Before I know it, Echo’s grabbed my arm. ‘Hollie, stay with me,’ he orders, and I’m powerless to respond. ‘We’re heading for the med center.’
‘They took him,’ Balthazar manages to say to me. ‘AJ. Not so long ago. In an ambulance.’
I yank myself away from Echo and come to a halt. I search Balthazar’s face, and he seems broken. My mouth opens to repeat something, only the words don’t come.
‘I’m sorry, Hollie,’ Echo says behind me. ‘He had to jump.’
Chapter Thirty-One
Hollie
It was AJ who passed me. In the ambulance, on my way out to Rapture.
He jumped. To save himself.
My heart thunders inside my chest.
How long ago? From how high up? Is he alive? Injured?
An explosion sounds out, interrupting all the thoughts rollercoastering through my mind. We duck down. There are screams. More glowing embers are coughed out into the air. I picture the pool tables burning inside the saloon. Individual bottles of alcohol shattering under blistering heat, their contents only adding to the furnace.
Echo throws up one arm, indicating which direction we should all be heading, away from Scotch & Smoke.
I follow, tripping over my own feet. Echo begins barking out orders. I hear the roar of an engine and Chase’s truck pulls up.
His window is down. He and Echo exchange bellowed words, and a group of bikers climb into the back.
‘Take Hollie!’ Echo orders, and I feel him nudge me toward the door.
I climb into the cab, doing as I’m told, just as I glimpse Nicole climbing on the back of Balthazar’s bike. Somebody loads two dogs in beside me, an enormous Rottweiler and a sandy-colored bulldog. Their panting breaths fill the cab as I move myself to the seat by the window, just as Echo slams the door behind me.
‘Somebody can take my car,’ I say to Echo, as I hand him my keys.
I strap myself in, keeping one hand in front of both dogs, penning them in. Chase leans out his window, checking as many people as possible are inside the back of his truck before he guns the engine.
As we hit the access road, I don’t say anything. I don’t know where to start. There’s a dry lump sitting at the base of my throat.
‘Are you all right?’ Chase shouts to me, over the sound of the wind rushing through the window.
I glance in my wing mirror. I can see the inferno we’re leaving behind, and for a moment, close my eyes.
‘No,’ I shout back. ‘I need to know that AJ is okay. What happened?’
‘Somebody lit her up. Doused the place. Somebody said the Floods are involved. That they used gasoline, all around the outside.’
‘Somebody did this on purpose? Who are the Floods?’
‘Family of outlaws from over in Temptation Heights, West Canyon. They’re the ones orchestrating stealing all the cars in the city these last few months. But far as I know, they got no beef with us, and we didn’t even retaliate for them roping in our kids to steal all o’ them Teslas and Audis from Canyon. Echo put an embargo on any kind of strike back. So, the whole thing don’t make no sense. Feels targeted.’
I swallow. ‘What about AJ? How far did he have to jump?’
Chase winces. ‘Don’t know. Echo’s generator is fueled by propane, so the whole thing went up in flames real quick. Wouldn’t have had much warning. Maybe he didn’t have a choice. By the time Reyes got to him, he weren’t talking.’
My heart leaps. We stare across at one another. One of my boyfriend’s closest friends and I recognize the fear in his eyes, because I have it too. I clasp my fingers together to stop them from trembling.
‘Were you with him? Last night?’
‘We played some eight-ball. He told me what went down with you two and the mayor. Was beating himself up for leaving you there, in Boulder Creek. But he was real excited to find a place with you. All he could talk about.’
