Finding Refuge

by J. P. Oliver

  I was sinking.

  My hand—I tried to move it, to grab the handle, but I couldn’t control myself suddenly. In the periphery, I heard the telltale crackling sounds of a taser popping behind me.

  A stun gun, I realized.

  Body stiff as a board, I collapsed onto the floor, the matches falling from my hand. I was only cognizant in the first few seconds, semi-aware of what was happening, before my thoughts fuzzed, garbled—electricity, I realized, that’s what this is—and I prayed for it to stop, wondering just how much more my heart would be able to take.

  Edward never let up.

  Slowly, slowly, my head thumping with a not-yet-felt pain from falling so suddenly, I felt myself slipping into the unconscious void.

  I returned slowly to myself, body in pain but at least within my control.

  Slowly, weakly, I turned my head over one way and the other, looking for any sign of Edward. I waited to hear the telltale sign of footsteps, trying to figure out just how long I’d been knocked out.

  Maybe, I hoped, he got freaked out and left when I passed out.

  Slowly, I rolled onto my side and pushed myself onto my knees. Even if he was gone, I didn’t want to stick around to see if he’d come back. I needed to get out of here, get to someplace safe.

  With a jelly grip on the counter, I hoisted myself onto my shaking feet. The clock read nine fifteen, and I was awake enough to know I hadn’t been out long.

  Zach is supposed to get here at nine-thirty for dinner. Keys, I thought, taking a step forward. Where’re my keys?

  My mind felt scrambled, like I was fighting sleep exhaustion or extreme inebriation. And the headache wasn’t helping at all. Maybe that’s why I was hardly afraid when I caught onto the acrid scent of spilled gasoline.

  I heard the footsteps, loud and thundering on the hardwood behind me. I had enough time to turn and see him, eyes wild and mouth opening around a feral shout. My eyes flew to the black thing in his hands as he swung it at me. I wondered what it was, unable to move my body away quick enough, but as it connected with the top of my head, I realized: it was my cast iron pan, the one I kept above the stove for decoration.

  My legs gave out underneath me.

  I collapsed hard onto the floor, woozy and nauseous. My head lolled to the side, and, as the black began to creep in once again, I fought to look at Edward in some small act of defiance.

  I caught the impression of him strike a match against the counter, hearing its hiss and smelling its sulfur burn before slipping completely under.

  15

  Zach

  After a good twenty-something years, the old family Chevy was still kicking.

  It was the only truck we had to spare, but, like my dad always said: “If it moves, it's good enough for me.” It wasn’t that far to Curtis’s place, anyway, so as long as the wheels didn’t fall off or the engine didn’t spontaneously combust, I figured it was good enough for me, too.

  Curtis’s place, I thought, grinning to myself. My place.

  The two meant the same now. It was our place. The thought made me stupidly happy, which only confirmed the conclusion I’d come to that evening: I’d be sending a message to my superior to tell him I changed my mind. That after this, I wouldn’t be reenlisting. I was going to stay right here in North Creek where I belonged—with my family, and with Curtis.

  The driveway that led to Curtis’s—our—house was a long stretch of gravel and dirt, a line struck on the lush plot of land that cut through the tall oak and dogwood trees. It was a pathway that was becoming as familiar as my folks’ home. I knew it forwards and backwards; hell, by now, I was probably on my way to knowing every bump with my eyes closed.

  The hot orange glow of fire through the leaves wasn’t familiar.

  Fire.

  I couldn’t make direct sense of why, but I knew fire when I saw it. The flames were thick and bright enough to cut through the low-hanging branches that shrouded his house from the road. Fear and dread pulsed through me, immediate as I hit the brake—and then hit the gas, driving fast and wild over the bumpy ground.

  Fire. There’s a fire.

  I thought of the house burning. I thought of Curtis—Curtis.

  Was he inside? Had he gotten out? If he got out, he would have called, wouldn’t he? Unless his phone was still inside? There were too many unanswered questions; the terror grew inside me, knowing that I’d find the answers at the end of this long drive, whether I liked them or not.

