Torch (Take It Off)

by Cambria Hebert

  A man with jeans and a black T-shirt leaned over me. “Holy shit! Are you all right? He tried to run you down.”

  I looked up at him, pressing a hand to my forehead. Everything was tilted and dizzy.

  “I’m calling the cops,” he said and yanked out a cell phone. That’s when I noticed his shoes. They were brand new or rarely worn. A common men’s brand.

  I lurched up from the pavement, reaching out a hand to steady myself against the car nearby. The man reached out to help me, and I jerked away before he could touch me.

  “No need to call the police. I’m fine.”

  His eyes about fell out of his head. He was young, maybe my age. He didn’t look like the type of guy that would try to burn me to death. More than once. I hated the fact that I was instantly suspicious of everyone around me.

  Of course, what did I expect? For him to walk around wearing a T-shirt that said PYRO across the front?

  Unlikely.

  “Lady, that guy just tried to run you down!”

  “Yeah, I was there,” I snapped. I was really getting tired of someone trying to kill me.

  “You need to call the cops,” said a woman standing nearby.

  “Did anyone get his plates? A description? Anything?” I asked. Anything at all would be helpful.

  Everyone looked around blankly at each other.

  The guy with the sneakers spoke up. “It was a man. He was wearing glasses and a dark hoodie.”

  My knee was scraped from where I fell and I could feel the warm blood oozing down my lower leg.

  “Thank you,” I told him, trying not to look at his shoes and scream. I knew he wasn’t the one trying to kill me, but it drove me crazy that I felt like I couldn’t trust anyone. How was I supposed to carry on with my life and not stare at every man wearing these shoes or a dark hoodie? Is this how my life was going to be from now on—me looking over my shoulder, searching every face for a sign they were the one?

  Sneaker man watched me warily. I mustered what smile I could and said, “Thank you for offering me help. I really appreciate it.”

  “You really don’t want me to call the cops?”

  “No. There’s nothing they can do. He’s gone.”

  Someone else approached and I tensed, expecting some sort of attack. A young couple held out my bags, offering me my spilled purchases.

  “I think we got everything,” the girl said sympathetically. She had a long blond ponytail and really pretty skin.

  I thanked them and then bent to pick up everything that dumped out of my purse when I fell.

  The crowd started to thin, thankfully, and all I wanted to do was leave. Gripping the bags in both hands, I stepped away from the car on unsteady legs and looked at the truck, which stood like a beacon in the distance.

  But then I remembered my sunglasses.

  I must have dropped them in my haste to not become road kill.

  They were lying in the street.

  Beside the shopping cart.

  It was completely dented and one of the wheels had fallen off.

  I reached down and picked up the sunglasses. They were snapped in half and one of the lenses was shattered.

  What a shame, I thought. What a waste of good eyewear.

  A hysterical laugh bubbled up in my throat, and I swallowed it, trekking the distance to the truck, tossing my bags inside and then hoisting myself in.

  Once there, I collapsed against the seat, trying to calm the shaking of my hands.

  It could have been an accident.

  I knew it wasn’t.

  15

  I went home. I only hit a couple curbs along the way, one of them being in front of the house.

  I let myself inside and proceeded to check every room and closet to make sure there were no murderers lurking, and then I went into the bathroom and cleaned up the scrape and drying blood on my leg.

  Thank goodness he had a first aid kit beneath the sink because I needed a bandage.

  After that I curled up on the couch, inhaling Holt’s scent on the cushions. I flipped through the channels on TV, looking for something that might take my mind off the fact someone out there wanted me dead.

  It wasn’t something I could wrap my brain around easily. It seemed one minute I was shelving books, going treasure hunting at flea markets, and wondering what type of candy to eat when I watched a movie, and the next I was constantly chased by a burning flame, looking over my shoulder when I went out in public, and living with a man I just met.

  Mom always said the key to life was playing the cards you were dealt. Well, how could I play when I didn’t understand the game?

  A commercial for some entertainment “news” show that came on at night broke into my thoughts, causing me to look up.

  New details on last month’s death of iconic rocker Tony Diesel have been released. The autopsy report confirms that his sudden and shocking death was caused by an accidental drug overdose. Tony was buried weeks ago in an exclusive Beverly Hills cemetery. The service was not open to the public. Now that the cause of death is confirmed, all attention will be directed…

  I picked up the remote and changed the channel, completely uninterested in celebrity gossip.

  I didn’t know who Tony Diesel was. I didn’t listen to rock music. I thought it sounded like a bunch of men screaming unintelligible words into a microphone. I preferred pop and country music. But it did seem like he and I had something in common.

