by Casey, L. A.
ALSO BY L.A. CASEY
Slater Brothers series
Dominic
Bronagh
Alec
Keela
Kane
Aideen
Ryder
Branna
Damien
Alannah
Brothers
The Man Bible
Collins Brothers series
Dateless
Maji series
Out of the Ashes
Ripples in Time
Standalone novels
Frozen
Until Harry
Her Lifeline
My Little Secret
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2020 by L.A. Casey
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542022538
ISBN-10: 1542022533
Cover design by Plum5 Limited
For the real-life heroes who run into danger while everyone else is running away from it.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
ELLIOT
Fifteen days ago . . .
“Elliot? Elliot? Shit, shit, shit! It’s his voicemail!”
My world came to a standstill the moment I heard her sweet voice. For a split second, I allowed the familiarity of it to wash over me before reality slammed into me. I hadn’t heard that voice on the phone, or in person, in four very long years. The closest I’d got was when I watched old videos that she was in.
“Noah?”
The disbelief in my voice registered with me instantly. I could hear an overwhelming flood of shock and confusion the second I uttered those two little syllables. With my free hand, I lifted my fingers to the silver calla lily pendant that suddenly felt heavy against my chest.
“Help us,” she sobbed, the sound causing my heart to clench. “Oh God. Please, I don’t know what to do! Bailey, what’re we gonna do? It’s so dark, put the high beams on.”
My grip on my phone tightened and my breathing hitched. I reminded myself that the voicemail came from my sister’s phone. Noah was with my sister and I had no idea why. I suddenly felt like I was free-falling and no one was around to catch me. I was standing in the kitchen of the station, staring down at the rice I was cooking. I watched the water bubble through blurred eyes as my senses focused on the call.
“Oh God, oh God!” Noah sobbed. “Bailey, you’re going too fast!”
The line began to break up and I clutched my phone to my ear, hoping the call didn’t drop.
“Tulse Hill,” she whimpered. “Elliot, we’re on – Bailey, slow down!”
“I’m tryin’!” my sister’s panic-laced voice shouted. “I can’t stop, it’s black ice! We’re slidin’!”
“Elliot!” Noah screamed as the line broke up. “Elliot, help us. Tulse Hill . . . Please, please . . . going to kill . . . Bailey! Look out!”
I had never felt true bone-rattling fear until I heard my sister’s terror-filled scream as the line went dead. I blindly reached out and gripped on to the counter to keep my knees from buckling. For what seemed like an eternity, I didn’t move. I felt like I wasn’t in control of my body, like what I was experiencing wasn’t real. I swallowed. The haunting silence that filled the room was louder than Bailey’s scream. It was deafening. Laughter from the common room seemed to snap me back into reality. I pushed the pot of rice off the burner, switched the hob off, then ran into the room where my friends were gathered.
No one noticed my entrance.
“How long did the electric company say it’d be before they got the grid back up and running?” AJ, my best mate, asked Texas, our friend and co-worker. “It’s been years since the whole of bloody London has had no power. Especially not this long – it’s been what, four hours now? People must be going crazy without Wi-Fi for Facebook and Instagram.”
The tail end of a storm had blown London and a few neighbouring towns into a blackout. We were all on edge; no power meant no lights, and no lights on a winter night could lead to some pretty serious accidents.
Bad things happen in the dark. They always have.
“Fingers crossed it’ll all be back on soon,” Stitch, the watch manager, said optimistically. “We’re lucky this place has a built-in generator. Perks of being firemen, we always need power and we get it.”
AJ was about to reply when he caught sight of me. Whatever expression he saw on my face caused him to jump to his feet and hurry over. His hand went to my shoulder, clutching me as his worried eyes locked on mine.
“Irish? What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t form the words to explain myself, so I lifted my hand and pressed on the screen of my phone. I replayed the voicemail I’d received and put it on speaker for the room to hear. Everyone listened with pensive expressions on their faces.
“Noah and Bailey,” I rasped as the message ended. “Somethin’ is wrong with them, they’re at Tulse Hill. We hav’te go!”
I had barely finished speaking when the familiar sound of a siren echoed throughout the station. Everyone sprang into action; we all knew our positions for the current watch, having been briefed not long after we clocked in. We were well rehearsed, but today I couldn’t think straight. My brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
“Stitch!” I darted my gaze to his. “I can’t go. Me sister and Noah, something’s wrong. They need me!”
Just as I spoke, the automated, robotic voice that flowed through the speakers of the tannoy system sounded. Everyone went deathly silent as we listened for the nature of the call.
“CHARLIE ONE. ECHO ONE. RTC. PERSONS TRAPPED.”
RTC. A car accident. My heart stopped.
