Not gonna happen, Bri.
She opened the top of the box and started pulling out books, piling them into stacks according to type. The majority were cookbooks, and one caught her eye about baking different homemade breads.
“This one might have to come home with me,” she muttered as she licked her thumb to page through the recipes. Perhaps she could start baking tea buns or scones to sell. Wouldn’t that be fun? Expanding the tea shop would be cool too.
Her head was full of the future when something crashed through her window. She had a split second to look up before flames erupted on the front shelves.
“Oh no!” she cried, dropping the bread book.
She lunged at the small fire extinguisher behind the front counter. In the few seconds it took for her to figure out how to operate the device, the fire had spread to three other stacks. Thebooks acted like a smorgasbord of fuel. Bri sprayed a pitifully small stream toward the flames, but it petered out quickly, leaving nothing to stop the growing inferno.
I have to get out!
Her head swiveled between the front of the store and the back. The raging fire blocked both. She coughed as acrid smoke entered her lungs. Vaguely remembering something about fire safety, she fell to the floor, but it wasn’t enough. She gagged as she crawled, trying to make her brain work.
The crash of the front door giving way startled her, and she raised her burning eyes to see a man in a black vest rushing in. A bandana covered his nose and mouth, but she recognized him as the guy who came in for the chain mail books.
“Help me,” she tried to cry out, but it only came out as a whisper before a fit of coughing took away any voice she had left.
He grasped her arms and yanked her up with bruising force. She didn’t care as long as they got out of this madness. Flames licked at both of them as he half dragged her to the door. Once outside, he continued to pull her farther into the street. She collapsed into several other pairs of arms as she gagged and coughed, desperate to get any air into her lungs.
“I got her, Crossman. You can let go.”
The words reached her as if resonating from the bottom of a deep well. She was still alive, but her store was toast. Literally.
If she could cry then and there, she would have. All the work, money, and time she’d invested had gone up in smoke within minutes. She would grieve it later when she could breathe again, but a simple one-word question remained in her mind.
Why?
The sirens wokeSabrina from a deep sleep. She sat up from the nest of blankets on her bed and rubbed her eyes awake. The dark was absolute, and she fumbled to find the battery-powered reading lamp above her head.
“What the hell?” she muttered.
The piercing blare got closer, and fear bloomed in her chest.There’s a fire, and it’s close.She sniffed the air but smelled nothing more than the lavender spray she used on her pillow.
The noise grew louder, then stopped like the big trucks were right outside her windows. She reached out to pull one of the coverings down to check outside her vehicle, but something made her pause. Whatever instinct kicked in told her there was something out there in the alley with her. Something she needed to leave alone.
If she lifted that cover, not only would she see whatever was out there, but it would see her too.
With trembling fingers, she clicked the lamp back off and wrapped herself in the blankets. The van was locked, but she still felt vulnerable as she huddled in her bed. Rugrat or Reptar skittered across the enclosure as she strained her ears to hear something. Anything.
More emergency sirens filtered in from the front street. Something had happened. She had no clue what it was, but it sounded bad if that many emergency vehicles showed up. Maybe she needed to move her rig now, but that meant she would have to remove the front blackout covering.
Her eyes cut to the driver’s windshield.Stop being so dramatic! There’s nothing out there.But she still couldn’t make herself move. There sat a malevolence just beyond that curtain.Whether physical or her imagination, it paralyzed her into silence. Her senses stayed hyper-focused as the minutes passed.
A sudden pounding on the door made her scream and fall off the bed.
“Sabrina! It’s me. Open up!” Cam’s demanding voice shouted.
The Gordian knot in her stomach broke apart, and she sobbed lightly in relief. “Hold your horses, sugar.”
She unlocked the door and let him in.
“There’s a fire a couple doors down. Bookstore. Total loss.” His face was streaked with soot and grime. “We’re not waiting ’til daylight. We’re moving you now.”
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