  Neither one of us was too good for death.

  It didn’t matter how much money you had, how famous you were, or how badly you just wanted to be left alone. A drug overdose seemed like a pretty crappy way to die. Of course I really didn’t know of any good ways to die.

  I shook my head. I was being weird and morbid. All these thoughts about death and dying. Checking the closets and the showers for lurking killers. This wasn’t reality. This was a nightmare, and I badly wanted to wake up.

  And since I was already awake, that didn’t really seem like an option.

  So I decided to be in denial.

  I was going to sit here and watch an infomercial on hair loss for men and pretend I didn’t have a care in the world.

  Okay, I wasn’t going to watch that. It was ridiculous.

  I flipped around until I found a marathon of The Vampire Diaries.

  At least the men on that show weren’t balding.

  I immersed myself in love triangles and teen drama for the rest of the day. It was actually pretty entertaining. Even still, when it was time to pick up Holt, I was glad. I’d missed him all day. And it wasn’t because I’d been scared. There had been a lot of times in my life when I was scared or unsure, and I never missed anyone; I only ever counted on myself.

  I missed Holt because… well, because.

  I wasn’t going to think about that either.

  As I was walked out to the truck (I parked it on the road so I wouldn’t have to back out of the driveway) a car was driving down the street. Normally, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, except for the fact someone had just tried to mow me down.

  Instead of moving toward the truck, I stopped in the center of the yard and stared at the car as it crept by. It wasn’t a dark sedan like the car in the Target parking lot. It was a silver BMW.

  I swear it slowed down as it passed the yard where I stood. The windows were so darkly tinted that I couldn’t see who sat inside. I waited until the car turned off the street before bolting to the truck and shutting myself inside.

  At the end of the street, I stopped, making sure no one was behind me, and put the truck in park to adjust the phone books beneath my butt. One was sliding loose and it was very uncomfortable.

  Once that was finished, I put the truck back in drive and glanced down the street before pulling out. The silver BMW was parked a few houses down at the curb.

  Strange, I thought and pulled out. About four houses down in the opposite direction, the BMW pulled out onto the road and followed me.

  Call me cra
zy, but this probably wasn’t good.

  My grip on the steering wheel tightened; my knuckles turned white. I told myself to calm down, that it was probably someone just driving to wherever they had to be. But that didn’t stop me from compulsively checking the rearview mirror to see if they were still there every three seconds.

  They were.

  It was a man, if I wasn’t mistaken. He had very short hair and sunglasses on his face. I couldn’t make out anything more, and I needed to keep my attention on driving. I thought about calling Holt, but then I remembered I didn’t get a new cell phone yet.

  I came to a rather large intersection and figured this would be the place he would turn. He would go right toward the more congested area with the shops and restaurants, and I would go left toward the firehouse.

  But that isn’t how it happened.

  I turned and so did he, getting bolder and moving right up behind me. He trailed so close behind that when I looked in the rearview, I couldn’t see his front bumper. Nerves cramped my stomach and I fidgeted in my seat. Sweat slicked my palms, making the steering wheel slippery as I drove.

  Almost there.

  The man following along behind me laid on his horn. I jumped and one of the phone books slid off the stack. I sat up as high and straight as I could and scooted to the edge of the seat, pressing down on the gas a little more. The large engine responded immediately and I shot forward.

  The BMW shot forward as well.

  When I looked in the rearview, I noted he wasn’t only tailgating me and laying on his horn, but now he had his arm out the window, shaking it at me.

  His arm was covered in dark fabric.

  Panic took over.

  The fire station came into view, and I put the pedal to the metal. The truck ripped up the street, the tires peeling against the road and kicking up a little smoke. I didn’t care. I kept going, driving as fast as I could. I almost overshot the parking lot, but I slammed on the brakes, jerked the wheel, and drove up over the curb. I skidded to a stop in the center lane, not in a parking spot and not giving two shits.

  I shoved open the door as one of the men came around a giant fire engine, confusion on his face. I jumped to the ground, stumbling a bit, my wrist taking some of the fall, and I cried out.

  The BMW pulled into the lot behind me, the car screeching to a halt. The driver’s door opened so the man could climb out.

  “Help me!” I cried, pushing up and rushing toward the fireman. “That man is chasing me!”

  I dashed forward and he caught me by the shoulders, his gaze sharpening on the other man behind me.

  “He tried to run me off the road!”

