Fever

by Joan Swan

  She swept a lighter off the workbench and flicked the metal wheel with shaking fingers. It sparked. She tried again, and when she got a flame, Alyssa stuffed the Bic in her pocket and bent to grip the handles on either side of the gas can.

  She dragged the awkward metal canister close to her body and waddled out of the barn. Then she stumbled down the side of the house. The injury over her ribs pulled as if her healed scar was ripping apart. After two feet, she was sweating. After ten, she was panting. After twenty, she was moaning. Fifty, and she turned the corner of the house.

  Overgrown weeds caught her ankle. She tripped and stepped on a piece of downed siding. The wood splintered, shot up and dug into her forearm. A muffled cry lifted from Alyssa’s throat. She dropped the can, then instantly tried to grab and right it. Inside, liquid sloshed. Gas fumes burst from the canister and burned Alyssa’s nasal passages, searing her throat.

  The metal handles cut into her palms as she rehoisted the can. She staggered the last fifteen feet and set it down by the sedan’s driver’s door.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she muttered as she swung the door wide and looked over her shoulder. Through the living room window, the men remained shadowed watercolors behind the glass.

  She hadn’t heard any more shots, which she considered a good sign. If anyone could talk his way out of a situation, it was Mitch. But for some reason, she didn’t expect him to talk his way out of this one, only hoped he could bullshit these guys long enough for her to light up this damn car and get them out of the house.

  Crouching, she unscrewed the two-inch-diameter pour hole in the lid, lifted the edge of the can to the driver’s seat, grabbed the bottom and tipped it up until gasoline spilled out. The potent liquid sloshed over the seat and spilled onto the floorboards. Alyssa kept tilting the can until it was empty, then shoved it into the passenger’s seat.

  With a fumbling hand, she drew the lighter out of her pocket, struck the wheel and brought the flame to the driver’s seat before she had time for her conscience to kick in.

  The flames whooshed from her hand like a blowtorch. Heat scorched her face. She sucked in a breath of supercharged air and shrank from the flames. One arm came up to shield her face as her feet scuttled backwards on dirt and gravel. Fire traveled through the car like a windstorm. Within seconds, the vehicle looked like a crazed Halloween pumpkin, fire swirling, eating away the guts.

  Alyssa gained her feet and ran back the way she’d come, heart beating hard, but somehow lighter, strangely liberated.

  A loud pop sounded behind her, like a gunshot. The shatter of glass rained on gravel. When she reached the barn, Alyssa turned toward the car. Flames licked at the metal frame where the windshield had been. Shards of glass glittered along the hood like diamonds. A line of fire flowed from the open driver’s door and across the ground to the corner of the house where it devoured the old siding board by board like a starving creature. In front of her eyes, the fire jumped from the side boards to the roof and streamed across the tinder-dry shingles as if they were painted in oil.

  Fear burned through Alyssa’s chest just as fast. “Oh, shit. No!”

  She whirled toward the back of the house and ran up the walk. A window on the opposite side of the house shattered. Charcoal smoke coiled into the dusky sky. By the time she reached the kitchen’s rear door, the interior undulated with shades of neon orange. Black silhouettes lunged against the backdrop. Alyssa cupped her hand around her eyes to peer through the glass, but the smoke obscured her view.

  “Mitch!” She yelled as loud as her searing throat allowed. “Teague!”

  The back door flung inward. Alyssa jumped back and screamed. Smoke poured out, choking her. Luke appeared, stepping into the middle of the doorway, face bloody, suit jacket burned away in sections. As if the fire knew he was planning escape, flames raced overhead, split at the center of the doorway and traveled around and down the frame.

  “Get the hell out of here!” he yelled at Alyssa.

  Without waiting to see if she listened, he opened both hands, reached up and planted them, palms down, on the doorframe, directly over the flames.

  Alyssa sucked in a breath of horror. “Luke, no!”

  The fire sizzled beneath his hands just before smoke plumed out. He continued to run his palms down the frame, smothering the flames with his bare skin.

  Alyssa grabbed one of his hands and turned it over, but all she found was one perfect, intact palm. “Oh, my God.”

