Torch (Take It Off)

by Cambria Hebert

  I leaned on him for a few seconds and then pulled away. “Thank you for the ride. For everything.”

  “You really need to stop thanking me.” His lip tilted up in the corner.

  I pulled the key out of my pocket and hugged the bag against my chest, putting a barrier between us. “Well, I have a lot to do,” I began, not really knowing what to say.

  “You’re sure you won’t stay at my place?”

  I nodded. “I’m sure.”

  Now more than ever I wanted to be alone. I wanted some time to think—to absorb what had happened. I needed to regroup and make a plan. Once I had a plan, I would feel more in control.

  I glanced back at the gaping hole that was my home.

  I needed to get out of here. Being here, seeing this, was not helping. It was making everything worse.

  “I have to go,” I told him.

  He frowned, watching me like I was on the verge of some mental breakdown.

  Maybe I was.

  I didn’t bother to try and say anything else. It didn’t matter what I said anyway. It would all come out awkward. I walked to my car, which was covered in soot and ash, and climbed inside. I turned the key, letting out a breath when the engine roared to life. I cranked the air and then leaned over, opening the glove compartment, smiling a little when my ID and a twenty spilled out.

  I had an ID.

  I had a twenty.

  I had my car.

  It was a start.

  I pulled out of the driveway and pointed my car away from the destruction. The hollow feeling in my chest, the ache deep in my bones didn’t lessen as I drove away.

  Even still, I didn’t look back.

  7

  I chose a locally owned motel—not one of the chain hotels in the area. This one was small and less crowded looking. Plus the rates here were a lot less than the other places I looked. Yes, I had money in savings—but very little. Everything I’d saved as a teenager had gone into the purchase of my little house and all the furnishings inside.

  I knew I would get the bulk of it back (thank goodness for insurance), but it would take a while, and until then I was going to have to be very careful about how much money I spent.

  After I paid for a single room, I drove my car down the parking lot. It was a one-story motel made entirely of brick, and all the rooms sat connected together in a row. All the doors were red, and I drove past the line of them toward the end unit where I parked my car.

  I still hadn’t been shopping, so I had nothing to bring inside but my little bag of ruined pajamas and the bandages the nurse gave me at the hospital. The inside of the room was very basic. A twin-sized bed sat in the center of the room with a dark-blue quilt covering the top. The carpet was also dark blue—the kind that wasn’t really there for comfort but necessity. There was a tall wooden dresser against the wall and the television sat on top of it. There were a couple of ocean prints hanging on the white walls and heavy blue draperies hanging on the window beside the door. Because this was an end unit, I got the luxury (if you could call it that) of having an extra window on the far right wall with the same heavy drapery.

  There was a small bathroom with a single sink, toilet, and shower. The shower curtain was white and so were the scratchy-looking towels.

  It wasn’t my idea of home, but it would do for a while.

  I spent the next two days dealing with the insurance company, the bank, the driver’s license office, and shopping at Target for some new things to wear. I managed to keep my job and get the weekend off, needing to report back to work on Monday morning.

  I didn’t sleep well in the little motel room. The bed was uncomfortable and I kept waking up flushed with sweat and feeling my heart pound, only to not remember what I was dreaming about.

  When darkness covered the sky on the second night, my stomach began to churn with nerves.

  I wondered what Holt was doing, if he was at work. Part of me wanted to see him, to be comforted by his presence. But it wasn’t his responsibility to comfort me. He’d already done enough for me—saving my life and giving me somewhere to stay my first night out of the hospital.

  I told myself the reason I kept thinking about him was because he saved me. He literally walked through fire to carry me to safety. If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t be here at all. I was somehow bonded to him. I felt like he was literally my lifeline. I supposed it was natural and would fade over time, hopefully sooner rather than later. I kept looking at the phone, like I wanted to call him to hear his voice, but I knew I shouldn’t.

  I settled for taking a quick shower instead—skipping washing my hair (too much wrist involvement)—and then changing my bandages. The burns didn’t seem as bad as before—they still hurt; it was just more bearable.

  After showering, I pulled on a pair of sleep shorts and a tank top from one of the shopping bags and dressed carefully. My muscles felt a lot better today, as well as the bruise on my shoulder, finally a fading yellow color.

  Everything was going to be okay. My body was healing. I still had a job. I would get the insurance money, and I could buy a new house. Soon, everything would be back to normal.

  I watched reruns of Friends on the TV until my eyes wouldn’t stay open anymore, and I shut it off and snuggled down in the covers, falling asleep quickly.