  Other men were spilling out of the garage now, assessing the situation and forming a circle around me.

  “Katie,” the man yelled, and I turned, looking around at the guys surrounding me. My pursuer was an older man with broad shoulders and a tan.

  “Oh my God, he knows my name,” I told the man still gripping my shoulders. His dark eyes narrowed on my face and his mouth pulled into a grim line.

  “He won’t get near you,” he promised.

  The man rushed forward and I shrieked.

  He was intercepted by several very angry firefighters. He tried to push through them, still intent on getting to me. I heard him speak but didn’t hear his words.

  And then one of the men drove his fist into the man’s face and he crumpled to the ground.

  My entire body slumped with relief.

  The loud bang of a door swinging open and hitting a wall made me jump and look toward the firehouse. Heavy footsteps pounded inside the garage, drawing closer as Holt yelled my name.

  When I caught a glimpse of him, my entire body gave a great sigh. The men around me parted, giving him a path directly to me. He stopped just shy of yanking me into his arms, his eyes sweeping over every inch of me before settling on my face.

  “I didn’t wreck your truck,” I said, trying to sound anything other than completely terrified.

  And then I was in his arms. My face buried against the strength of his chest.

  Finally, I was safe.

  16

  “Shouldn’t we have stayed?” I asked him, glancing out the rear window as we drove away from the fire station.

  “If we stayed, I would have killed him.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess it’s good we left, then.”

  “Do you want to explain to me why I want to kill that guy back there?”

  I told him exactly what happened, leaving out the part about almost getting run over at Target. I figured it wouldn’t help his murderous tendencies.

  Look at me, joking about murder. It really just wasn’t funny.

  “He knew my name,” I whispered. I think that was the part that bothered me the most.

  Holt held out his arm and I slid across the seat and fit myself into his side. A few minutes later, we arrived back at his house and that made me think of something else.

  “He knows where we live.” And that took something away from me that I didn’t even realize I had. Security. The walls of this house made me feel protected, made me feel like I didn’t have to be scared all the time.

  “If anybody wants in that house, Katie, they’re gonna have to go through me.”

  That didn’t make me feel better. It made me feel worse. I didn’t want any kind of harm to come to him while he tried to protect me.

  Inside, I retreated to the bathroom to wipe my face with a cool rag and calm my tattered nerves. Holt was in the kitchen scrounging through the cupboards and that’s when I realized I hadn’t gone grocery shopping.

  “I forgot to get something for dinner,” I said from the edge of the room.

  “Want to go out?”

  “Sure.” It would be better than sitting around here and waiting for something bad to happen. “I’m just going to shower really fast.” I thought maybe it would help wash away some of the crazy I was involved in today.

  Holt nodded and kept scrounging around for a snack. I remembered the power bars I bought and went to get them out of the sack I had dumped on the bed and ignored.

  “Here,” I said, handing over the two boxes. I was hoping he didn’t notice how the boxes were mashed and mangled looking.

  “What the hell happened to these?”

  “I dropped them,” I mumbled and turned to flee into the shower.

  “What happened to your knee, Katie?” The edge in his voice stopped me in my tracks.

  “My knee?” I asked innocently.

  “Freckles,” he growled, the warning clear.

  “I had an accident in the parking lot at Target.”

  “What kind of accident?”

  I decided just to get it over with. “Attempted hit and run.”

  “There isn’t a scratch on my truck,” he said, not really understanding what I meant.

  “I wasn’t the one doing the hitting. I was the one doing the running.”

  “Are you telling me someone tried to run you over with their car?”

  “I’m fine,” I insisted.

  “Why didn’t you call me!” he demanded.

  “Because you were at work.”

  “So?”

  “So… I’m not going to come running to you every time something happens.”

  “I take it you didn’t call the police either?” he said, his voice tight.

  “No. I just wanted to come home.”

  “Jesus.”

  “That’s not very nice language.”

  He barked a laugh and shook his head. “You are a walking magnet for trouble.”

  “I didn’t ask you to deal with my trouble,” I snapped and then raced into the bathroom and shut myself in.

  Tears burned the backs of my eyes and it made me angry. I would not cry. I was done crying.

  I turned on the shower and then cracked the bathroom door, making sure he wasn’t standing outside, just waiting to yell at me again. He wasn’t, so I gathered all my things out of the bedroom and slipped back
inside.

  I kept the water at a lukewarm temperature; I found that hot water made me feel anxious these days—probably because of all the heat I endured in the fires. The memory of the last time I was in this shower seemed to be all I could think about.