Pain splintered through my head, but it was worth it. It was worth it because Janel stumbled back, arms flailing and hair whipping around her. The box she’d had in her hands went sailing through the air and crashed to the floor.
I dove for it. A hand fisted in my hair, yanking it back. “You stupid bitch, always in my way. Not this time. Not this time.”
I threw an elbow back and caught her in the ribs.
She heaved out a cry.
I spun around and rushed her just as she was rushing me.
Our bodies collided.
A clash of souls.
I hooked her around the neck, trying to pin her, hold her.
She jerked free, so frenzied that she reeled, her footing gone. She stumbled back until she hit the desk.
I dove on her, and we slid across the slick wood, knocking everything that had been on the top to the floor.
Papers and the phone and the candle.
And we fought. Arms and fists and ripping hair. Fought until a big body was yanking me off. I screeched and kicked and fought. Fought in fury. In hate. In the desperate need to get to Frankie.
Frankie.
Frankie Leigh.
Aaron’s cologne filled my nose, the memory of it making me gag. I struggled to break out of his hold, but he was too strong. He tossed me aside. As if I was nothing.
Trash.
Just the same as he’d treated me before.
Aaron grabbed the box from the floor and then snagged Janel by the wrist. “We have to get out of here. Right now.”
My attention caught on the floor across the room. A tiny flame leapt to life. The candle a match to a piece of paper that’d floated to the floor.
Part of me wanted to go for it. Stamp it out. Protect my gramma’s legacy. But none of that mattered if they got away with Frankie. I couldn’t—wouldn’t allow it to happen.
Hand-in-hand, Janel and Aaron ran down the short hall and escaped out the back door. The door they’d most likely broke in through.
Frankie was my only concern. Not a building or its memories or the hopes of what it may be one day.
Only that little girl.
Crying out in pain, I struggled to get to my feet, chasing right after them. By the time I made it out the door, they were sprinting toward a black Durango parked in the back lot. In my periphery, I could see the spark of fire.
And I knew my grandma’s restaurant was getting ready to go up in flames.
I didn’t slow, only pushed myself harder, desperate to get to Frankie.
Aaron tried to force Janel around to the front passenger seat, but she diverted and wrenched open the back passenger door. “Frankie . . . Frankie?”
Janel started to panic, shouting it again. “Frankie!”
Struggling to jerk out of his hold, she whirled on Aaron. “Where’s Frankie?”
I stumbled to a stop halfway across the vacant lot, heart crashing against my ribs.
“Warned you, Janel, but you wouldn’t listen. We’re not taking that fucking kid. We’re getting out of Gingham Lakes and out of this country, and I won’t have anything slowing us down. Now, let’s go.”
“Where is she?” she screamed.
Even though he seemed to avoid it, Aaron’s attention darted back to the diner, expression twisting in the briefest flash of guilt.
Guilt aimed at my gramma’s diner that was going up in flames.
No.
Oh my God.
Slowly he shook his head. “Didn’t expect the fire. That’s not on me. Now get in or I’m leaving you behind.”
Janel’s expression froze in horror. And I thought maybe it was the first time I saw any true humanity in her. Any true care. Just as fast, it was gone, and Janel started around to the front of the SUV.
She was just going to leave her.
I spun around in my own horror. Flames licked out from the back window and glowed through the gaping door.
For a flash, my eyes squeezed closed, my gramma’s voice a whisper in my ear. Her presence overwhelming, so much I could feel her belief penetrating to the depths of me.
All moments matter. We just rarely know how important they are until the chance to act on them has already passed.
I’d always known Rex and Frankie were worth the chance. This one might cost me it all. Everything. But they would always, always be worth it.
My feet pounded against the pavement. Adrenaline and fear were a thunder that stampeded through my veins and whooshed in my ears.
I held up my arm as if it might protect me when I barreled through the doorway and into the kitchen.
Smoke swallowed me.
Taking me whole.
Black.
Thick.
Suffocating.
Holding my breath, I tried to get as low as possible as I began to search.
When I couldn’t do anything else, I tugged my shirt over my nose and gave in.
Inhaled.
It burned.
Burned so badly that my lungs wept, just the same as my insides.
Heat licked across my skin, so hot I wanted to scream.
Scream for help.
For sanity.
For Frankie.
Most of all, for Frankie.
I groped along the walls. Trying to find my way. To make sense of where I was.
Disoriented, I fumbled, trying to focus.
A wall.
An oven.
The pantry.
Oh God, the pantry.
The door was closed.
When I’d left this evening, it’d been wide open. I was sure of it. I’d been moving things in and out and had propped it open.
I slid my hands over it, feeling, searching. Relief wrenched from me when I found the latch. I managed to drag it open.
Smoke billowed inside. It was at the same second I heard Frankie’s cry.
“Frankie!” It was a shout.
Joy.
Solace.
Fear.
Each emotion rushed me. One after another.
Because I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t see and everything hurt so bad.
The radiating heat and the asphyxiating smoke.
But there was no chance I was giving up.