  But I didn’t stay asleep very long.

  I was awakened by the sound of shattering glass.

  As my eyes sprang open, I heard a hard thud on the floor a few feet from the bed. I jolted up immediately, trying to focus my sleep-heavy eyes.

  Something orange caught my eye, and then a familiar scent wafted into my nose.

  Pure panic burst inside me. It was so strong that I felt dizzy, and I sat there battling it, trying to take control. I leapt to my feet and stared across the room at the bottle that had been thrown through the window.

  It was on fire.

  I took a single step closer, peering down at the glass.

  It was a jar of some kind. It had a rag stuffed halfway into it. The exposed ends were blazing, catching the floor around it on fire as well. I grabbed a pillow off the bed, thinking I could smother it, and stepped closer, trying to shut down the panic that was still trying to take control of my body and mind.

  When I was a few feet from jar, it exploded. It made a sharp pop and then glass flew everywhere. I screamed, shielding myself with the pillow, and jumped back, hitting the corner of the bed and falling backward. My head bounced off the floor, and the pillow landed on top of my face.

  I lay there sprawled out, trying to catch my breath. The telltale whoosh had me scurrying off the floor and tossing the pillow aside. The curtains were on fire. In fact, most of that side of the room was on fire. The jar must have been filled with some kind of gasoline. When it exploded, fire burst everywhere.

  Knowing I couldn’t put out the fire, I ran toward the door, fumbling with the chain and then yanking the handle.

  The door wouldn’t budge.

  I tried again.

  Nothing.

  There was something blocking the exit.

  I rushed toward the window beside the door and yanked open the curtains, trying to see what was in the way.

  The window was blocked too.

  I glanced back at the raging fire. It consumed that side of the room like a hungry wolf, and I knew soon it would be spreading toward me.

  Smoke was beginning to cloud the room, making it harder to breathe. I rushed to the nightstand and dialed 9-1-1.

  I waited anxiously for the operator to come onto the line.

  There was no ringing. No operator.

  There was no dial tone.

  No help.

  Someone cut the phone line.

  With an anguished cry, I dropped the receiver and looked around wildly for something—anything that would help me.

  I ended up throwing myself against the door, banging on the wood and screaming for help. Surely someone in another room would hear me. Surely someone would help.


  Except I was the only car in the parking lot when I got back.

  The front desk. Someone was always there. Hopefully they would smell the fire and come to investigate.

  I kept screaming, yelling for help. The effort robbed me of the oxygen I needed, and a familiar pressure began to build in my chest.

  It was the same feeling from the night I almost died.

  Not again.

  Thinking fast, I grabbed up the lamp, yanking the cord out of the wall, and went to the window, smashing the lamp into the glass. It cracked but didn’t shatter. I hit the glass again; this time a large shard fell to the floor and burst at my feet.

  I ignored the fresh, stinging cuts on my feet as I reached my hand out the broken glass and tried to shove away whatever was there. It was really heavy. It didn’t even budge.

  I started to cry.

  I was trapped in here with a blazing fire. I had moments—maybe seconds left to live. I was going to die because I didn’t know how to get out.

  Just then I heard a loud crashing sound.

  Someone was outside!

  I started to scream anew, putting my face up to the broken glass and yelling as loud as I could.

  The door to the room splintered and burst in, fragments of wood going everywhere.

  “Katie!” someone roared.

  “Holt!” I cried, jerking away from the window and rushing toward the door.

  Flames were dangerously close now, eating up part of the doorframe and the carpet below. The rush of oxygen that came into the room with the opening of the door seemed to fuel the flames even more, and they burst forward in a great rush, completely overtaking the exit.

  The bulky outline of Holt was suddenly concealed by flames.

  I screamed his name again. Fear that he was burned turned my knees to Jell-O. I heard him cuss and call for me again, and then there was another crash and whatever was sitting in front of the window was gone.

  Holt was there punching through the broken glass and reaching a bloodied arm through the opening.

  “Come on!” he yelled.

  I rushed to the window, pausing to grab my few shopping bags nearby and throwing them out the opening (hey, it was all I had to my name. I wasn’t about to let it be destroyed). Holt shoved them away and reached for me as I flung myself out the opening.

  And then Holt was there, grabbing me beneath my arms and towing me over the broken vending machines that lay damaged in front of my room and across the parking lot toward his truck, which was haphazardly parked in the center of the empty lot. I couldn’t stop coughing. They were deep, menacing coughs that made it hard to walk, and I stumbled onto my knees.

  I would have fallen, but he caught me, swinging me up and rushing the rest of the way behind his truck.