  Luke grabbed her arms and pushed her back. “I said get out of here.”

  Then he turned and disappeared into the smoke and flames.

  The first hint of sirens perked up Alyssa’s ears. She turned toward the sound with a new fear filling her heart. Firefighters were coming. Cops wouldn’t be far behind.

  “Teague!” she called into the house. “Mitch! Luke!”

  Grunts sounded in the murky din, amongst the angry roar of fire, the pop and crack of old wood. Something flew past the door where Alyssa stood, and she jumped. It hit a wall, bounced off, darted across the floor and stopped at her feet. A gun.

  She reached for it. Teague appeared, skidding across the floor. He grabbed the weapon and looked up at her. “Get out of here, goddammit! Don’t you ever listen?”

  Vasser walked out of the mist, gun pointed down at Teague’s chest, blood dripping from his forehead. “Didn’t I ask you that once, you stupid sonofabitch?”

  Teague tilted his chin to his chest, lifted his foot and kicked at Vasser. The other man dodged, but not completely and went down with a scream. Teague disappeared once again into the swampy darkness.

  “No, Teague! Cops are coming.” Alyssa peered through the smoke and stepped farther into the house with the hem of her shirt pulled up over her mouth. “Luke!” Smoke invaded her eyes like thousands of tiny needles. Tears poured down her cheeks as she pushed farther into the gloom. “Mitch!”

  Scuffling sounds came from somewhere to her left. She started in that direction, but Teague caught her arm from behind. “You’re not going in there.”

  She yanked her arm from his grip and turned on him. “Stop pulling at me and help me get them out.”

  Someone rammed into her and she pitched sideways, her breath locked in her chest. Teague caught her as the other person hit the floor. Mitch. Alyssa registered the blood covering his face in the second before Burton pointed a gun at Mitch’s chest.

  “No!” Alyssa heard her voice, but didn’t register the sensation of speaking.

  Everything beyond that whirled into a successive blur of motion. Teague struck out. The gun flew from Burton’s hand. A scavenge, then a struggle for the weapon. A shot.

  Alyssa screamed—a rip in her throat and a stab in her heart.

  Burton collapsed on top of Mitch.

  “Mitch!” She kept screaming his name, coughing, wheezing, screaming. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Couldn’t live without him. “Mitch!”

  “Goddamned fucking fat bastard.” Mitch hefted Burton off him using his whole body.

  A shaking whoosh of air left Alyssa’s chest. She swallowed back the urge to throw up in relief. “Oh, my God.”

  Mitch slowly got to his feet, rested his elbows on his knees and met Alyssa’s eyes. “I’m fine, Lys.”

  “Fine?” she wheezed. If this was what an anxiety attack felt like, she was going to be far more liberal handing out Xanax prescriptions in the future. “I almost watch you get killed and that’s all you have to say to me? I’m fine?”

  When Teague reached for Alyssa, Mitch pushed off his knees and intervened, taking her arm while giving Teague a death stare. “Where’s the other one? Vasser?”

  The sirens grew ear piercing and stopped in front of the house. Luke passed through the group and stepped out the back door. “Incapacitated. Let’s go. Unless you’d like to explain that kill to the cops right this minute.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Teague’s chest ached, but it wasn’t from the solid military-st
yle elbow shots Burton had hammered to his sternum or the smoke burning his lungs. His pain came from looking at Alyssa and knowing he’d never touch her again.

  Damn, she looked good. Great. Amazing. Had she looked that gorgeous when he’d left her? Just that morning?

  Had he really walked out on her lying naked, tangled in a sheet, still warm and damp with their sweat from hours and hours and heavenly hours of lovemaking? Had he? Really?

  Luke passed, purposely knocking Teague’s shoulder hard. “Come on, Houdini. Think up something to get us out of here.”

  Teague wiped the smoke burn from his eyes with his forearm and turned toward the barn, but stopped short. Did Luke just say out of here? Why were they all walking away from him? Why wasn’t anyone holding a gun on him? Cuffing him?

  No sense in questioning it, at least not for the moment. The answers and the pain that went with them would come soon enough.

