Blazing Fear

by Leisl Leighton

  She got back in the car and drove towards Wilson’s Bend and Rawson where the police station was. She was halfway down the main street of Wilson’s Bend when she realised there was a faint smell of smoke in the air. It thickened as she drove towards the end of town, where her house was.

  She slowed down as she got close to the house. Light was flickering in the front of the house. What the hell? She slowed to a stop and sat there staring for a moment, not comprehending what she saw.

  Fire.

  Her office was on fire.

  Before she could think about it, she jumped out of the car and raced down the side of the house to the back door, ringing 000 as she ran. ‘Fire. There’s a fire at my clinic. Wilson’s Bend Health Matters. Send a truck.’

  She hung up as she rounded the corner of the house and ran up onto the back porch and stopped.

  Something was lying on the mat at the back door. Something bloody and smelly and covered in blowflies. She might have thought it was another gift from Machiavelli except it was too big, the size of a possum and above the bloody, massacred body, someone had written in its blood on the glossy white paint of her back door, ‘You’re next, bitch!’

  Oh god.

  She needed to do something. Take photos or something, except, her office was on fire. She’d deal with this later. Her house was on fire. If she waited for the fire truck, it would be too late. She grabbed the hose beside the back door, turned it onto full, and went to pull her key out, her hand trembling as she tried to slot it into the keyhole.

  The door swung open. It was then she noticed the doorframe was damaged and the glass beside the door was broken. She’d been too focused on the dead possum and the fire inside to notice the evidence of a break in.

  ‘No, no!’

  She stepped inside, broken glass crunching under her sandals. Tears of rage burned in her eyes as she bent to pick up the broken photo frame, the one of her and Carter that Nat had snapped just after she’d told him she’d bought them a house. It hadn’t only been dropped on the floor, someone had stamped on the frame, busting it and damaging the photo within.

  All the rage and hurt she’d just pushed down came roaring back to the surface. She was going to get this fucker. But first, she had to save her house. She put the photo frame down and, firming her grip on the hose, took a step forward.

  Someone came barrelling out of the hallway and smacked into her, knocking her into the wall. Her scream cut off as the breath was punched from her lungs. She lurched forward, trying to catch the person before they ran out the door, but stars spun before her eyes and they disappeared into the darkness as she grabbed a hold of the doorframe, desperate to stay upright. ‘Bastard!’ she wheezed out.

  She massaged her bruised stomach and diaphragm where his elbow had connected, trying to breathe, to get moving. She had to move, because when the hall door opened, smoke had billowed out and she could see the flames now, the orange glow of them, at the end of the hallway. If she didn’t try to put them out soon, it would be too late. There were oxygen tanks in the storeroom and if the fire reached them, they would explode.

  Breathing past the pain, she picked up the hose she’d dropped on the floor when the bastard had smashed into her and ran up the hall, intent on saving her home.

  Chapter 13

  Flynn had lasted out almost forty-five minutes until he couldn’t stand it anymore. Despite Nat and his mum and even Reid—Reid!—telling him to give her space, he’d left them all and went after Prita, determined to make certain she was okay. She’d been so upset when she left. Sounded like she was about to cry.

  Christ. Had he made her cry? Of course he had. He’d said a horrible thing to her and she’d slapped him. Gentle, loving, giving Prita had been driven to such anger by his horrible words that she’d slapped him. He’d deserved it. He would have slapped himself if she hadn’t done it. In fact, he wished he had. Then she wouldn’t have run from him, feeling bad for having done something he fully deserved.

  He was the worst man ever. He’d never wanted to hurt her and yet he’d done the best job of it that anyone could. And now she wasn’t just hurting, but was embarrassed and had run from her own party. He had to try to make amends. To make her see the problem was him, not her. She was blameless. He should have never suggested otherwise.

  He’d just been so shocked to hear she was married. Not just shocked. Jealous. Which made no sense at all. He didn’t want to be with her and she didn’t want to be with him. There was nothing to be jealous of. And yet, he had been more insanely jealous in that moment than he’d ever remembered being.

  Bloody hell. She’d got him so mixed up and turned around. He was even driving after her without actually knowing where she’d gone. She said she had to go to the police station, so that’s where he’d start.

