by Natalie Dean
Benji vaguely remembered that Mrs. Touhey mentioned they used those for syrup and berries for their pies and other confections. Nothing that they depended on commercially, but certainly something that they looked forward to.
“Dani…” he warned cautiously.
But then she was stepping forward until her body was close to his, face tilted upward so that he was looking right down in it. He saw so much there. Determination, fear, vengeance. It all twisted up into something beautiful and intimidating and it stole his breath away.
“All right, I’ll help, but we stay away from the fire. If we get too close, I throw you in the truck and we come right back.”
“What?” Mrs. Touhey cried, clearly surprised.
But Dani just let out a whoop and handed her the hose.
“Make sure you make a really good perimeter,” Dani said before rushing off.
Although he was loath to let her disappear off into the darkness, he knew he had to run and get his truck. So that was exactly what he did, using his phone as a flashlight so he could cut across the ground without accidentally rolling his ankle or ending up in a ditch.
Benji reached his truck in possibly record time and threw the door open, clambering to drive back to the storage shed that had been shown to him on the first day. He knew that was where they kept a good chunk of their supplies and was willing to bet that Dani had bolted straight there.
Sure enough, he was right. The double doors of the small thing were flung open and Dani was standing inside, panting again as she picked up sandbags and threw them out the door. Those things certainly weren’t light, so it was impressive to see her tossing them like it was no big deal. If she could handle the heavy bags so easily, it was easy to picture a child on her shoulder, or perched on her back—
This was not the time to be thinking about that.
He didn’t think there was a good time to ever think about something like that.
There was a fire.
Shaking his head, he picked up the bags she had tossed out and threw them into the back of the bed, beside his water tank. Between the two of them, they got a good number of the bags into his truck before he went to fill his tank from the pump next to the well. It had been a little confusing to use at first, but in the weeks he’d been on the Touhey ranch, he had long since learned how.
He was completely winded by the time they were all set, but there was no break. Dani practically vaulted into the truck, moving her body with a strength and assuredness he hadn’t seen her move with previously. She slammed her seatbelt on and looked to him expectantly.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” He knew what her answer would be, but he felt that he had to say it. It was kind of like he was caught up with the maelstrom that was Dani, and he suddenly could only watch in awe as she swept across him and the entire situation.
“Yeah. But if you’re not, move over. I’ll borrow your truck.”
She really was something else, wasn’t she? “No. I’m in. Just thought I’d be polite.”
“Yeah, well less of the politeness and more of the pedal to the medal, if you don’t mind.”
From anyone else, it might have been rude, and maybe it even was rude, but he was too caught up to care. Everyone had always said he was laid back, but he just generally liked watching strong-willed people do their things.
“Aye-aye, ma’am.”
They peeled out, cutting across the worn-path and to the tree line. Now the fire was really a sight to see, peeking above the canopy and turning the black night sky into a foreboding indigo. Normally he loved that color, but with the underbelly of crimson and vermillion, it certainly wasn’t a welcome shade.
They went as far as they could into the trees, ending up in a grove that Dani quickly said something about being their harvest point. Then she was shooting out of his truck and grabbing some sandbags.
The fire was still plenty far away, but Benji could feel the heat of it ever so faintly on his skin. Birds and other animals either rushed towards them or up into the sky, eager to escape the inferno that was quickly building.
Benji was no fool. He knew what they were doing was dangerous. The fire could jump, or have a flash, or do any number of things that could make their location go from “far enough away” to deadly in a second flat. Which meant they needed to work fast. Benji had already figured out that Dani wasn’t going to back down until she felt that she had done enough. And if that meant he had to rush through setting up precautions to try to save this land for her family, then he would do just that.
“I’ll hook up the pressure washer,” Dani said as soon as they were down to the last few bags.
Benji just nodded, not even taking the time to wipe the sweat from his eyes and finished up the task. It was growing warmer by the second, and the hair on the back of his neck was standing on end. His entire body was trying to tell him that he was in danger, that he needed to run, but he was determined to do whatever it was that he needed to do to make sure that Dani got whatever she needed out of her system and got back to her parents in one piece.
Almost as soon as he stood, the sharp sound of the pressure washer issued behind him. He took a step back and saw Dani planting her feet before unleashing the full force on the line of bags.
They quickly grew dark with water, forming a formidable line curving around the half of the grove facing the blaze about a couple of feet high. It wasn’t enough to stop a full forest fire by any means, but maybe it would buy them enough time for the fire department to get there.
Normally Benji loved living so far from town, the peace and quiet helping him relax after long days of trying work. But at the moment, he couldn’t help but wish that they were closer.
“Here, let me take over for a minute,” he offered, extending his hand to Dani.
“No,” she answered, voice so fierce with determination, it actually surprised him a bit. “I have to do this. I’m gonna keep it back.”
He watched her, standing there like a warrior staring down her enemy. She looked beautiful, powerful even, but she also looked a little bit like she wasn’t really there.
