Then, a noise, reminiscent of a breeze, stirred the still air. Charity lifted her head, instinctively knowing it wasn't the wind.
“Luke?” she called to him, her voice quiet at first.
The air changed. Something cracked and tipped over in the next room, then a heat grew behind her. She backed up from the wall, scurrying across the barn and as far away as she could get, to the other side of the barn.
“Luke!” she screeched his name. “You cannot do this. You’ll kill me!” She bellowed the words, louder than she had ever thought possible to cry out. That heat was unmistakable now, even at this distance. “You’re going to burn me alive!” she cried.
The fire was growing, the air crackling as the scent of ash hovered under her nose.
He’s going to kill me. He’ll murder me. Is this all revenge for what happened to his brother? He’s going to kill me for what my father did?
Charity scrambled for another rock amongst the hay and matting and launched it at the door, repeatedly trying to break the lock.
CHAPTER 25
“Luke!” It did not seem to matter just how many times Seth yelled the name. His friend did not come back and had long since disappeared from view down the winding road. Darkness was beginning to fall, the dim orange glow smattering around the track road and nearby meadows, leaving only the settling gray dusk in its wake.
Where could he have gone?
Far ahead in the distance, the track curved up a hill and Seth could see no one upon it. It suggested Luke had darted off somewhere into the fields. As Seth brought his horse to a halt and whipped his head back and forth, doing his best to ignore the pain that was now searing into his shoulder, he scanned for any signs of freshly made tracks among the thick grass around him.
Just then, the faint—but very distinct—acrid smell of burning met his nose, and out of the corner of his eye, Seth saw black smoke billowing.
“God, no…” The fear he had known for so long took a stranglehold of him. For a moment, he was rooted to the spot in the saddle as his gaze hyper focused on the burning barn far to his left.
At the edge of a farmer’s field, it had been set alight. One side of the barn was now engulfed in flames, but the other side was still free of it.
“Luke!” Seth called and galloped forward once again. He urged the horse to leap over the nearest fence and streaked through the grassy fields, not bothering to keep to a track road but beelining straight for the barn.
As Seth drew nearer to the conflagration, he grew more and more certain that someone was trapped inside, with faint hissing sounds slicing through the night. Or was it just his imagination? The crackle of hay and wood was deafening, drowning out all other sounds. The steed balked a few dozen yards from the burning building, snorting and whinnying, refusing to get any closer.
“Shh,” Seth urged, struggling to shift the pistol in his grasp so he could soothe the horse with gentle strokes.
Suddenly, a woman’s scream cut sharply through the air, so vivid and desperate that Seth could almost feel her breath on his skin.
“Charity?” He barely breathed out her name at first, not wanting to believe it, then he cleared his throat and managed to shout louder as he jumped down from the horse. “Charity!”
“Seth!” Her voice sounded back just as part of the barn fell in.
Seth instinctively recoiled from the shower of sparks and debris that came down with it, shielding himself from the blistering heat. Desperately, he circled the barn to its less ravaged side.
“Charity!” he called again.
“I’m here, I’m here,” she shouted, and a door suddenly rattled against the frame in the darkness. Seth reached for it, tugging on the handle, trying to force it open, but it refused to budge.
Charity coughed and sputtered inside the burning structure, sending a tremor of fear through Seth. His hands trembled with the realization of the peril she faced, for he knew better than most that the smoke was as bad as the fire itself. It could take a life just as swiftly.
No. Not again. This will not happen again!
In his mind’s eye, he saw the harrowing memory of Arthur. He saw pulling his friend’s body out of the fire, then he saw his father too, badly burnt with his clothes covered in ash. That would not be Charity’s face. He would not let it happen again.
“Get away from the door, Charity!” he ordered, but she did not answer. There came not even the sounds of coughs and splutters this time.
Seth did not know if she had heeded his command, but neither did he have time to call out to her again. With a resolute grip, he raised the pistol in his grasp and fired it at the lock, aiming dead at its very center. Metal and wood splintered alike, fracturing everywhere. He followed up with a forceful kick.
After another of those kicks, the door burst open, unleashing a wave of heat that nearly overwhelmed him, forcing him to stagger back at the sudden influx of air fueling the fire's fury. Struggling to gain his balance, he shuffled forward, raising an arm over his mouth and nose.
The dread threatened to send him back the other way. He didn’t want to relive this moment, to feel the burns, to suffer more scars and more loss. Yet, retreating was unthinkable.