  “How in the hell did you get here so fast?” Teague knew how they’d found him—Alyssa. But how had they caught up with him? “I had a five-hour lead on you.”

  Mitch scowled at Teague from beneath a mess of black hair falling over his forehead. “They’re called planes, Creek.”

  While Luke cased the scene for cops and Mitch and Alyssa bickered, Teague pried open the second door to the barn and inspected the wires beneath the dash of the ancient Ford. He prepped the truck by stripping and twisting wires, then unlatched and opened the gate hidden behind the barn by overzealous morning glories. It led to a barely noticeable gravel back road he’d found earlier in the day during his inspection of the property.

  When he returned to the truck, he took a deep breath, focused and directed his energy until the engine turned over. The well-kept vehicle started like a brand new Corvette and purred like a damn Ferrari.

  He didn’t have to beckon the others away from the inferno; they automatically climbed into the cab of the truck. But Teague didn’t miss the suspicion on Mitch’s face as he slid into the bench seat alongside Luke.

  “Why am I the only one who doesn’t find the fact that he can hot-wire a car surprising?” he asked.

  “Long story,” Alyssa muttered, sitting on Mitch’s knee, holding the dash to balance herself as Teague turned onto the rutted back road.

  “Well, everything about this is a long fucking story, isn’t it?”

  “Mitch,” she scolded.

  “Excuse me for swearing, Lys. You’ve only uncovered some festering conspiracy that my gut tells me is way beyond anything I’ve ever seen and, oh, by the way, I just killed a guy.” His voice rose until it vibrated through the truck cab. “Sorry if I’m a little upset.”

  She heaved a sigh. Teague rolled his shoulders and purposely loosened his grip on the steering wheel. How in the hell had this gone so wrong? All he’d ever wanted was a simple, quiet life with his daughter.

  “What in the hell are you all doing here?” he spat at them collectively. “I tried to cut you out of it.”

  “You’re trying to take Kat,” Luke yelled back from the center seat next to Teague. “How the hell does that cut me out, asshole?”

  “She’s my daughter, that’s how. She belongs with me.”

  “And you belong in prison,” he shot back. “Explain how that would work, brainiac.”

  “If you really think I belong in prison, why haven’t you arrested me? What in the hell are you doing with them?” He jerked his hand at Mitch and Alyssa. “Why don’t you have your A.T.F. buddies with you? Where’s the fucking F.B.I.? Would someone tell me what the hell is going on here?”

  Alyssa put up her free hand in a stop gesture. “Could you wait to scream until we’re out of an enclosed space so you don’t rupture my eardrums, please?”

  The farther they drove from the light of the fire, the harder it became to follow the road. Teague finally turned on the headlights.

  Mitch dropped his head back and rubbed a hand over his forehead. “My God. I shot a federal agent with my own damn gun. Motherfuckingsonofabitch.”

  “Mitch, that’s enough,” Alyssa complained. “I know this is bad, but come on.”

  “Creek, stop the car.” Mitch sat up, and reached for the door handle. “I need some air before I puke on everyone in this truck.”

  It was a good thing Teague was driving slow, because Mitch didn’t wait for him to make a full stop. He pushed the door open and took Alyssa with him when he dropped to the ground. She squealed as she fell on her butt in the grassy gravel.

  “Mitch, you jerk.” Alyssa’s voice carried in the silent night, the sirens and fire only distant background noises now.

  By the time Teague put the truck into park and jogged around the front, Alyssa was standing, brushing gravel off her jeans, her scowl fully visible in the headlights’ side beams shining down the path.

  Luke leaned against the bed of the truck, arms crossed, eyes keen as he followed everyone with that watchful gaze. Mitch paced, head down, hands threading and rethreading through his collar-length, black hair.

  “You’re not getting how serious this is for me, Lys.” His voice rose to a shrill tone, eyes wide with panic. “They’ll match the slug they pull from Burton to a shooting I was involved in last month.”

  “A shooting last—” Alyssa started.

  “It doesn’t matter”—Mitch cut her off. “What matters is, when they do that, they’ll know my gun killed Burton. They’ll know I killed Burton.”