Not physically. She was obviously standing there, feet planted, shoulders back and cherubic face smeared with sand and dirt. But her gaze was elsewhere, like she was seeing something he wasn’t, and even her words seemed to be talking to someone else.
His gaze went nervously to the fire to her and back again as she soaked the earth in front of their little fire-line. Now there was a wall of orange glow in front of them, and he could definitely feel the heat rising. While there was a level he was willing to indulge, he wasn’t going to let her risk her life. Her parents already had two sons lying in hospital beds. They didn’t need their little girl there too.
“Dani,” he said again. “The water is out in my tank. We should head back.”
As if to echo his sentiment, the faint warble of sirens sounded in the distance, the color of their lights disrupting the night just the same as the fire. It was like the cavalry was coming in and Benji let out a long sigh of relief.
But Dani didn’t seem to care. She threw the pressure washer to the ground and grabbed a shovel from the back of his truck, running forward. Benji barely managed to catch her around her waist, but she fought and kicked at him wildly.
“No! Let me go! I have to save them! I have to save them!”
“Save who?”
But she was kicking wildly at the air, throwing herself from side to side to try to wrest herself from his grip. “I… I…”
She seemed to be confused, her words fading into halting sobs. He was instantly reminded of his brother when he used to go into one of his fugue states, so he was beginning to think that maybe Dani wasn’t in the here and now.
“Hey, listen to me, okay? Let’s take you home. The fire department is here. They’ll take care of it, I promise.”
“No! No, no, no!”
Her thrashing was growing weaker as she tired herself out, and Benji found himself hauling
her up and over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She was quite solidly built, but after years of working on the ranch, she wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.
He felt a bit guilty as he dumped her in the passenger seat of his truck, making sure to slam the child safety lock on her side and sliding over his hood to get to his own door. Somehow, he managed to get in and pull the truck away as Dani threw herself against the door, sobbing loudly.
“It’s happening again,” she said between wet gasps. “It’s happening again, and I still can’t do anything to stop it.”
“Shhh,” Benji soothed, reaching out to comfort her. His heart utterly ached at the sounds she was making, and he once more felt guilty for every single bad thought he had ever had about the poor girl. She was clearly so strong, so brave, but had life yanked right out from under her. “It’s gonna be okay, I promise. Look, the firefighters are right there.”
He pointed across her, but instead of looking at the trucks as they rushed by, she grabbed his arm and held it to her body.
If perhaps it were any other moment, Benji would have let himself get distracted by her lush form pressing into his arm. But it certainly wasn’t that kind of moment, so he stored those thoughts to think about later, on his own time.
“I can hear them,” she whispered.
“Who?”
“My brothers.”
“They’re not there. I promise. Okay, Dani? They’re in the hospital right now, safe and sound.”
A keening noise issued from her lips. It was even worse than the sounds she had made earlier. “But… I hear them.”
“I know, but they’re not there. I swear it.”
She nodded dully, sinking into softer whimpers. “I could have saved them…”
Benji didn’t know what to say to that, so he just let her hold onto his arm and cry as long as she needed.
And if she needed anything else, he’d do that too.
11
Danielle
Dani woke up with a groan, her head feeling full and heavy like someone had filled her entire skull with wax. She always felt like that after taking a sleeping pill, which was why she usually avoided them, but after her third night in a row with only a couple of hours of sleep, she’d given in to a little help.
Her eyes fluttered open, seeing a form above her. While it was unusual for one of her parents to be in her room, waiting for her to wake up, she’d found her mom asleep in the rocking chair in the corner of her room more than a couple of times since her brothers had been injured.
But as her vision cleared, she realized it very much wasn’t her mother. In fact, the person was probably the farthest she could get from her mom considering that Benji himself was staring down at her in concern.
“What are you doing here?” she cried, sitting up with a jolt.
“Hey, there. You feeling okay?” he asked, handing her a glass of water.
“What I’m feeling is alarmed.”
“Your parents are cleaning some things up and talking to the police. They asked me to watch you while you slept. We didn’t realize you’d taken a sleeping pill before waking up and dealing with all the excitement. Which makes sense given—”
“Given what?” she cut him off sharply, already feeling like far too much had happened far too soon after she’d woken up.
“Well, uh, given your behavior last night.”
Last night? What could he be—
Oh.
Memories finally came rushing back to her. There’d been a forest fire last night after she’d taken her sleeping pill and gone to bed. Benji had sounded the alarm and jolted her out of her sleeping-pill induced dreaming.
Dani groaned, trying to recall all the fuzzy details. The night took on a syrupy sort of haze in her mind, replaying like an old VHS that had one too many scratches on it. While there wasn’t a clear storyline from start to finish, there was enough to tell her that she hadn’t been acting entirely… lucid.
