Murray pulled the pickup to the side of the road and hit the brakes, palming the handheld radio Velcroed to his dash. He hit the power button and adjusted the channel settings. Static crackled through the speaker. “Ranger Kennex, come in.”
His heart thundered behind his rib cage as he surveyed the darkening sky. Lava Point Overlook stood tall to his left at almost eight thousand feet of sheer cliff. No response on the radio. Damn it. Aslen hadn’t answered any of his calls or responded to his texts. Danny Kennex was the only lead he had to finding her. “Ranger Kennex, come in.”
No answer.
“Any law enforcement rangers in and around Lava Point, respond.” Night was steadily falling now, tightening the vise in his chest. He’d taught Aslen to gruelingly defend herself and escape. She could take care of herself, but that didn’t mean she should have to fight this alone.
A couple of his rangers checked in with no sightings of Danny Kennex or Aslen Woods, and Murray pressed the radio into the dash with a little too much force.
A flash of light pierced through the night from his left. Then disappeared. The air remained dry, no evidence of a storm moving in. He could clearly pick out a number of stars and the moon rising in the east. Air stalled in his lungs as the light reappeared, steadily moving down the path leading to the overlook. He took a step into the middle of the road, trying to force his senses to adapt faster. “What the hell?”
Shouts echoed down the cliffside, and every cell in his body honed in on the slash of movement ahead of the light. A person. Running. His instincts filled in the gaps his senses couldn’t account for, and Murray ran for the truck, pulling a flashlight from the glove compartment, before checking his sidearm at his hip. He shot down the narrow trail that would take him straight up the Overlook. “Aslen.”
He tried keeping that lone light in his sights as he navigated over rolling elevations and through the trees that’d survived the initial fire, but he lost sight of the runner within seconds. It didn’t matter. There was only one way down the overlook unless hikers deviated from the path, and he was on it. He could intercept her. “Aslen!”
The overlook almost towered straight overhead. He was getting closer, gaining on her, though he could barely see a few feet in front of him as his flashlight bobbed with his movements.
Then a burst of fire lit up at the top of the Overlook. And dropped. Murray visually followed the flaming mass. Right until it disappeared into the trees. The explosion threw red-hot licks of fire several feet away from the impact zone, and the trees caught fire. Holy hell. Had that been a gas can set on fire? In this summer heat, it took less than a few seconds for the wildfire to gain intensity. He’d lost track of that lone flashlight up against the threat of a third fire. Lost track of Aslen.
He hit the incline of the trail that would take him up to the overlook, but she’d been running in the opposite direction. Hehadn’t intercepted her on the way back. She’d had to have gone off the path. Damn it. “Aslen!”
The crackle of flame drowned any attempt to get her attention. She was here. She had to be here. Scanning the trail ahead, Murray tried to make out the threat she’d been running from but only met darkness. Whatever light had been chasing her was gone now. That left him with one choice: To follow her into the trees currently being eaten alive by the flames. Sweat slithered down the back of his neck. The sensitive skin beneath his bandages screamed warnings before he dove past the first lick of flames.
He’d made her a promise, and he had no intention of breaking it ever again. He’d wasted years of his life living in his misery while she helplessly watched on, but he wasn’t going to be that person anymore. He was going to choose her. Over the comfort of being on his own, over ever having to feel again, over his fear of losing her. He’d follow her into the depths of hell if that was what she required of him, and he had to admit, this was pretty damn close.
But despite what he’d told her back at the house, they had a future. With the mornings in bed and the nights tangled in each other. The movie nights and surprise lunch dates, the weekends shooting off to wherever she wanted to go. Hell, he’d saved enough money over the years with the life insurance money from his parents’ and brother’s deaths they could both quit their jobs and travel the world if she wanted. They could do it. Together. He’d spend the rest of his life trying to make up for the pain and rejection she’d suffered, proving his love to her every day. He wanted it all. And he wanted it with her.
They just had to survive first.
Smoke burned down his throat as he raced across the epicenter of the fire. Chief Higgins’s crews were already stationed out here. They would see the flames and respond asquickly as possible without him needing to call it in. Until then, Murray had to focus on Aslen. On getting her the hell out of here. His chest constricted from the lack of oxygen, and he coughed to clear his lungs. In vain.
He followed the pattern of the widest openings between trees. Adrenaline did funny things to the brain, shutting down some functions while pouring everything the body had into others. Escape under the influence depended on the easiest way out of any given situation, and Aslen would be no different. But the wildfire seemed to be jumping ahead of him, catching up to her faster than he could keep up. Murray raised his hand to block the exposed skin of his face, but it wasn’t enough.
Within seconds, he’d be surrounded and completely useless to her as he had been at the reservoir. He wasn’t going to take the chance of getting trapped this time, and the son of a bitch responsible wasn’t getting his hands on her either. Not again.
The arsonist. Where had the bastard gone? How did Danny play into all of this? Had she known the killer? Had she helped in luring Aslen out here or had she been a target all along? Murray shook his head as though he could dislodge all the little distractions vying for his attention and put everything he had into his senses. Into finding Aslen. Because he wasn’t leaving Lava Point without her. He wasn’t going to leave her to fight this on her own. “Where are you, woman?”
The smoke grew thicker, getting trapped within the trees and barreling down on top of him. It burned his eyes and drilled into his pores. There was no escaping it. Whatever the arsonist wanted, Aslen was part of it. But Murray wasn’t giving her up so easily this time. Never again.
A tendril of fire lashed out across his arm. He swallowed the scream ripping up his throat as the flames started closing in on him ahead. “To hell and back.”
Charging the flames head on, Murray leapt through the thin layer of fire gaining strength and landed on the other side. His shoulder ached under the pressure of hitting the ground with his entire weight, but he wasn’t going to let anything come between him and getting to the woman he loved. He’d always told himself she deserved better than a man who didn’t know how to love anymore, that he’d never be good enough. But she was worth the pain. And he would do whatever it took to become the partner she needed.
A scream tore through the trees.
His nerves shot into overdrive. He couldn’t tell the direction it’d come from, but he knew that scream, understood the pain in it. He’d heard it in the middle of the night from the bedroom next to his for years. Desperate and horrifying and filled with the kind of loss he’d never been able to vocalize.
It was the scream of Aslen’s demons catching up to her.
The fire. Panic seized his limbs and paralyzed him at the realization she wasn’t in these woods as a firefighter as she had been for the past two years. She was caught in the flames. Just as she had been at eight years old. Now. He needed to find her now. Murray took that initial step in the direction he believed she’d gone, the thread connecting them tugging hard in his chest. Like he’d unblocked some kind of invisible barricade between him and Aslen in the past couple of hours. His entire system seemed to restart and clear out all the fear that’d held him back from just reaching out for her. North. She’d gone north toward the campground where she might get help. It made the most sense and would register even in an adrenaline-induced panic. He could still make it. He wasn’t too late.
Pain exploded along the back of his head.
His knees hit the ground, and Murray fell forward. Dirt and rock cut into his face as his vision wavered. Footsteps registeredthrough the darkness closing in around him. Then a pair of boots. A thick branch dropped beside his body.
“I’m sorry.” The voice was female. Recognizable. Danny Kennex crouched beside him, unholstering his weapon and tucking it straight into the back of her uniform waistband. “I know how much she means to you, but I can’t let you do this. I can’t let you save her.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