  I slammed the brakes so hard, the truck fishtailed against the gravel. There, a beacon against the dark blue twilight, was a home on fire. Orange throbbed, throwing off plumes of heat and black-gray smoke that rolled through the treetops.

  Hopping out of the truck, I cupped a hand over my mouth, shouting, “Curtis!”

  Nothing answered, except the popping, burning wood.

  I looked at his dark car—empty—and felt my heart sink; with no sign of him outside, there was only one other place he could be.

  I dialed on my cell the first family member that came to mind.

  Thank God he answered.

  “Hey, Zach. What’s—”

  “Victor,” I cut in, voice sounding raw with worry.

  He picked up on it in an instant. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

  “Curtis’s place. It’s on fire.”

  “What?”

  “It’s on fucking fire! I—” I skipped the back door and ran around to the front, finding that the front door seemed to have the least amount of fire in its windows. I shouted for Curtis through the open window, waiting, the silence agony.

  Victor yelled something to someone on the other end of the line before speaking to me directly again. “Okay. Okay, just stay calm, man. Mom’s calling and—” Victor paused, and distantly in the background, I heard her speaking quickly, “—Mom says the firemen are on their way. They say ten minutes and they’ll be there.”

  In the distance, beyond the trees at the edge of town, I heard the faint sound of the truck’s wailing sirens.

  Ten minutes. If Curtis was inside, he didn’t have ten minutes; someone needed to act. Now.

  “Don’t do anything, Zach,” Victor warned, as if he was reading my mind. “We’re on our way—”

  “I gotta go.”

  I heard him yell, sure that I was about to do something for sure, but I hung up before I could catch a word of it. I shouted for him again, looking at the impossible fortress of fire. If I was going to do this, if Curtis was going to live, I needed to act now.

  Limping back, I grabbed a water bottle from the front seat of the Chevy, pulled my shirt off, and poured water over it, soaking the fabric through. I ran—as fast I could with this shit leg of mine—to the house, and tied the shirt around my face, covering my nose and mouth as I mounted the porch and threw open the door.

  It was a maelstrom of smoke as I entered the front hall. Pressing the shirt hard against my mouth, I tried to keep my breathing even. Sweat broke out all over my body almost instantly—the power of the fire was throwing off an insane amount of heat, turning the house into an oven.

  I turned for the stairs, but they were completely engulfed. Not happening. With an ugly, fearful pit in my stomach, I ran through the living room—finding nothing—and checked every room I could get to downstairs, every place that wasn’t occupied by fire: the laundry room, the bathroom, the little office. Again, hopelessly, frustratingly empty.

  I checked it all. I checked it twice. The smoke and fumes were starting to bleed through the wet shirt, making me cough. My throat was turning scratchy. My eyes were beginning to burn and water.

  Smoke inhalation was getting to be a real possible threat, the longer I stayed in here—which meant I had to find Curtis soon. However bad it was for me, it had the possibility of being even worse for him….

  Please be here, I pleaded. Please let him be okay.

  As I passed by the kitchen doorway, I glanced inside at the flame along the wall and counter—and spotted a
figure in the smoke on the floor: that classic button-down shirt.

  I almost shouted with how happy I was to see Curtis—but the state he was in told me it was too soon to celebrate just yet. He was sprawled on the floor, not moving.

  I slid to his side, rolling him over. He looked dead asleep. Panic pulsed through me. I pressed a fumbling finger to his neck, waiting, hoping, feeling, and there, beneath his skin, was a faint pulse.

  Alive, I thought, tears clouding my eyes for a different reason. He’s alive.

  I shoveled my arms underneath him—one beneath his shoulders and the other beneath his legs—lugging him up bridal-style. He was heavy like this, all dead weight. My chest was starting to spasm more, the coughing getting intense.

  It hurt, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting Curtis to safety.

  As we rushed out of the house with the last, bursting shreds of my adrenaline, I heard the monstrous sound of wood cracking in two. At the front door—I threw it open too late to escape it myself, but I could at least shield Curtis from it as a flaming, hot beam snapped and crumbled in a hot heap of char and cinder.