  His fingers clenched on the steering wheel as he turned towards Wilson’s Bend. If Bob Thompson was responsible for her having to go to the police, he was going to do more than punch the bastard’s smug pug face. The fact the man shared a first name with his father was even more of an irritant than ever before. If that bastard had done anything to hurt Prita, he was going to find a way to make him pay.

  As he rounded a bend in the road, he noticed a strange glow just over the rise.

  It was too early for sunset and besides, that orange glow was the wrong direction. Coming right from where Prita’s house nestled at the far end of Wilson’s Bend.

  Fire!

  He almost slammed on the brakes, fear leaping up and clutching his chest so that he could barely gasp in a breath. Instead, he hit the accelerator, the rear of the ute fishtailing on the gravel that sided the road as he took the corner over the rise and drove straight into a scene from his greatest nightmares.

  Her home was on fire.

  Where was her car? Please, let her not be here. She couldn’t be here. If she was here, she would have called 000 and a fire truck would be on its way from Walhalla or the CFA would have been called in from Rawson. But there was no truck and no wail in the night of one on its way. She couldn’t be in there. She just couldn’t.

  He had to check.

  He almost dropped his phone, his hands slick with fear-sweat as he called 000 and drove past the blazing front of the house to make sure her car wasn’t there.

  He came to a screech at the side, fear ratcheting up a notch when he saw her car.

  ‘Hello? What’s your emergency?’

  ‘I need a fire truck at 6 Main Road, Wilson’s Bend. Now. The doc’s surgery is on fire,’ he shouted as he leaped out of the truck and around the back of the house. The voice kept talking to him, asking him for more information, but he could hear nothing above the roar in his ears—fear or fire, he didn’t know. Didn’t care. He could see no sign of Prita, but the back door was wide open, smoke crawling out of the upper part of the doorway and escaping into the night sky. A hose pulled tight from the tap on the back porch to the right of the door, leading inside.

  She was inside? Trying to put it out? Was she insane?

  He managed to take one step forward, and almost slipped in something dark and sticky on the back porch. A dead animal lay there—a possum—its guts spilled out, the head almost cut clean off the body, but not quite. What the hell? First the bird and now this.

  There was red writing on the door that was swinging open. ‘You’re next, bitch!’

  No cat had done this.

  Had Prita seen it? Of course she had. She couldn’t enter the house without seeing it. And she was inside the house.

  Hell.

  He took a step forward.

  Smoke billowed in a puffed cloud out of the doorway, catching in his nose, his throat, his lungs and he stopped cold. Sweat poured down his face and his legs trembled, the animal part of his brain screaming at him to run, challenging the thinking part that told him he had to get inside to help Prita. She was in there. Fighting, by herself, a fire that was obviously already out of control. As stupidly brave as Anna.

  Anna.
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  He bent over and vomited where he stood. Hands on his knees, he tried to steady himself, to gulp in a breath, but the smoke coming out of the back door was thicker now and he choked on the breath, his panic and fear ratcheting up another notch, images of his wife’s soot-smeared face ravaging him as they played behind his eyes.

  He had to move, but he was so afraid if he did, it would be in the opposite direction. What kind of a person was he? ‘Fuck!’ He blinked madly, trying to clear the water out of his eyes, to ignore the stench of his own vomit. He was a coward. A weak coward. How the hell could he face his son after this?

  Aaron! He couldn’t let his son know this about him. He managed to straighten, his muscles clenched tight against the instinct to run. He wanted to take a step forward, but the smoke was coming out faster now, darker. He trembled, frozen, the scent of burned and rotting things too much. Too much. He stared at the door. Ah god, Prita. Was she even alive? How could she be if she was in the middle of that inferno?

  Sirens sounded in the distance. The fire truck would be here soon. Soon enough? Probably not for Prita.

  Fuck. Fuck!

  But he still couldn’t move. He had to. He had to.

  Something came barrelling out the back door and smacked into him, making him stumble back and almost fall down the stairs behind him. He caught himself on the banister, stopping them both from tumbling into the backyard.

  ‘Flynn?’ Prita stared up at him. In the glow of moonlight, he could see her face was covered in sweat, smudges of black marring the skin around her nose and in the tears streaming from her eyes. She wasn’t wearing anything over her face. She’d been breathing in the smoke!