Flames bloomed just outside the pantry door, consuming the kitchen, eating away the plaster and wood and memories.
I dropped to my knees and crawled across the floor. My hand came into contact with something that moved. A foot. A leg. A tiny body that I pulled into my arms, holding her against my chest, burying her face in my shirt.
Because I’d do anything to protect her. To save her.
Dizziness swept through my being. Head. Body. Soul. I fought to stay coherent. To stay awake. To fight.
I clutched Frankie to me, rocked back, and screamed.
42
Rex
I rushed through the doors of the police station. I’d been on the phone with my mom the whole way over, trying to get as much information from her as I could and settle her down at the same time. Which was a ridiculous notion in and of itself, considering how close I was to coming unglued. Torn limb from limb. Janel’s fist punched right into the center of my chest, the bitch ripping out my still beating, bleeding heart, holding it hostage in her corrupt, vicious hand.
Never in a million years would I have imagined she’d stoop this low. Of course, I’d had no clue how deep her betrayal went, either.
Treason.
Treachery.
It was nothing less.
Lieutenant Seth Long was already coming out of his office when I skidded to a stop in front of it. We’d gone to school together, had been friends for as long as I could remember, the guy devoting his life to the greater good.
“Rex,” he wheezed, amped up, whole station already on red alert. “APB has been issued, and I have every available cruiser already on the streets. We’re going to get her back. I promise you, Rex, if it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to get your daughter back.”
I nodd
ed, though it was choppy, jerky with hatred and fear. The two together were a dangerous combination. They itched my fingers in direction’s they shouldn’t go. Thoughts of vengeance and retribution skating my skin, a twine that bound my body.
“I just . . . I’ve got to do something.”
He set a hand on my shoulder, head dipping down, eyes meeting mine. Like he was trying to get through to me. To get me to see reason when all I was seeing was red. “I know you do. But I need you to make an official statement first then you can ride with me, okay? I don’t want you running off doing something stupid.”
Another spastic nod, filled with reluctance, but what the hell else was I going to do? “Okay,” I agreed.
“Come on, let’s get this moving so we can get out of here.”
I started to follow him into his office, when my phone chirped with a message. I pulled it from my pocket, squinting when I realized it’d come in close to fifteen minutes ago, during the time I’d been talking to my mom.
Rynna.
Apprehension pressed against my ribs, and I quickly thumbed into the message, pushing the phone to my ear. Rynna was on the other end, sounding panicked and worried and a little shamed, telling me she was sorry but she was going to Pepper’s.
That was at the same second a radio bleeped in the station, a code issued and an address given, an officer asking for backup.
It was to an address I knew all too well.
My gaze locked with Seth’s. Time froze while awareness shot between us. Then I was running. Running back out into the night and into my truck. Seth was right on my heels, sliding into the front seat of his cruiser. I floored it, didn’t care that I was breaking about fifteen different laws as I sped toward the diner.
Toward Rynna.
Toward Frankie.
Toward my entire life.
The center of my world.
Felt like it took me forever to get there when not more than five minutes could have passed. I skidded around the last corner, taking a sharp left turn, roaring down the road.
All the breath left me when the building came into view.
Pepper’s ravaged by fire and smoke.
No.
No. No. No.
I didn’t slow. Instead, I accelerated, truck careening, everything lurching and jostling when the tires hit the curb and jumped the sidewalk. Second before I hit the brick wall, I rammed on the breaks and jumped out without bothering to put it in park.
Anguish pulsed through my veins. Spurring me faster and harder.
I went right for the front door and flung it open.
Desperation makes you do desperate things.
And there was no hesitation. No thought except for getting to them. I knew they were in there. Knew it with every part of me.
A thick plume of smoke gushed out when I rushed in.
It felt just like I was stepping into a furnace.
Seth was there, screaming at me to stay. Not to move.
But there was no chance of him stopping me.
Lifting my shirt to cover my mouth and nose, I edged in, following the smoke that was coming from somewhere in the kitchen like a target.
I made it to the swinging door. My eyes burned when I pushed it open, every inch of me swallowed by the heat.
An inferno.
I refused to let it become our hell.
“Rynna!” I shouted. Beside me, an avalanche of metal clattered to the floor, and I jumped back, dodging it two seconds before I became a pile of rubble right along with it.
God. It was so fucking hot. So hot, I swore I could feel my skin melting from my bones. But I pushed forward, adrenalin thrumming through me like a bullet. I screamed again, “Rynna!”
It was faint, barely discernable. But I heard something rise above the thunder. A foreign sound just to my right. Or maybe it was just some kind of sixth sense. An acute kind of awareness. A need inside that became my greatest strength.
Blindly, I fumbled that way, dropping to my knees, teeth gritted against the flames.
My hands, they searched, running over everything like the diner was written in Braille. Each bump and dip telling me to hurry. That every second that passed brought me closer to running out of time.
Then my hand, it ran over something solid but soft. Something sweet.
