He’d only have one shot at this. One chance to escape. With Aslen out there, alone, potentially in danger, he would take it. For her. He’d done everything he could to uphold his promise to protect her all these years, but maybe he needed to admit to himself there was a part of him that wanted more than what they had now. Was scared of watching her walk away, finding happiness somewhere else. With someone else. Maybe the thought of losing her hit so much harder than losing his family because he didn’t just want to protect her anymore. He wanted her.
More than he wanted anyone and anything else.
Not as his investigative consultant.
Not as his friend.
As just…his.
A different kind of fire took hold inside of him then, and he shoved his arms back into his jacket for extra protection. A breeze cut through the clearing, riling the fire past a frenzy. The flames licking at the boulder parted for a brief second, and Murray charged for it and the branch hanging directly above without another thought. His heart rate climbed with every stride. He slammed one boot against the boulder face and thrust himself upward. Except the angle of the rock was much steeper than he’d expected. His balance was thrown off, but he managed to secure his hands around the curve of the tree branch overhead. He dangled over the boulder, losing his momentum. Hands made of flame stretched and reached for the bottoms of his boots and cuffs of his jeans. He was losing his grip as bark peeled free of the tree beneath his fingers.
Seconds. He had only seconds before it’d fail altogether.
Wood cracked and groaned under his weight. Throwing his feet behind him, he tried to gain back the momentum he’d lost, only to rip the branch clean from the tree. Wood rained down as Murray flung his hands for the top of the boulder and curled his fingers into unforgiving stone.
Thehissof searing skin reached his ears a split second before the pain registered. It radiated through his fingers and across his palms. His scream filled the woods around him, but he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t back down. Throwing himself over the top of the boulder, Murray lost all sense of logic as the world spun. He slammed into the ground, his shoulder nearly buckling beneath his weight. His chest evacuated every molecule of oxygen, lungs pulsing for the sweet release from paralysis.
Move. He had to move. Now.
Smoke-laden air charged down his throat within a few seconds. The fire wouldn’t give him a reprieve and neither would the arsonist if given the chance to escape arrest. Knowing he only had moments to escape certain death, Murray plantedblistered and warped palms onto the forest floor, barely holding in a second scream as the pain flared. Rolling onto his side, he thrust himself to his feet and added a good twenty feet of space between him and the spreading wildfire. Infection would set in quickly if he didn’t get the burns treated soon. The first aid kit in the truck came stocked with burn ointment and bandages. He carried a fire extinguisher, too, but that invisible thread in his chest that connected him to Aslen pulled taut. Struggling to catch a clean breath, Murray took one step in the direction he’d watched her disappear. He tucked his injured palms to his chest, careful not to aggravate the red skin peeling up in curls. It wouldn’t take much to cause permanent damage, and he couldn’t afford to slow himself down. Not when it came to Aslen’s safety.
“Aslen!” Her name escaped as little more than a croak.
No answer.
It felt wrong to turn his back on the raging flames, to leave the fire for the incoming rangers to deal with, but time hadn’t been on their side since he and Aslen had stepped into the Lava Point campground.
Hell. The campground. The explosion. He could make out the tendrils of black smoke over the tops of the still-standing trees from here. The arsonist must’ve set something in his RV to explode in case rangers had closed in, endangering all those people—the children—who’d returned to the campground after the evacuation order had been lifted. He had to help them, to make sure no one else was hurt. And seeing as how he was the only ranger on the scene with backup more than thirty minutes out at this point, Murray had to ignore that pull toward the reservoir. Had to leave Aslen.
Every cell in his body screamed to turn back as he stumbled toward the campground. Soon his legs remembered how to hold him up, the pain in his shoulder lightened and his head cleared.Faster. He had to move faster. The smoke thickened, seeping into the surrounding trees. Then he saw the flames.
