaths of clean, fresh air, ice to my burning lungs. Another spasm of coughs rack my body and I drop to my knees on the wet grass, still clutching the girl to my chest.
I feel hands on my shoulders and as I glance up, struggling to see though my swollen eyelids and the tears streaming down my face, I find Daniel hovering above me.
“Lay down,” he instructs, trying to gently push me to the ground.
“The baby,” I try to say, but only more strangled choking noises rise from my throat, blackened spit sliding down my chin. I am going to vomit up my insides if the coughing doesn’t stop.
Someone rips the little girl from my arms, the blanket with her, and I reach out to snatch her back before I real
ize it’s her mother, bawling and hugging the child so tight I’m worried the girl will burst like a balloon.
“Thank you,” the woman says to me through her tears and sobs, rocking back and forth on her knees with the child. “Thank you. I can’t thank you enough for saving my baby.”
I go to respond, but a man propels himself between the woman and me. His eyes are glaring and hostile as he stares with a look of intense hatred. I realize it’s the girl’s father and I stumble to my feet, Daniel gripping my left elbow to offer support because I’m swaying and unsteady, the ground moving beneath me.
“Don’t touch her,” the man growls, hands balled into fists, his rage almost as hot at the flames at my back.
“What?” I gasp, assuming I’ve misunderstood him over the roar of the fire.
“Don’t touch my daughter, don’t touch my wife. In fact, don’t go anywhere near me or my family again.”
The Gamble (The Gamble Series Book 1) Page 13