25. Inferno
The ride to Emmy’s location seems to go on forever when in reality, it takes less than twenty minutes to turn onto the gravel lane leading to the house. Sure, I was speeding the entire way, but what are they gonna do? Throw my ass in the pokey?
Smoke billows ahead, and flames lick the sky.
No! No, no, no. Not again!
The acrid smell of fire invades my nostrils as I ride as close as I can get, and I pull my shirt up over my mouth and nose. My brothers skid to a stop behind me as I jump off my Harley, letting it fall to the ground.
“Emmy!” I shout. “Emmy, I’m coming!”
“Inferno,” Viking snaps and grabs my arm to halt my movement. “Take a minute and think this through.”
“No fucking way,” I bark and pull away from him. “I’m going in there, and I’m bringing her back out.”
“Viking,” Acid begins. “You and Inferno do your fire and water thing, and we’ll find the guy responsible. I highly doubt he stuck around to burn in the house.”
“Good thinking.”
Viking and I race to the abandoned, and now blazing, farmhouse, while our brothers spread out on the property in search of my next kill.
The porch has already collapsed so I search for a window or another way in.
“Over here,” Viking shouts from the side of the house. “Open window.”
I race to join him, and he’s got his arms stretched out and a look of concentration on his face.
“Please tell me there’s a water source,” I plead.
“Quiet,” he snaps. “I’m trying to find one.” He turns around several times, and then water begins flying from his hands.
“I’ll douse the flames as much as I can while you go in,” he says. “I know you can’t control the fire, but at least it can’t hurt you.”
“It can kill Emmy, though,” I snap before jumping up to grab the windowsill.
I pull myself through the opening, and push past the wall of fire. I can feel the heat, and it’s not pleasant, but Viking’s right… it can’t actually hurt me.
It’s an odd feeling, walking through what only firefighters with gear on walk through. It’s different from the last time, the first and only time. I was terrified then, but more for me. Now, I’m terrified for Emmy.
And my fear of losing her fuels me in a way I never thought possible.
Seeing through the flames and smoke is impossible, so I feel my way through the house. I trip over the bottom step but manage to right myself and crawl up them. Somehow, that staircase hasn’t collapsed.
“Emmy!” I shout, the smoke making me cough, although I think it’s more from muscle memory since I don’t actually breathe.
Unlike when she was a mere child, I don’t get a response.
C’mon, man, you have to find her.
“Emmy!”
I clear the first room, then the second, and then the third. I’m about to give up when my hand falls against a fourth door.
“Please, Odin, let her be in here,” I mumble under my breath.
I straighten to my full height and lift my leg to kick the door in.
“Emmy, are you in here?”
No response. I move forward cautiously. One step, then two, then three, four, five. Midway through step six, the toe of my boot connects with something.
I reach out, and my hands are met with skin. Hot, puckered skin.
No!
Certain that it’s Emmy, I lift the body into my arms and race back downstairs. Beams fall all around us, but I dodge each one, intent on making it outside with my soulmate.
The room I entered through is smoldering, Viking’s water having doused most of the fire in that area. I hand her through the window to my president, and he backs away from the structure several hundred feet before lowering her to the ground.
I jump down and run to join them, dropping to my knees in the grass beside Emmy’s lifeless body.
“C’mon, love, stay with me,” I beg as I lean over to listen for breath sounds. Nothing. “No. You don’t get to die on me. Not today.”
I start CPR, solely focused on saving her. I could be selfish and let her pass away so I can be with her for eternity, but I only want that if it’s what she wants.
And we haven’t exactly discussed the particulars of how our relationship would work out.
“Inferno.” Viking’s hand settles on my shoulder. “Inferno, stop.”
I glance over my shoulder at him. “No fucking way.”
“She’s gone, brother,” he says, trying to pull me away from her.
“She’s not gone. She can’t be gone.”
Even as I say the words, I know them to be false. Emmy hasn’t taken a single breath since I found her. She has no pulse, no heartbeat. Shit, she’s barely recognizable.
But I recognize her. My soul recognizes her.
“I didn’t even tell her that I love her,” I whisper.
“She knew, man,” Viking insists. “Women always know.”
I let him pull me away from her corpse, and I bury my head in his shoulder. We’re not supposed to feel pain. We’re not supposed to hurt.
Well, I’ve got news for ya… this fucking hurts.
I don’t know how long we sit in the grass, me crying like a baby, and Viking holding onto me like a child, but the next thing I know, Viking’s attention is drawn away.
“We got him!”
I snap my head up so fast and spot Demo, Reaper, and Acid strolling across the property. A man is thrown over Demo’s shoulder, and I scramble to my feet.
“Tell me he’s not dead,” I sneer when they get close enough to hear me.
“He’s not,” Acid assures me. “We saved him for you.”
“Good.” Satisfied that I’ll make the man pay, I focus on Reaper. “Now bring her back.”
His gaze strays to Emmy’s body behind me. “She’s dead?”
“Only until you bring her back. You have the ability to kill and resurrect so do it.”
Reaper’s expression falls, and he shakes his head. “Inferno, I can only resurrect someone I kill. It doesn’t work any other way.”
“Sure, it does,” I insist. “Make it work.”
“He can’t, brother,” Demo says quietly. “You know he can’t.”
I dart my eyes to Viking. “Make him save her, Pres.”
He says nothing because there’s nothing to say. I know how all of our powers work, and Reaper can’t do what I’m asking, no matter how desperate I am for him to.
I close the distance between me and Demo and yank the man from his hold. After tossing him to the ground, I kick him in the side to wake him up. He stirs and tries to roll away from me, but I grab his chin and force his eyes to mine.
No fucking way.
He smiles, blood coating his teeth. “You know who I am, don’t you?”
“I saved you. The day I saved her, I saved you.”
“You mean your daddy saved her. But you didn’t save her today though, did ya?”
“What’s your name?”
“You don’t know?”
“How would I? I died that day.”
“Josh Greene.”
“Well, Josh Greene. I’m Dean Haskins.”
“Junior,” he supplies.
“Nope. Just plain old Dean Haskins. It was me all those years ago. You’re at war with a ghost, fucker, and it’s not a war you’ll win.”
Unable to control my fury, and not really wanting to, I let the emotion slither through my veins like thick sludge. The skin on my arms splits open, and flames begin to dance.
Josh’s eyes widen, and I laugh hysterically at his fear.
“Got to hell,” I snarl right before I flatten my palms against the side of his head and let the fire consume him.
And the world shimmers.