9. Kael
KAEL
It’s surprising Ash doesn’t gloat about the fieldhouse being empty. Apparently “immediate peril” outranks “being right” on his hierarchy of needs.
The place looks like it was hit by the Rapture.
Upstairs, a quick sweep confirms it: every bag, Patagonia jacket, and laptop is gone.
Chairs are all askew, with coffee cups still on tables and flip-chart markers uncapped.
Everything useful has been stripped away, leaving silence that’s far louder than the earlier session’s buzz.
There’s a faint thread of smoke in the air now, thin enough that the citrus diffuser still mostly hides it.
I raid the kitchen, stuffing plastic water bottles and whatever food I can find into three orange drawstring bags emblazoned with THE FI ESCAPE. A whole unopened box of those bags sits behind the folded registration table, probably meant as our parting gift. Still our parting gift.
Ash proclaimed we had a five-minute deadline before heading south, but he’s wandering aimlessly while I pack. We might be spending the night out here instead of “just a few minutes on the road.”
Rocky Balboa sits in the middle of the stainless-steel island, staring up at me like he’d known this was going to happen.
“You’re supposed to be the catastrophizer,” I mutter. “Record the money nuts, you said. Where were you on the whole fire situation? Or the wrong retreat? Or the emo rich boy?” I can almost hear Rocky reminding me about Ash’s biceps. “No. He’s a bad idea. A very strong, extremely obvious bad idea.”
Each bag quickly fills to be one granola bar away from bursting. I pull a few things out of each to transform them from back-breaking to merely heavy.
“I can’t stay mad at you, Rocky,” I sigh. “Thick and thin, my friend. No struggle, no str—”
“Who are you talking to?” Ash asks, poking his head into the kitchen.
“No one.” I snatch Rocky off the island and shove him back into my pocket. “How long have you been there?”
“We’ve got to go,” Ash says.
I hope to God the bicep situation happened only in my head, because either that orange bag is lighter than I thought or his T-shirt really did shrink.
He shoulders it on top of his backpack like it’s filled with air.
Sweat slicks the fabric to his arms, muscle throwing little shadows I refuse to notice.
“Uh-huh,” I say. Totally convincing.
“Did you get food?” he asks.
“What do you think is in here?” I lift one of the bags to show they’re stuffed. “All protein bars and water.”
He takes another without comment, slinging it on as a character from some survival movie.
“Let’s go,” he announces in full trailer voice.
“Talk normal, tough guy.” I snort. “You don’t have to declare everything. I’m not helpless. What’d you find?”
“It’s not a competition, but I got a first aid kit and a pocket knife.”
“Why ‘but’? ‘But’ makes it sound like it is a competition.”
“Kael.”
“Ash.”
“Kael.”
I bump past him toward the screen door, purely to get outside faster, not to feel how solid his arm is when my fingers graze it. Jesus. Rock hard.
I keep walking, back toward the parking lot and the road south, pretending my pulse isn’t doing anything weird.
“I’m grabbing my blanket from the car,” I call over my shoulder. “I’ll leave my paints. Please tell me you’re not lugging your laptop.”
“I’m keeping my laptop.”
“We’re literally fleeing a fire, and you’re bringing a laptop?”
“Odds are we’ll be picked up a few minutes down the road,” he says.
“You know every horror movie ever made punishes hubris, right?”
“The more you talk, the more I think I might actually be in a horror movie.”
Biceps be damned. I sigh. “If the fire doesn’t kill me, being with you just might.”
“No picnic for me either.”
“I am a joyful sunflower,” I announce, channeling Gram. “You’re a wilted pansy.”
“Name-calling? Really?”
“The name-calling hasn’t even—”
We step back into the parking lot, and whatever joke I was about to make dies in my mouth.
A thick white haze balloons over the tree line across the lake. It’s not the dark, cinematic smoke I’d pictured. It looks like exhaust from a demon train, polluted and rolling through the trees toward us. Even from here, the acrid tang prickles my nose.
“Hurry,” Ash says, all business now, and I sprint to Buck, where I fumble the keys into the lock.
I grab my blanket, then hesitate, eyes flicking to my half-finished canvas and paint box. With a sigh, I take those too. If he gets to drag his future around, I’m taking mine too.
“You’re kidding,” he says as we break into a jog down the road, away from the creeping smoke.
“You’re kidding.” I echo. “Thought we were about to be picked up?”
I’m not sure why being around Ash makes me regress to playground teasing, but it annoys him. For some reason, that’s making me feel better.