by Nora Roberts
Spots sprang up so fast and often, she began to feel like she was playing a deadly game of Whac-A-Mole.
She gulped down water on the run, splashed more on her sweaty face. And resisted the constant urge to call into base, again, for a report on Yangtree.
Better to believe he was alive and fighting. To believe it and make it true.
Under that remained the nagging fear that it hadn’t been an accident but sabotage.
How many others harbored that same fear? she wondered. How did they bear down and focus with that clawing at the mind? How could she when she kept going over every minute and move in the ready room, on the flight, on the jump sequence?
Had something been off even then? Should she have seen it?
Later, she ordered herself, relive it later. Right now, just live.
With her stamina flagging, she pulled an energy bar out of her bag, started to tear the wrapper.
She dropped it, ran, when she heard the scream.
Smoke blinded her, disoriented her. She forced herself to stop, close her eyes. Think.
Due north. Yes, north, she decided, and sprinted forward.
She spotted the radio smoldering and sparking on the ground, and the blood smeared on the ground at the base of a snag that burned like a candle. Nearby a full engulfed branch snaked fire over the ground.
Alarmed for her friends, she cupped her hands to her mouth, started to shout. Then dropped them again with sickness countering fear. She saw the blood trail, heading east, and followed it as she slowly drew her radio out of her belt.
Because she knew now, and somewhere inside her she wondered if she’d always known—or at least wondered. But loyalty hadn’t allowed it, she admitted. It simply hadn’t allowed her to cross the line—except in dreams.
Now with her heart heavy with grief, she prepared to cross the line.
Before she could flick on her radio, he was there, just there, a lit fusee in his hand, and his eyes full of misery. He heaved it when he saw her, setting off his tiny bomb. A black spruce went off like a Roman candle.
“I don’t want to hurt you. Not you.”
“Why would you hurt me?” She met those sad eyes. “We’re friends.”
“I don’t want to.” Matt pulled the gun out of his belt. “But I will. Throw away the radio.”
“Matt—” She jolted a little when Gibbons spoke her name through the radio.
“If you answer it, I’ll shoot you. I’ll be sorry for it, but I’ll do what has to be done. I’m doing what has to be done.”
“Where’s Cards?”
“Throw the radio away, Rowan. Throw it!” he snapped. “Or I’ll use this. I’ll put a bullet in your leg, then let the fire decide.”
“Okay. All right.” She opened her hand, let it drop, but he shook his head.
“Kick it away. Don’t test me.”
“I’m not. I won’t.” She heard Janis’s voice now as she kicked it aside. “We’ve got to get out of here, Matt. The place is coming apart. It’s not safe.”
She struggled to keep her eyes level with his, but she’d seen the Pulaski hooked in his belt, and the blood gleaming on the pick.
Cards.
“I never wanted it to be you. It wasn’t your fault. And you came to the funeral. You sat with my mother.”
“What happened to Jim wasn’t anyone’s fault.”
“Dolly got him worked up, got him all twisted around. Got us both all twisted around so the last things we said to each other were ugly things. And Cards was his spotter. He should’ve seen Jim wasn’t right to jump. You know that’s so.”
“Where’s Cards?”
“He got away from me. Maybe the fire’s got him. It’s about fate anyway. I should’ve shot him to be sure of it, but it’s about fate and destiny. Luck, maybe. I don’t decide. Dolly fell. I didn’t kill her; she fell.”
“I believe you, Matt. We need to head north, then we can talk when—”
“I gave her money, you know, for the baby. But she wanted more. I was just going to talk to her, have it out with her when I went by her house. And she was just driving off, without the baby. She was a bad mother.”
“I know.” Calm, agreeable, understanding. “Matt, who’d know better than me about that? About Shiloh being better off now? I’m on your side.”
“She went to that motel. She was a tramp. I saw him, the preacher, come to the door to let her in. My brother’s dead, and she’s balling that preacher in a motel room. I wanted to go in, but I was afraid of what I might do. I waited, and she came out and drove away.”
She heard another tree torch off. “Matt—”
“She got that flat tire. That was fate, wasn’t it? She was surprised to see me—guilt all over her—when I pulled in behind her. I told her to pull off onto the service road. I was going to have it out with her. But the things she said . . . If she hadn’t been screwing around, hadn’t been a liar, a cheat, a selfish bitch, I wouldn’t have pushed her that way. She was just going to up and leave that baby. Did you know? What kind of mother does that?”
“We have to move,” she told him, keeping her tone calm but firm. “I want you to tell me everything, Matt. I want to listen, but we’re going to be cut off if we don’t move.”
“Shiloh’s . . . may be my baby.”
He wiped his free hand over his mouth as Rowan stared at him. “It was just one time, when I was so lonely and missing Annie so much, and drinking a little. It was just one time.”
“I understand.” It made her sick inside, for all of them. “I get lonely, too.”
“You don’t! She told me it was mine, and she told Jim it was his. Then she said it was mine, maybe, because she knew he didn’t want a baby, didn’t want her. She knew I’d do what I had to do, and I’d have to tell Annie. And we fought about it right before the siren went off, me and Jim. He was on the list. I wasn’t. He’s dead. I’m not.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“What do you know about it! I told him to go to hell, and he did. This is hell. I was just going to fix Cards so he couldn’t jump because that’s what he loves most. Like I loved my brother. Put something in his food, trip him up. And I was just going to get the baby from Dolly, have her for my ma. That was the right thing. But she fell, and I had to do something, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“I sent her to hell. That’s when I knew I had to do what needed doing. I had to get the baby for my ma, so I had to get Leo out of the way. Make him pay, too. He was always giving Jim grief, never had a good thing to say.”
“So you got his rifle out of his gun safe, and you shot at me. You shot at me and Gull.”
“Not at you. I wasn’t going to hurt you. Dolly told Jim the combination, and he told me. It was like he was showing me what to do. Leo had to pay, and he did. I got the baby for my ma. Jim would’ve wanted that.”
“Okay.” Firebrands flew like missiles. “You were getting justice for Jim, and doing what you could for your family. And I’ll listen to you, do whatever you want, just tell me. But not here. The wind’s changed. Matt, for God’s sake, we’re going to be trapped in this if we don’t move.”
Those sad eyes never wavered. “It’s up to fate, like I said. Up to fate who got the bad pumps and saws, who got the bad chute.”
“You played Russian roulette with our chutes?” She regretted it immediately, but the fury just bubbled out. “Yangtree never did anything to you. He might die.”
“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