  Teague opened his mouth to speak, but Mitch started waving his hands again, muttering. “You know how long I’ve worked for what I’ve built? As long as you’ve worked for your M.D. Those goddamned government freaks are going to try to take me out right along with you and Creek and anyone else they damn well feel like eliminating.”

  “Hello.” Teague waited for Mitch to take a breath. Alyssa looked over at him with a hollow, helpless look in her eyes. Mitch, on the other hand, turned on Teague with clear contempt. “About that gun ...” Teague lifted his shirt to reveal a weapon in the waistband of his jeans. “This is the gun that killed Burton.”

  Mitch pulled his gun from a holster on his hip. “No, this is mine.”

  “Yes, that is yours,” Teague said. “But this is the one that killed Burton. You grabbed it by mistake.”

  Mitch walked in front of the headlights, pulled the magazine of his weapon open and checked it in the light, squinting.

  “What the hell?” Mitch said.

  “It’s full, right?” Teague said. “I kept track of all the weapons. All the shots. In the end, I made sure the right ones ended up where they belonged.”

  Mitch looked up from the weapon, his suspicion as clear as the darkening evening sky. “How could you possibly have kept track?”

  Teague shrugged. “You learn to do that in prison. Lose track of one fork at breakfast, end up dead in the shower at lunch. A sharp mind and quick hands keep you alive inside.”

  “You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face in there with all that smoke.”

  “He was a fireman for over a decade,” Luke said. “You learn to see through smoke.”

  Anger stirred in Teague. He wanted to tell Luke to shut the fuck up. His defense came about five years too damn late.

  “Why would you do that?” Mitch asked, his brows drawn together in disbelief.

  “This is my fight, not yours.” His voice rose and Teague let it. For once it felt good to yell at someone. “I hightailed it out of that cabin to keep as many people out of this mess as possible. I let her go, just like you wanted, and look where it got me.”

  He pulled the murder weapon from his waistband with the hem of his shirt, walked over to Mitch, and shoved it at him. “But, fine, whatever. If you don’t want to believe me, it’s your hide. I was just trying to help.”

  Mitch pulled his sleeve over his hand and took the gun. But his eyes screamed what the fuck?

  “By the way,” Teague added. “Just for fun, I put Vasser’s prints on it while he was unconscious. I’m sick like that. The pris
on effect.”

  Teague was about to turn away, but his gaze passed over Alyssa, and he stopped. How could he not? Even sooty and sweaty and cut and bleeding she was heart melting. And every time he looked at her, all he could think about was how she tasted, how her body fit against his, how it felt to be inside her. Heaven. Absolute heaven on earth. Now, he’d have to spend the rest of his life without her, which would be sheer hell.

  He channeled the pain into frustration. This huge, ugly mess was no place for her. These people would never leave him alone. If she continued to follow him, if he continued to allow a relationship, she’d never be safe.

  “A fire?” he mocked. “A car fire? What were you thinking, genius? If I’d wanted to start a fire, I could have done it myself.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and her mouth curved into a sneer. “You can’t even catch a paper bag on fire. For your information, I’ve done more research on your powers and what you have isn’t pyrokinesis, it’s thermokinesis. So you may be able to change your body temperature—note, I said change, not control, because God knows you’re not in control of much—but, babe, you aren’t starting any fires.”

  Smart-ass little ... He leaned into her and lowered his voice. “That’s not what you said last—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Mitch put a hand on Teague’s chest and pushed him back. “Powers? Pyrokinesis? What the hell are we talking about here?” He put himself squarely between Teague and Alyssa, his hands on her shoulders. “Who are you and what have you done with my diehard scientist sister?” He released her and turned on Teague. “An even better question is why do these guys have a hard-on to see you dead? What is this about?”

  Silence gapped in the stark absence of their bickering and quiet night sounds filled the void in contrast, the loudest and most cliché, the sharp chirp of crickets.

  “Another long story,” Alyssa finally offered. “One we haven’t fully figured out.”

  “Think I’m ready for a drink,” Luke said. “Or ten. Foster, why don’t you use that fancy phone of yours to track down the seediest bar you can find?”