The RV he’d noted when they’d first arrived at the campground was gone. Only twisted metal and glass remained, jagged and threatening. Four tires had somehow survived, which told him the arsonist had angled the blast to shoot out and upward to cause as much damage as possible. Shouts reached his ears as campers rushed to fill anything they could with water from the communal bathroom and water pump to help, but putting anyone else in danger wasn’t an option. Murray swatted one arm out to catch their attention as he charged past the perimeter of the campground. He couldn’t risk this fire spreading. Not as another burned a mere quarter mile into the woods, heading this way with the winds. “Get back!”
He ran for the truck and tucked blistered fingers under the passenger door handle. A hiss escaped up his throat as the pain surged, but he couldn’t let it stop him from doing his job. He ripped the fire extinguisher out from underneath the passenger seat and raced to get the RV fire under control. In minutes, he’d managed to hit the valve with his damaged fingers and release the suppressing foam, suffocating the flames into something more manageable. It’d take more than one fire extinguisher to put out a fire this size, especially fed by an accelerant, but Murray would control it until his backup arrived. “Is anybody hurt?”
Low murmurs from other campgoers confirmed no one had been caught in the explosion. A miracle.
The van he and Aslen had approached earlier, belonging to the family who’d been targeted by the arsonist, was gone, the campsite empty. They’d gotten away before the explosion. Something in his chest released at the realization. Except every second he fought this fire, another raged. And left Aslen unprotected in those woods. He mentally catalogued thefamilies looking on in horror, mothers holding their children to their sides, fathers racing to continue to help throw water on the flames. Murray didn’t have the energy to tell them water wouldn’t do a damn bit of good against a fire fed by gasoline or some other compound.
Sirens echoed up the single-lane dirt road just before three ranger SUVs shot into the campground, and Murray peeled his burned hands from the fire extinguisher. Rangers spilled free of the vehicles with their own supplies as a fire truck rolled up on their tail. Handing off his now-empty fire extinguisher, he targeted the woman climbing down the fire truck’s raised platform with several other teammates. Danny. Aslen’s friend. Hoses were in hand, orders shouted as the team raced to meet the latest threat. “You’re in charge of the scene. There’s another fire about a quarter mile past the tree line and spreading fast in this wind. I have to go.”
“What? Where?” She scanned the campground, her face losing color. “Where is Aslen?”
Murray forced one foot in front of the other. Allowing himself to be consumed by the wilderness all over again. “That’s what I’m going to find out.”
Chapter Fifteen
Well, that didn’t feel right.
Aslen’s chest burned as if she’d inhaled a lungful of pure fire. Something hard pressed between her shoulder blades then dragged up toward her neck. Her legs felt as though she’d run three miles with fifty pounds of gear straight uphill, tingling in her toes and down her calves. Pain flared along her right side, and she tried to force herself to sit up.
A piercing brightness singed her corneas, and she twisted her head to relieve the onslaught, like those times Murray had barged into her room and opened her blackout curtains without warning before school most days. No matter how many times she’d begged for five—even ten—more minutes, he’d never let her go back to sleep, insisting she get up and get dressed so she wouldn’t be late for her college classes.
But some part of her brain recognized that this wasn’t one of those mornings. That Murray wasn’t the one holding onto her ankles. That the pain along her back and scalp wasn’t where he’d accidentally landed on her trying to get her up for the day. Aslen raised her hand in front of her face to dim some of that bright sunlight. The jerking sensation triggered a rush of acid and nausea. Oh, hell. She was going to lose the calories Murray had practically forced down her throat earlier that day. “Stop that.”
“Look who’s awake.” Despite her hand blocking the sun’s assault, her brain refused to note a single feature of the man’sface. Tall. She could tell that much. Not as built as Murray, but close. Enough to intimidate a five-foot-three firefighter. But that voice… Something about it tugged at her soggy memory. “Don’t worry. We’re almost there.”
“Almost where?” Bile pulsed into her mouth as another tug shot her stomach upward. It took everything she had to swallow it back down, which only intensified the headache thudding along to her heart rate. Another line of pain struck along her spine, and she heaved her back off whatever was pressing between her shoulder blades. “Where’s Murray?”