  ‘Damn it, Prita.’

  ‘No time to tell me off now.’ She bent almost double, coughing, sounding like she was hacking up a lung. She managed to look up and squeeze out a breathless, ‘We’ve got to run. The fire was too big. I couldn’t put it out. It’s in the storeroom with the oxygen tanks.’

  ‘Ah shit.’

  He grabbed her arm and was going to pull her down the stairs but she was coughing so much, she could barely move. Without thinking, he picked her up in his arms, slung her across his shoulder in a fireman hold and ran down the stairs just as an explosion sounded behind them.

  He jumped down from the porch, a twanging pain in his knee making him stagger, almost dropping her. But he didn’t stop. He had to get away from the back door. The roar of the fire was hot and hard behind him. He ran towards the water tanks at the back of the garden. If he could only get behind them, they’d have some protection if the place blew. He’d almost made it when a strange loud pop, a rushing sound then a roar, had him leaping forward, head smacking into the side of the water tank and rolling until he and Prita were behind it.

  The night lit up around them.

  As he looked down at Prita’s soot-smeared face, the world turned black around him and the next thing he knew, he was lying on his back, someone calling his name.

  ‘Flynn! Flynn! Open your eyes.’

  Sirens were all around him. Voices called out, their urgency grating along his nerves making him flinch away from them, away from the crackle and pop of burning things and the roar that only belonged to a large fire. But even through the noise, he could hear a voice—her voice—calling to him like a Siren song.

  ‘Doctor Brennan. Are you okay?’

  ‘Max. Go and get my doctor’s kit from my car. It’s open. Hopefully the fire didn’t get it.’

  Hands on his face, his head, his chest. ‘Flynn, Flynn. Can you hear me? Open your eyes.’ Her voice sounded rough and she coughed-wheezed while talking. He wanted to tell her to stop, to take care of herself, but he couldn’t seem to make himself say the words.

  ‘Here Doctor Brennan. The fire truck from Walhalla is here and so is the CFA from Rawson. They’re working on the fire already.’

  ‘Thank god.’ Her hands left him and then she was back, a light flicking in his eyes.

  ‘Doctor Prita, you need to put this on. You’ve breathed in a lot of smoke.’ He knew that voice. It was Mac.

  ‘I’ve just got to help Flynn first.’ Her voice sounded rough and she coughed-wheezed a bit while talking. ‘Let me do my job, would you?’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He fell pretty hard, and I think he lost consciousness for a moment. Come on, Flynn, open your eyes.’

  ‘The ambulance is coming.’

  ‘It’ll take too long to get here. Let me just take care of him, okay?’ She took a gasping breath, then coughed again. ‘I’m fine. Oh for god’s sake,’ she said around her coughing. ‘Here, give me that. I’ll breathe in a couple of puffs if it’ll make you feel better.’

  ‘It will,’ Mac said, his voice dry. ‘Although the point is to make you feel better.’

  There was silence for a moment and then, ‘There, happier?’ More coughing but not at all muffled by an oxygen mask.

  ‘You need more than a couple of puffs.’

  ‘I promise you, I’m fine. You and Max should be helping with the—’ A hacking cough. ‘They need you more than I do, Mac.’

  ‘You won’t be able to help Flynn if you pass out, Doctor Prita.’

  ‘I’ll take care of Flynn and then I promise I’ll have some more oxygen too.’

  ‘There’s two tanks. Two masks. Put yours on and then I’ll go.’

  ‘Oh, bloody hell, fine.’ There was some muttering and then a muffled, ‘Happier?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Go. Just go help. Let me look after my patient.’

  They must have gone then, because there was no answer, just the sound of Darth Vader breathing above him and the feel of cool hands running over him, checking his pulse and for breaks, cuts and burns, he guessed. Something was placed on his face and a sweet coldness filled his lungs on his next breath. Ah, that was better. It beat the thick, nausea-making smoke he’d been breathing in.

  ‘Flynn. Can you hear me?’ A muffled cough. ‘Squeeze my hand if you can. Open your eyes.’

