My foot hit the gas. The sledgehammer in my chest pounded faster with every second, my vision tunneling. Smoke curled beneath the hood of my Jeep. The air turned syrup-thick with heat. The line between fury and fear blurred until I couldn’t tell which one was making my hands shake.
I turned down Sunny’s driveway and slammed the brakes.
The forest around her house was ablaze. Pines exploded like fireworks, sending fireballs spiraling into the sky. The entire front of her cabin was swallowed in flame, the windows pulsing with heat. A monstrous plume of black smoke coiled into the sky like a signal of death.
I jumped out, the air so hot it scorched my lungs. The stench of smoke, melting plastic, and scorched wood filled my nose. My boots hit the gravel and I sprinted toward the porch, the radiant heat blistering my skin.
“Sunny!” I bellowed, my voice barely audible over the roar of the flames and the crack of splitting timbers.
I ripped off my shirt, wrapped it as a glove around my hand and turned the doorknob, but the door wouldn’t budge. I jumped back and slammed my boot against the wood. Again, again, until finally, against the heat and my weight, it buckled. The door swung open, the blast of fresh air sending a burst of flame above my head. Black smokebarreled out of the top of the doorway. I dropped to the ground and covered my nose and mouth with my shirt.
“Sunny!” I screamed, using my elbows to shimmy over the threshold on my stomach. Blinking away the tears, I scanned the room. The furniture was on fire, the rugs, the curtains. Black smoke prevented me from seeing into the loft, but from what I could see, there was no Sunny.
Movement had my head whipping to the side.
Athena, Tango and Max huddled in the corner, shaking like leaves.
“Come.Come!”
The dogs didn’t move.
“Come,I said! Come on, you crazy mutts!”
Athena moved slowly, clawing across the floor on her stomach much like I was. The other dogs followed suit.
I backed out the front door. Once the dogs crossed onto the porch, they went ballistic.
“Settle,settle!”I yelled, then turned back to the house.
Was Sunny in there? Burning to death? Listening to me scream for her but unable to respond?
I swear to God, right then and there, I had a mini heart attack. I looked down at the dogs, bouncing like monkeys and then it hit me—the dogs would have been by her side. If Sunny was in that house, they would have been huddled next to her. There was no doubt in my mind.
Trust your instincts…
I took one last look at the house, then turned back to the dogs. “Where is she? Take me to her. Where’s Sunny?” I frantically looked around for anything that carried her scent. I leapt off the porch, jogged to her truck and grabbed the purple baseball cap she’d been wearing at our lunch from the seat. I shoved it in Max’s face. “Take me to Sunny. Search!Go! Search!”
The dog took off like a bullet, the others on his heels. Clutching Sunny’s hat, I took off after them, sprinting through burning woods around me. Sweat poured like water down my face, my back. My exposed skin was so hot I kept looking down to see if it had ignited or not.
The thought that I was going to die actually entered my mind.
Then I’d die trying to save the woman I loved.
I wiped the sweat from my face and pushed forward, lungs dragging in smoke, eyes burning. I focused on the blur of sable fur ahead, but the dogs were too fast. Too far ahead. The smoke swallowed them whole. My old, disabled body couldn’t keep up.
Sudden screams spun me around. A group of teenagers in flowing dresses sprinted through the trees, their faces wild with fear, coughing, crying. Festival goers, running for their lives.
“Wait!” I shouted, stumbling toward them. “Did you see anyone? Dogs? A woman?” But my voice was lost in the hissing and crackling wood.
I turned back on course just as a branch engulfed in flames fell in front of me. I stumbled, pain ripping through my back like a blade. I doubled over, gasping, gritting my teeth, forcing myself upright. My vision began to waver. It wasn’t the heat. It was the smoke. I couldn’t breathe.
I’d lost the dogs, the trail.
I’d lost her.
I stumbled into the tree next to me, covered my nose and mouth with my T-shirt and took several deep breaths. Embers rained around me, a few hitting my shoulders like bee stings.
Keep going, Jagg. She needs you. Do not die here.