And I was struck with so much goddamned relief, because it was my girls huddled at the foot of the back door. Rynna was slamming a pot against the floor, guiding me.
I tried to push the heavy metal door open, but it was wedged shut, surely why Rynna hadn’t been able to get out.
I felt like my lungs were exploding, but I gathered all of me. All my love. Every devotion. Every hope.
I reared back and kicked it.
When it didn’t give, I kicked it again.
It burst open.
I wanted to shout in victory. In hope. I rushed, grasping Rynna from behind, my little girl still in the safety of her arms. I dragged them out onto the pavement of the back lot, as far as I could get them away from the fire, before I collapsed to my knees beside them.
I choked and coughed while around me voices shouted and sirens blared.
Someone was on a radio, calling for help in the back lot, three victims down.
But the only thing I could focus on was their ash-covered faces. Frankie clutched in Rynna’s arms. I didn’t want to touch them, worried I’d cause more damage, but I was certain my baby girl wasn’t breathing.
My already failing heart stalled.
Oh God, please, no.
Rynna dragged in violent, choked breaths, eyes wide, no coherency in their depths.
“Help!” I screamed. “Somebody help.”
Footsteps pounded around me, rushing in. Someone pulled me away. I fought to get back to them, but hands were on me, restraining. “Let them take care of them, man. You’ve got to let them take care of them.” Seth’s voice was grit in my ear.
I slumped forward, dropping back to my knees.
Fireman and paramedics swarmed. Working. A controlled, frantic storm.
My world spun, and one was in front of me, taking my pulse and asking me questions, if I was in pain or if I was having trouble breathing.
He just had no idea all my breaths were wrapped up in them. That I’d gladly give mine. Every breath. Every heartbeat. Everything. Just as long as they were okay.
* * *
I sat hunched over in the hard plastic chair, elbows on my knees, exhaustion in my bones. People hustled on the other side of the door that’d been wedged open a crack. But inside this room? Time had stopped. Nothing less than a mind-altering waiting game.
Dimness floated on the feigned peace, and that steady beeping of the monitor lulled me into a sense of security I was praying wasn’t faulty.
“You should go get some rest, man.”
I jumped when the muted voice hit me from behind. I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to clear the daze, and shifted to look over my shoulder.
Kale stood there in his scrubs. Dude looked just about as weary as I felt. Since the second we’d rushed through the emergency room doors, he’d been running nonstop, making sure every test possible had been run on my daughter. Ensuring nothing was missed.
He’d been up all night and all of today.
“Think it’s probably you who should be taking a break,” I told him.
He let a smirk ridge his mouth. “Nah, I’m basically a super hero. Can’t keep me down. ”
Cocky asshole.
A light chuckle rumbled from my tongue. “That so?”
“Come on, look at me, you know it is.” He was all affable grins.
I turned my attention back to my daughter. Frankie was lost to sleep, tiny body tucked beneath stark white sheets.
Resting.
Whole and right.
According to Kale, things could go south up to two days after prolonged smoke exposure.
Which left me an unwilling player in this waiting game.
But Kale kept insistin
g I shouldn’t worry. That she was going to be fine. That he’d make sure of it.
She’d been dosed with precautionary antibiotics and breathing treatments, and Kale promised not a single base had been missed.
I’d always known it, but it wasn’t so clear what a damned good doctor Kale was until then.
“Thank you, man,” I muttered quietly. “No way I could ever repay you for what you’ve done.”
He made a sound of rebuttal. “I was just doing my job, Rex. You know she wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you and Rynna.”
Rynna.
Beautiful Rynna. This girl who’d become my orbit. My sun. My gravity.
Rynna had saved my daughter’s life. She’d put herself on the line. She fought for her. For us. She loved her in a way that was absolute.
“Almost at the cost of her own.”
Everything pressed and pulled.
This gratefulness that had taken up residence in every part of me, up against this blistering agony at the thought of almost losing her, too.
“I won’t pretend to know Rynna all that well,” he said. “But from what I do? I’d bet she doesn’t regret rushing into that fire any more than you do. Which is why I’m here. You can see her now.”
My body swayed with the harsh heave of my breath. “Can you sit with Frankie for a while?”
“It’d be my honor.”
He shuffled in, his own exhaustion making itself known. I stood and then hesitated before I reached for him. I gripped him tight, hugged him hard, hand fisted in the middle of his back. “Couldn’t do any of this without you. Thank you, man, thank you so much.”
He hugged me back, saying nothing, both of us giving a moment of silence. A moment for grief. For what might have been.
Then he stepped back. “Go. Frankie’s in good hands.”
I started for the door when Frankie shifted and released a tiny moan. Instantly, I changed directions, going straight for my daughter, who hadn’t been awake for more than a total of an hour the entire day. Kale clapped me on the shoulder. “I’ll be right outside the door. Let me know when you’re ready for me.”
“Thanks.”
I slowly sank back into the chair, every inch of me glowing when I brushed my fingers through my daughter’s hair, staring down at my world.
Fight for Me: The Complete Collection Page 31