  I heard more shattering glass and the groan of wood as he sat me down on the hard asphalt and leaned over me.

  “I leave you alone for two days,” he shouted, shoving his hands through his hair. “What the hell happened!”

  He was bleeding. Dark rivulets of blood trailed down his arm and dripped off his elbows onto the ground below. Slowly, I slid down the side of his truck until I was sitting on the ground, still grasping for breath.

  “Katie!” he yelled, gripping my shoulder and leaning in to look into my eyes. “Stay with me.”

  The distant sound of sirens filled the air, and I knew within minutes the place would be swarming with police officers and firefighters. It was minutes I wouldn’t have had. If Holt hadn’t gotten here when he did, I would likely be dead right now.

  That had me looking up.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I came by to check on you. I was worried.”

  “How did you know where I was?” I said, suspicion leaking into my tone.

  He crouched down in front of me, my feet between his legs. “I saw your car in the lot,” he explained. “I knew you worked at the library nearby, so I thought you might pick somewhere close to stay.”

  My shoulders sagged.

  He put a hand under my chin and lifted my face. “Look at me,” he demanded.

  I looked up.

  “Do you think this was me?”

  “No,” I said, ashamed of the catch in my voice. I really didn’t think he did this, but I was scared and I was so very tired.

  “Can I touch you?” he asked, his voice calm.

  I looked up, surprised that he didn’t sound angry. I nodded.

  He yanked me forward, folding his arms around me and standing up, bringing me with him. My feet touched the ground, but they didn’t support me. His arms, his body kept me up. He wrapped himself around me like I was a hand and he was a glove. I clung to the front of his shirt, praying he wouldn’t let me go. When his grip tightened, I sighed in relief. His clean scent encompassed me, pushing away some of the smoke, and tears prickled my eyes.

  When the emergency trucks swerved into the lot, my muscles tensed at the thought he would release me, that he would push me away and deal with the fire.

  But he didn’t.

  He didn’t let go. Not once.

  Even when some of the men he must work with came running up—addressing him by his last name and exclaiming over what happened.

  He spoke calmly over my head, telling them everything he knew and telling them I wasn’t ready to talk. He didn’t seem embarrassed to be holding me so close in the center of a parking lot. He didn’t act like being seen in a vulnerable position like this wounded his pride at all.

  He just stood there in the center of chaos with flames blazing, water spraying, and the shouts of responders all around, and he was completely still.

  He was the anchor to my drifting boat. The roots to my growing tree. Without him, I surely would have floated away into some kind of unreachable place within the confines of my brain.

  No matter how much I wanted to deny it.

  Not matter how much I could say it wasn’t true.

  There was no getting around it.

  This wasn’t an accident.

  Someone was trying to kill me.

  8

  The first light of day peeked through the sky when I stepped out of the police station after several hours of questioning. Even after the hours of invasive questions, I knew no one had any clue what was going on. The fact was I didn’t have anyone in my life. There was literally no one. And that meant whoever was doing this had motives I didn’t know about. Motives I didn’t understand.

  The police couldn’t offer much comfort. They only assured me they would be investigating and warned me to be very careful in my daily life.

  Gosh, really?

  I was muttering to myself, trying to decide what to do next, when I looked up.

  His truck was parked at the curb.

  He was leaning against the door, looking smoky and rumpled. His arms were crossed over his chest and he watched me with a heavy stare.

  “Holt?” I said, stepping forward. “I thought they released you a couple hours ago.”

  He pushed away from the truck. “I’ve been waiting for you.” He opened the passenger door and motioned for me to get in.

  I noticed my bags sitting on seat. “Is that my stuff?”

  He nodded. “It reeks of smoke. You can wash it at home.”

  “Home?”

  “My place.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but then I closed it again. I was shaken up. I had nowhere to go, my car was still sitting at the motel, seized for possible evidence, and I didn’t want to be alone. If he was offering me a place to stay, then I was going to accept it.

  I climbed into the truck and turned to face him. “Good girl,” he said.

  Before he could slam the door, I caught it with my foot and glared at him. “Good girl?” I mocked. “Do I look like a dog to you?”

  He smirked. “No, Freckles, you definitely do not.”

  I crossed my arms across my chest and glared at him.

  He sighed. “Give a guy a break. I’m tired.
”

  “Me too,” I said, dropping my attitude.

  After he settled behind the wheel, he lifted a pink drink in a clear cup out of the cup holder in the center console. I hadn’t even noticed it was there. He extended it to me and I took it.