“Oh, my dear Lord on High,” Dani groaned, sinking her head onto her knees. She was so embarrassed. Like cheeks burning, ears red, wanting to sink into the ground and never emerge kind of embarrassed.
He must think that she was absolutely insane. Off her rocker. Mental. Who ran toward a fire? Especially since her brothers had almost been killed doing the exact same thing.
Well, if she was going to be forced to actually live through the humiliation, then she might as well try to get it over with.
“I, uh, I guess I owe you an apology then.”
Benji’s eyes went wide, and he looked genuinely surprised. “Huh? An apology for what?”
Either he was really good at being polite or he was an alien, she wasn’t quite sure. To be fair, he was ridiculously handsome.
“You know, for being, uh, prickly in general and maybe a little bit insane last night.”
He just shrugged, taking the empty glass of water from her hand and sliding a cereal bar into her grip.
“There’s really nothing to apologize about. Stress, plus trauma, plus a fire seems like a pretty good reason to cry to me.”
Oh goodness, she really had cried, hadn’t she? Like a baby. She was sure he was going to judge her for that forever. Silly little Dani Touhey, who burst into tears in the middle of the woods like a lunatic. Goodness knows that she had long since learned that crying in front of a bully was to give them the ultimate satisfaction that they had done their job right.
Huh… did that make the fire a bully?
She didn’t know, she was getting her metaphors and reasons and everything all mixed up. Maybe it was the sleeping pills. Or maybe it was because her worst nightmare had come true. The fire had returned.
“Are we being targeted?” she heard herself ask Benji before she could stop herself.
Ugh, she sounded so weak. So scared. But that was probably because she was. When the yellow and orange glow of those ravenous flames had lit up the night, somehow, she was right back at the barn.
His face crumpled a bit more and his hand came forward again to grip her free one. She stared at the gesture, trying to figure out why he was comforting her when he should be running for the hills.
But his calloused fingertips winding around her palm gave her comfort. Like they were grounding her and shaking the last bit of last night’s fogginess from her mind. She had kept a solid distance from him ever since that morning in the kitchen together, when he’d first said such strange things to her, but she didn’t have it in her to pull away.
She didn’t want to pull away.
Normally her walls were so high and she was so intent on never letting someone outside of her family get close to her, but it felt pretty nice to have him offering her that small bit of solace when she was so afraid of what his answer might be.
“I don’t know. They’re investigating. It does seem unlikely that it is a coincidence, but I don’t want you to worry.”
Dani outright snorted at that. “A serial arsonist is possibly targeting my family. I think worry is a foregone conclusion at this point.”
He smiled ever so slightly. “I could see that. But I guess we should try to keep it down to a minimum until we know what’s going on.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “You want another glass of water?”
She nodded and he stood, grabbing the glass and heading out. She listened to him walk to the bathroom then turn the tap on, so she hurriedly dug in her nightstand for her compact mirror.
It was there for when she woke up with a painful pimple on her face, but she quickly used it to straighten her hair and wipe the gummies from her eyes. Good gracious, she looked rough. Like… well, like she had tried to take on a forest fire by herself while in a partial sleep-aid induced fugue. Granted, she couldn’t blame it all on the meds. A good chunk of it was definitely related to it being a fire, she knew that much.
Maybe she should see a therapist?
But she would have to see one out of town which meant even more trips into the city. And she just didn’t have time for
that.
Benji returned with a full glass, handing it to her before sitting back in the rocker that had been pulled close to her bed.
She eyed him suspiciously, her head feeling all muddled up. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
He smiled crookedly, giving her a look that no doubt had melted many a girl’s heart throughout his life.
“Am I really being ‘so nice’?”
Well, she wasn’t going to let him tease her like that. She affixed him with a critical expression.
“You helped me last night. And you brought me here—that couldn’t have been easy. You also sat here for goodness knows how long so my parents could deal with things, and now you’re waiting on me hand and foot.”
He chuckled at that. “I would hardly call getting you a glass of water waiting on you hand and foot.”
“Excuse me, two glasses of water,” she countered.
“Ah, of course. That makes all the difference.”
“You bet it does.”
The exchange startled a little laugh out of her. Was she really… bantering with someone? Let alone someone who had contributed to—or at least hadn’t prevented—her getting bullied in high school?
“But seriously. I haven’t exactly been the nicest to you. And it’s not like we got off on the right foot. I wanted you to know that I wasn’t your fan and made sure you knew it.”
Another chuckle from him. “Don’t worry. Your intent came across quite clear.”
“So then why?”
He shrugged, looking a bit uncomfortable, but she couldn’t help it. Her natural sense of the order of things told her that something was amiss. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go.
“Maybe I thought that you deserved a little kindness.”
That was possibly the last thing she expected to hear. “Why on earth would you think that?” she blurted out before she could think better of it.
In response, he sat back, giving her the tiniest of shrugs. “Just what I happen to think.”
“That doesn’t make any sense though. No one’s kind to a stranger without wanting something.”