I moved before I even realised it. I was right behind Stitch as he ripped off the tip-out sheet from the ribbon printer. I was supposed to already be in my position in the engine. On today’s watch, I was BA1. Breathing apparatus one. I was the first one to go into a fire should there be one, but at that moment I couldn’t find the willpower to move. I stared at Stitch as he read the report. When he looked at me, I knew what he was going to say.
“The location is Tulse Hill.” I held my breath. “Isn’t it?”
He nodded. Once.
It was my sister and Noah; they had b
een in a car accident. They were the people who were trapped and in need of help. In need of my help.
“Fuck,” I snapped, as adrenaline – and fear – pumped through my veins. “Let’s fuckin’ go!”
We were in the engines and on our way to the scene with the sirens blaring before I could blink. I was a fucking wreck. My heart was pounding, my hands were slick with sweat, and my stomach churned so much I was certain I was going to vomit. I’d struggled getting my gear on even with a friend’s help.
“God, please,” I said out loud as I clasped my gloved hands together, closed my eyes and lowered my head. “Protect me sister and woman in me absence. Please. Please. Let them be okay. I ask this in your name. Amen.”
“Amen.” The word was echoed within the truck.
“We’re nearly there, Irish.” Texas roughly patted my shoulder. “Nearly there, brother.”
Every single second felt never-ending. The worst images invaded my mind, of horrifying RTC scenes I had been to before while on watch, and videos and images of others I had seen years ago during my training days. I silently pleaded with God that I wouldn’t find the two women who I loved more than life itself in a similar situation to the horrors I had witnessed.
“Fuck,” Tank said from the driver’s seat minutes later. “The car is on its side, it’s smashed right into the exterior of a building. Police are on scene, they’ll control the civilians. A crowd has gathered.”
“Jesus,” I breathed as the truck came to a halt and my sister’s car came into view. I jumped out of my side before I even realised it. “Bailey! Noah!”
“Damn it, Irish! Elliot! You can’t – Fuck!”
I could see the lick of small flames coming from the bonnet of the car. There was fuel pouring from the back end and it had yet to ignite. Its odour was overwhelming. I didn’t have long before things changed from dangerous to fatal, and I knew it. I wasn’t supposed to go near the car until the situation could be assessed by the watch manager. The risk was too high to my life, to my friends, but I didn’t care and I didn’t wait for my orders. I heard shouts all around me from people standing idle on the streets, some with their hands over their mouths while others recorded the scene on their phones.
As I ran, I abandoned everything I had ever learned in training. Blind panic took over as I reached the car and scrambled on top of the passenger door without a moment’s hesitation. I could feel the heat of the growing fire on my face; I went to adjust the visor on my helmet and realised I wasn’t wearing it. Somewhere between my dismount from the engine and reaching Bailey’s car, I had knocked it off.
I pushed it from my mind and focused on the scene in front of me, but it was hard. The blaring noise from the car horn made it difficult to think.
I banged on the window of the car. Inside I could see two people, and I separated them immediately based on their hair colour. Noah was in the passenger seat and Bailey was in the driver’s. Noah was moving her arms and head slightly; Bailey was utterly still. My heart was pounding so fast I couldn’t hear my friends as they shouted to me and to each other. I yanked on the handle of the car door, but it didn’t budge.
“Fuck!”
The window was already cracked, so I repositioned my body and used the heel of my boot to smash into the lower right-hand side, where the glass appeared to be at its weakest. It gave way instantly and I heard moaning and soft cries of pain. I assessed Noah straight away; her seat belt was still in place and she was almost dangling in the air. I looked past her to my little sister and felt my stomach drop.
She was still motionless. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not.
“Bailey!” I shouted, my voice cracking. “Hang on, baby, I’m comin’. D’ye hear me, Bails? I’m comin’ for ye!”
I heard my name being hollered, and turned my head in the direction of my friends, who were running towards me. I saw Stitch motion his hands left, right and centre as he shouted orders. My heart felt like it was about to burst with fear. He needed to get the fire under control before a spark touching the poured fuel became a problem. But there was no way I was leaving my girls to help him.
Not a chance.
“AJ!” I roared. “Gimme a knife. I think the seat belt is jammed.”
I turned back to Noah and she was mumbling something that I couldn’t hear; her eyes were open, and they were on me, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was far away – I wasn’t sure she even realised I was in front of her. Blood dripped down the side of her face from her temple. I gently turned her head in my direction and instantly swallowed down bile. She had a massive, deep open wound running back into her hairline. I sucked in a breath and repressed the urge to cough as the strong, choking odour of smoke suddenly filled my lungs.
“It’s okay, green eyes. I’m right here and I’m gonna get ye outta here. D’ye hear me, Noah? I’m gonna get you outta here.”