  I shouted, an animal growl as the searing wood fell hard against my back, scratching and burning the skin between my shoulder blades.

  No, I thought, my legs buckling. No, this isn’t how this ends.

  With heaving breaths, I shouldered through the cracked door, pushing the pain aside long enough to get Curtis to the Chevy. As we stumbled down the front porch, the world outside the house felt so much cooler, and I tried to take in the fresh, cool air around where my throat was burning. I coughed and retched as I stumbled, leg aching, across the grass.

  As I set Curtis down in the front seat of the Chevy, I touched his face, wincing as my skin moved at my back, painful and broken.

  “Curtis,” I said, desperate for him to answer. “Curtis, c’mon, wake up.”

  The scream of the fire engine sirens cut through the rumble of the fire. The red and white flashing lights pierced the canopy of the trees, pulling up hard on the lawn. Men in heavy suits leapt out and moved in coordinated unity, pulling hoses from the side and firing gushes of water into the windows.

  And behind them was another car.

  Victor.

  “Curtis,” I whispered, thumb brushing over his soot-covered cheek.

  Quietly, he groaned, face pinching in pain.

  “Zach!” Victor shouted as he spilled from his car, jogging over. “Jesus, Zach, what the fuck happened?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, not taking my eyes off of Curtis.

  Victor went to pull me into his arms, relieved that I was alive and all right—that we both were—but I pushed him back, shaking.

  “What—”

  “My back,” I grunted, letting Victor turn me around.

  He swore under his breath. “You need to get treated. Now—”

  “Him first.”

  “Zach—”

  Curtis groaned again, eyes fluttering open for a flickering moment.

  “Zach…?” he mumbled hoarsely.

  “Curtis.” I was on him in a second, checking all over to make sure he was all right. He was alive and breathing, and talking, but his eyes kept closing. “Hey, c’mon, c’mon, talk to me. Talk to me, Curtis.”

  “Mm….” He inhaled deeply, before coughing hard—hard enough to make him double over and spit onto the grass. “My head doesn’t feel right….”

  “I’m taking him to the clinic,” I said.

  I reached across to adjust Curtis so he was sitting straight in the seat, buckling him in.

  Shutting the passenger door, I turned to Victor. He looked deeply troubled, brows knit tight on his forehead. “Zach, your back….”

  “It’ll be fine,” I huffed.

  Victor shook his head. “I’ll get there as soon as I can. Drive quick and make sure Sara looks after you, too. Don’t worry about calling Mom and everyone. I can do it.”

  “Thank you,” I sighed.

  Victor really was a great older brother.

  I crawled up into the Chevy and took the backroads into town—the old shortcut Curtis showed me he took when he was running late some mornings to work. The clinic was empty this time of night, right before closing. When I pulled up, I could see Sara sitting at the reception window, flipping through a magazine and looking utterly disinterested—until she saw the truck.

  As I hefted Curtis out of the seat, his consciousness still fading in and out, Sara burst through the front door, already in doctor mode.

  “What happened?”

  “A fire,” I said. “At his place.”

  “Bring him into the back. Room 3!”

  I did as she asked, laying him on the bed inside. I was useless in this department, always more of a soldier than a doctor—this was Curtis’s world, after all—so I stepped aside to let Sara do what she did best: save lives.

  She moved quickly and clinically, murmuring things to herself—tasks and doses and small notes about Curtis’s condition—as she hooked him up to an IV and started to treat him for smoke inhalation.

  It was amazing to watch, and it made me wonder what Curtis was like in emergencies, when a life was on the line.

  “Okay,” she finally said, sighing in relief. “He’s stable.”

  I looked at him, sleeping soundly, and heard the slight rasp in it.

  “Is he… I mean—”

  “He’s going to be fine,” Sara said, smiling gently at me. “I promise.”

  I nodded disjointedly. Now that there was time to rest and breathe and think, I was realizing just how close I’d come to losing Curtis. It was close, a handful of minutes that could have been the difference between life and death. I buried my face in my hands and took a long breath, wholly relieved.

