“Bring it here!” Sharon calls.
I stagger back to the tree and set the saw down between us. It thuds under its own weight.
“Is he okay?” I ask.
“We get out of here, he will be.” Sharon jerks her chin at the saw. “Know how to run that?”
My hope stutters. Before I can admit I don’t, Kael steps forward. He wraps his hands around the handle, bare forearms flexing, with his face set.
“Ever used one?” Sharon asks.
“Nope,” he says, planting a shoe on the base to steady it.
I open my mouth to tell him you don’t kick it, but he’s already grabbed a pull cord I hadn’t even seen.
The engine sputters, coughs, and then roars to life.
CHAPTER 17
KAEL
Sharon steps back,clapping, as I lift the chainsaw with a firmer grip.
Starting it felt almost like cranking Gram’s old push mower, right up until the vibrations slammed up my arms and shook that memory out of me. That mower took three passes to cut damp grass; this thing feels like it could chew through bone. It’s dangerous, too loud, unfamiliar, and the only hope we’ve got.
The chainsaw’s high-pitched whine fills the air. I lower it to the first branch, and it eats through the wood with shocking ease, the scent of fresh-cut pine briefly overpowering the smoke.
Ash grabs the severed branch and tosses it aside. With his eyebrows making a horizontal line that wrinkles his forehead, his face mirrors the surprise in my chest. Without speaking, we fall into a rhythm of me cutting and him hauling, like we’ve done this a hundred times.
It’s awkward at first. The saw bucks and snarls, but the branches fall fast. Sawdust rains like sand-colored snow. With every cut, we clear more chaos from the road, working our way toward the thick trunk that stands between us and getting out.
The fire rages, scorching the roadside as a living beast hungrily eating its way toward us.
“Be careful!” Ash says, handing me a pair of scratched, smudged safety glasses from the truck bed.
I nod and face the trunk we’ve cut our way to approach. It’s me versus this wall of wood. With every ounce of focus a chainsaw rookie can muster, I dig in. The engine crackles against the silence of the woods. It kicks once, nearly wrenching free, but I clamp down and adjust.
The cuts aren’t pretty, but they don’t need to be. With each pass, the fallen tree starts to yield. Ash hauls chunks of trunk aside, widening our gap and our odds. I blink away sweat, pause to wipe my brow, and keep going.
The air grows darker and hotter as the fire edges closer.
Ash points to a spot on the trunk he thinks is wide enough for us to squeeze through, and we work toward it until one final cut drops the last section onto the road with a heavy thud. We both heave it onto its side and roll it down the slope, away from the flames.
Exhausted, I finally kill the chainsaw. Ash claps me on the back, and I welcome how his hand lingers just a little too long.
Surveying what’s left, I take in the two rough halves where a single barrier used to be. The space emptied by the chainsaw’s whine is now full of fragile hope that the gap we’ve carved is wide enough.
No time to admire anything. We sprint back to the truck.
Ash shuts Walt’s door. Walt is still slumped in the passenger seat, breathing shallow and fast, eyes glassy and unfocused. He’s gone pale from what I guess is heatstroke, smoke inhalation, or shock. Whatever it is, it’ll have to wait.
We climb into the bed, and our knees bump as we brace ourselves against the cab. I wedge the chainsaw into a corner and keep my leg pressed to Ash’s, neither of us acknowledging the contact.
“I’m gonna punch it through!” Sharon calls.
The truck lurches, fishtailing on the carpet of wood chips, flames licking too close to the driver’s side. I brace for the crunch of steel on wood, the snap of miscalculation….
But Ash’s estimate holds.