  His head ached, his throat felt like he’d chowed down on burning coal and then vomited it up again, even with the pure sweet oxygen filling his nose and throat and lungs. His knee and shoulder were throbbing like a son of a bitch. He could still hear the fire roaring and crackling in the background, eating everything in its wake, insatiable, leaving ash and emptiness in its path. The last thing he wanted to do was open his eyes and see it, see the devastation. But then she coughed violently and he couldn’t help himself. He had to make sure she was all right.

  ‘Prita?’

  ***

  ‘Flynn!’ She pulled the oxygen mask off her face, coughed and put it back again. Damn, her lungs were on fire. But she couldn’t stop, couldn’t lie down like she longed to do until she was certain Flynn was okay and the fire in her clinic—her home—hadn’t spread to the neighbouring houses or the bush. Fighting off a bout of dizziness, she stroked the side of his face. She could have sworn he’d muttered her name. ‘Flynn? Come back to me.’ Oh hell, that sounded like something a lover would say to another lover. Hopefully, he wouldn’t remember it.

  His lips moved behind the mask. ‘Flynn?’

  His eyes—those gorgeous hazel eyes that glowed in sunlight with flecks of green and amber—fluttered open. ‘Prita.’

  His voice, hoarse and painful sounding, was loud enough this time that she made it out clearly enough despite the noise going on behind them. ‘Oh god, Flynn. You gave me such a fright.’

  ‘Me?’ He mumbled something but all she heard was the word, ‘stupid’ in there.

  Flynn admitting to being stupid? Not something she’d ever thought she’d hear.

  He lifted a shaky hand and pushed the oxygen mask to the side. He looked horribly pale under the grime. He coughed, gaze capturing hers even in the dark red glow of the fire, boring into her with accusation. Accusation? ‘Why the hell did you go inside to fight a fire by yourself?’

  She pushed aside her own mask again, coughing a little as sh
e managed to say, ‘I had to stop it from taking my home.’ Not to mention the houses and bush nearby.

  ‘Stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.’ She opened her mouth to respond, but he hadn’t finished. ‘You ran in there with a hose. A hose! What the hell did you think you were going to do with that?’

  ‘Save my house and the ones next to it.’

  ‘Good job with that.’ He gestured at the smoking inferno behind them that the firemen were just getting under control now. ‘You haven’t saved anything.’

  Hurt blazed through her, almost as bad as when he’d accused her of cheating, but she was too tired, her throat too raw, her lungs burning with every inhalation, her limbs too heavy to say anything more than a lame, ‘I’m saving you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have had to if you hadn’t run in there first.’ He rammed his fingers through his hair, gaze blazing into hers. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’

  She blinked rapidly through the tears that suddenly flooded her eyes, every bit of anger that had poked through evaporating with those few, simple words. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. At least, she tried to say it, but instead of words, only coughing came out.

  Flynn swore and pushed himself upright, swayed, grabbed onto the water tank and used it for support.

  She reached out to help steady him, but ended up steadying herself, fingers gripping into the dry grass and soil underneath as her head swum, sparks of darkness intruding on her vision. She lifted a suddenly shaky hand and shoved the oxygen mask back into place.

  ‘Don’t try to get up,’ she wheezed through the mask, her words almost unintelligible around the spasm of coughing. She really needed to stop talking—it was making it worse. Trouble was, there was more to say. ‘You fell hard. I think you hit your head.’

  He glared at her. ‘You could have been killed.’

  He was back to that again? ‘I was coming out when you arrived.’

  ‘You collapsed on the back steps. What if I hadn’t been here to help you? What would I have told Carter? Or your dad. Or your husband?’

  Icy coldness shivered through her, despite the heat of the night and the blaze at her back. Chandra would care if she died, despite the way they left things. And her dad? It would have devastated him. She was all he had of family aside from Carter. And what about Carter? He was her everything and she was his everything. They were a team now. She’d promised herself to always be there for him, that she would be there to help him grow into the fine adult she knew he was going to be. And in one stupid action, she’d almost broken her promise. As it was, she was probably going to end up in hospital for at least a few hours while they assessed her lungs for CO2 poisoning and acute lung injury and decided whether to ventilate or put her in hyperbaric unit. Which she hoped wouldn’t be the case because where would Carter go while she was in the hospital? Who could he stay with?