“Um, about twelve miles northeast.It started yesterday from a lightning strike.The news says --”
“Scheiße.”The word came out sharp enough to cut.“Mia, listen to me.Which direction is the wind blowing right now?”
I frowned, glancing toward the window where the curtains stirred against a draft I hadn’t noticed earlier.“I don’t know.Southwest, maybe?It’s been gusty all afternoon.”
“Southwest.”He repeated the word like it tasted foul.“And the fire is northeast of you.”
The implication hit me a beat late, a cold stone dropping through warm water.“The reports said it’s moving away from recreational areas.”
“Reports are hours old by the time they publish, Mia.Wind shifts in the mountains.”I heard the jingle of keys and the heavy thud of a door closing in the background.“You should head out.Now.I’m on my way and will meet you.”More noise in the background and I heard someone talking urgently.“Nein.She’s not left yet.”Oktober wasn’t talking to me.
“Oktober, you’re scaring me.”
“Gut.You should be scared.”His voice dropped to that eerily quiet register I’d only heard once before, when Eric had pushed too far.
“It’s dark.I don’t know the roads.”
“Scheiße.”A pause followed.“OK.I want you to be ready first thing in the morning.The second the sun lightens the sky.I’m headed that way now.I’ll be able to help you out if we need to leave earlier than the morning.”This was unexpected.
“You’re what?”
“Mia, honey, do what I told you.”His voice was gentle but held a quiet authority I knew better than to disobey.“I’ll be there in three hours.”The unmistakable growl of a motorcycle engine roared behind his words, and I realized with a jolt that he really was coming for me.“They’re not going to issue evacuations until they’re sure, and by then it could be too late for people in isolated areas,Kätzchen.”
I stood up, wine forgotten, my bare feet cold against the cabin floor.“Oktober, that’s a three-and-a-half-hour ride.In the dark.On mountain roads.”
“Three hours the way I ride.”No bravado in his voice.Just fact.“Be ready.Hopefully we simply have another night together, but if I need to get you out, I’ll know you’re safe.Put everything in your car.Be ready to leave the second I get there or before if things change.”
“I was planning to leave at first light anyway.I can just --”
“Mia.”My name in his mouth sounded like a command and a prayer knotted together.“Please.Don’t argue with me on this.Not tonight.”
I pressed my free hand against the kitchen counter, steadying myself against the urgency bleeding through the phone.“OK,” I said quietly.“I’ll pack tonight.Everything will be in the car.I’ll call you if I have to leave sooner.”
“Gut.That’s my smart girl.”Relief loosened his voice by a fraction.“Keep your phone charged.Keep it on you.If anything changes -- anything -- you call me and you get in that car and you drive south.Don’t wait for me.Don’t wait for an official order.Just go.”
“I will.”
“Promise me,Kätzchen.”
“I promise.”
We stayed on the line for another minute without speaking, just breathing together across the distance.I could hear the wind rushing past his phone, the steady thunder of the engine beneath him, and I wanted to tell him to be careful, to slow down, to not kill himself on dark mountain curves trying to reach a woman he’d known for a week.But I knew he wouldn’t listen, and I knew the request would insult the very thing that made him who he was.
“Drive safe,” I said instead, my throat tight.“I need you to get here in one piece.”
“Always,Kätzchen.I’ll see you before dawn.”
The call disconnected, and the silence that replaced his voice felt heavier than it had any right to.I stood in the kitchen, phone pressed against my chest, my heart thudding with a cocktail of fear and something fiercer.He was riding through the night for me.Three hours of dark highway and mountain switchbacks because a fire report made him uneasy.
I tucked my phone into my back pocket and walked to the front door.The moment I stepped onto the porch, I understood his fear.The sky to the northeast had transformed.What had been a vague, bruised darkness during the afternoon now pulsed with a deep, throbbing orange that stained the underside of the clouds in shades of amber and rust.The glow sat low on the horizon, right where the tree line met the sky, and it moved -- not steadily, but in surges, brightening and dimming like the breathing of something enormous and alive.The wind had shifted decisively, blowing directly toward me now, carrying heat that had no business existing at this hour and a smell so thick with burning pine that my eyes watered.
Ash fell heavier than before.Not the occasional speck I’d noticed that afternoon, but a steady, silent rain of gray flakes that dusted the porch railing and the hood of my car and the surface of my forgotten wine glass.
The fire was no longer twelve miles away.The glow told a different story, one measured in single digits, and the wind was pushing it straight toward the lake.
I went back inside and knew I needed to move.I refused to give in to panic but I felt an urgency to perhaps move quicker than I’d intended.Bordering on panic.I loaded my suitcase into the car first, then my laptop bag.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and pulled up Oktober’s name.I wanted to hear his voice.Wanted to tell him about the orange sky and the warm ash and the wind that now rattled the windows with a persistence that felt personal.Wanted him to tell me I was overreacting, or that he was closer than he’d said, or anything at all in that rough, accented voice that had become the steadiest thing in my unsteady world.