  Sara laughed quietly.

  “Thank you,” I said, looking up at her.

  “Thank you for bringing him here,” she said, eyes flicking all over me. “You look like you didn’t get out totally unscathed either, though. C’mon.” She nudged my shoulder for her to follow. “I’ll work on your back while we wait for him to wake up.”

  She led me into an adjoining room where there were cabinets of supplies, treating the burn on my back. I hissed at the pain of it, setting in now that the adrenaline was wearing off.

  And, one by one, my family started to appear.

  First it was Victor, just like he’d promised, along with my mother, who’d thrown her arms around me with tears in her eyes, and then it was Beth, who told us that Robert was waiting back with Dad to keep him company—it was hard for him to leave the house, but he wanted updates constantly. And then it was Uncle Anthony, who’d heard the news secondhand, and finally, after a long time, Wyatt.

  He looked the least relieved of everyone, dressed in his uniform and grimacing in the doorway.

  “What?” I asked. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

  Wyatt swallowed, nodding to himself. “I went to Curtis’s place to poke around with the forensics guy—specializes in fire-related crimes. Works with our team and the fire department.”

  Beth frowned. “Fire-related crimes?”

  “That’s right.” Wyatt looked at Curtis in his bed and sighed. “We found signs of foul play. The final say he gave was that it was arson.”

  Arson, I thought.

  Arson meant someone had gone out of their way to do this; that someone had started the fire with the express intent of hurting—probably killing—Curtis. This was almost a homicide. It might have been, if it wasn’t for me coming home when I did.

  “Who would do that?” Uncle Anthony asked, voice quiet and disgusted.

  “That’s what we intend to figure out,” said Wyatt.

  I looked at Curtis, holding his hand gently at his bedside.

  There was only one man in all of North Creek who’d stand to gain something from seeing Curtis hurt. Who’d get some sick satisfaction from it, and that man was Edward Morris.

  16

  Cu
rtis

  I felt the pain first.

  As I came back to myself, the dull sting in my legs was only exacerbated by the starchy blankets I was tucked under. With a groan, I pushed them off my lower half, and the cool air was a welcomed relief, if only slightly.

  These blankets….

  I ran my fingers over them, the familiar threads and smell reminding me of someplace I knew well. I thought of home, I thought of my parents’ house, I thought of the Savage house, I thought of—the clinic.

  Blearily, I realized, That’s where you are: the clinic.

  I shot upright, like I’d just come up through the surface of a freezing cold river. Like lightning had thrown me forward. Sitting, I took in the room—definitely the clinic—and looked down at myself—I wasn’t wearing my usual clothes or what I’d been wearing when I was getting ready for my date with Zach. My date with Zach—why couldn’t I remember anything about it? It must have happened, hadn’t it? But, no, it hadn’t—

  “Curtis.”

  I turned and saw him there, sitting at my bedside. With confusion pulsing through me, riding the back of every heartbeat, I reached out across the sheets for him, and his fingers tangled solidly in mine, meeting in the middle.

  I breathed a sigh of relief at touching them. His thumb brushed reassuringly over my knuckles.

  “Zach….”

  “I’m here,” he said. His voice mixed quiet and close with the soft beeping in the background—a monitor, I thought. That’s my heart beating. “Nothing’s gonna hurt you. You’re safe.”

  Safe.

  I was silent for a long time, letting things come back to me. I felt like I’d woken up from a long, bad dream.

  Finally, I asked him, “Where are my clothes?”

  Zach’s lips twitched into a smile, dimples included. He laughed in disbelief. “That’s really what you’re focusing on right now? Your clothes?”

  “Yes?” I shifted, groaning at the pain in my legs. I pulled back the edge of my hospital gown and found the source of the irritation: burns where some fire had licked up my legs and gotten me through my pants. The skin there was pink and red and blotched, peppered with smallish blisters. Second-degree. Nothing life-threatening, but not your average stove burn; the pain was there, though, beyond the drugs Sara would have administered.