I was working on her seat belt as her head lolled from side to side. She lifted her hand and slapped it down on Bailey’s shoulder and said something inaudible to her. My sister didn’t so much as flinch. It was then that I inhaled the metallic tang of blood. I quickly grabbed my torch from its holster and shone it on my sister, and saw that her face was covered in red. Some of her hair was matted to her forehead while the rest of it hung loose to the door, and her nose and jaw appeared to have been crushed against the steering wheel. I realised then that she wasn’t wearing her seat belt. A pained cry tore free of my throat when I saw her eyes were wide open and unblinking.
My mind screamed that my baby sister was dead, but I refused to accept it.
“Hold on, Bailey! I’m comin’, baby.”
I pressed the release clasp on Noah’s seat belt and pulled the strap as hard as I could at the same time, and it suddenly gave way. I caught Noah under the armpits and quickly pulled her from the car. Her pain-laced screams made my blood run cold.
“Mum!” she screamed. “Elliot! Make it stop.”
I hooked an arm under her legs and the other around her back, and I ran with her, shouting for my friends to get the fire under control and for AJ to get into the car and get Bailey free so we could extract her. I noticed an ambulance pulling up just as I set Noah down on the ground. I froze for a second as I looked her over. She had blood all over her – there were bruises, cuts, and her face was swollen – but she was conscious and breathing.
I leaned down and kissed her with relief that she was alive, then I turned and ran back towards the car that AJ and two others were suddenly diving away from. I watched in horror as sparks fell on to the leaked fuel and ignited instantly. I let out a roar for them to help my sister just as the car exploded. The force of it knocked me back as flames flew up into the air and then completely consumed the car.
“Bailey!” I screamed as I scrambled to my feet and ran towards the wall of scorching flames. With my ears ringing and my body swaying, I forced myself to stay on my feet. “Bailey! No! God, no! Bailey!”
I was suddenly tackled from the side and then dragged backwards by two sets of hands. I heard voices blend together, but what I heard over them were the pleas and cries that tore from my throat. I fought them, my determination to get to my sister making me swing and kick, but in the end they won and I lost.
I lost everything.
I stared at the flames that swirled and danced with one another, knowing that my baby sister had been claimed by them. She was dead and there was nothing I could do to save her. My world became all the darker, even as orange and blue lights flickered around me. Inside of me there was no light, no peace – just all-consuming sadness, anger and hopelessness.
Things that people normally felt in the dark.
CHAPTER ONE
NOAH
Present day . . .
Dissonant beeping. That was what I awoke to.
I wasn’t sure what the beeping was or where it was coming from, but it was somehow familiar to me. It was as if I’d heard it, or woken up to it, a few times before. I couldn’t place the ca
use of it though, and when I tried to think of what it could be, the pain started. An excruciating sensation pulsed throughout my skull. It was so agonising that I couldn’t open my eyes or move my limbs. My body was completely tense and rigid as it braced itself against the pain. I wished for it to go away, but it didn’t, it only lessened slightly to the point where I could open my eyes.
My vision was hazy, but slowly a brightly lit room came into view.
An off-white coloured ceiling caught my attention the second my vision could focus. Like the beeping, it was familiar to me, but I had no idea what place it was linked to. For a few minutes, I did nothing but stare at the ceiling as I waited for the pain in my head to fade. It never went away, but eventually the pounding gave way to a throb. Though it was constant and still very painful, I could just about tolerate it. I had no choice but to endure it.
I attempted to say “hello” but my voice didn’t sound like my own. The word came out as a slur, barely coherent to my own ears. I tried to say it again, but it felt like my tongue was suddenly too big for my mouth. I wasn’t sure how long I was lying there figuring out how to work my tongue, when suddenly the sensation that the muscle was too big just faded away.
“Hello!”
My voice was hoarse and my throat itched, like I needed to down a litre of water to soothe it, but I said the word loud and clear. It felt like a victory of sorts. I tried to clear my throat to scratch the itch, but the action proved to be too painful, so I resisted the urge to cough, even though that was what my body desperately wanted to do. I carefully attempted to sit up, but I couldn’t. My body felt like a heavy weight and I wasn’t strong enough to lift it. Though I couldn’t move all that well, I could turn my head from side to side. I slowly looked to my right and the decor – and machinery – that came into view told me where I was instantly.
A hospital, or medical clinic of some kind.
The beeping I heard seemed to come from a machine that appeared to register my heart rate. I didn’t linger on it; the sound was ear-piercing and sharp. Instead, I turned my attention to finding the Call button that every hospital, or medical facility, had. I hoped it wasn’t on the wall to the left or right of the bed, because I hadn’t got the strength to move my body. I didn’t seem to have the strength to do anything.