Chapter Thirteen
Mia
The first thing I smell is smoke.
Not woodsmoke from someone’s firepit.
Not the sharp little puff of a candle blown out too close to your face.
Real smoke.
Thick and hot.
I freeze in the middle of the kitchen, one hand still on the cabinet door.
For half a second, my mind refuses to understand it.
Then one of the horses screams.
My blood turns to ice.
“No,” I whisper.
Another scream tears through the air.
I run to the back window.
Orange light flickers against the setting sun.
The main barn is on fire.
For one terrible second, I can’t move. I can only stare while flames crawl up the side wall like they have hands.
Then my body remembers how to work.
I grab my phone from the counter and dial 911 with shaking fingers.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“My barn is on fire,” I say, already running for the mudroom. “Moore’s Second Chance Sanctuary. I have horses inside. Please hurry.”
I rattle off the address while yanking on my boots.
Livy appears at the bottom of the stairs, hair loose around her shoulders, eyes wide.
“Mama?”
“Stay in the house.”
Her face pales. “What’s happening?”
“Livy, listen to me. Stay inside. You do not come out. You do not open that door. Do you understand?”
“But the horses—”
“Olivia Marie Moore.”
She stops.
My voice breaks on her name. I hate it. I hate the fear in her eyes. I hate the smoke pressing black against the windows behind me.
“You stay in this house,” I say. “I mean it. No matter what you hear. No matter what you see. You stay here.”
Her chin trembles.
“Mama.”
“I love you. Stay.”
Then I’m out the door.
Chilled night air hits my face, but the heat from the barn is already too strong. Smoke rolls across the yard. The horses scream again, wild with terror.
Rory’s gone. I sent him and the rest of the staff and volunteers home hours ago.
It’s just me.
“Please,” I whisper, running harder. “Please, please, please.”
The barn door burns along one edge, but the latch still holds. I grab the metal and scream as it sears my palm. Pain flashes up my arm.
No time.
I use my sleeve, yank hard, and stumble back as the door swings open.
Smoke pours out.
I cough, bending low, eyes watering instantly.
“Easy!” I shout, though nothing about this is easy. “Easy, babies. I’m here.”
The first horse slams against his stall door hard enough to make the wood crack.
“Hey!” I cough. “Hey, look at me.”
He doesn’t.
Of course he doesn’t.
He’s trapped. Terrified. Half-mad with instinct.
I fumble with the latch, fingers clumsy, burned palm screaming. The moment the door opens, he surges out. His shoulder clips mine, knocking me into the wall.
Pain bursts through my ribs, but I stay on my feet.
Barely.
“Go!” I shout, smacking his rump as he bolts toward the open barn door. “Go, go, go!”
One down.
Too many left.
The smoke thickens fast. Heat crawls across the ceiling. Something pops above me, showering sparks into the aisle.
I run to the next stall.
Then the next.
Some horses flee the second the doors open. Others fight me, wild-eyed and trembling. One refuses to move, backing into the corner with the whites of his eyes showing.
“Come on, sweetheart,” I rasp, pushing against him. “You have to move.”
He jerks his head back, and I nearly fall.
“Please,” I sob. “Please, I can’t carry you.”
The fire snaps louder, and he screams.
Since he’s not roped, I grab his mane and pull with everything I have. I don’t want to hurt him, but I want him to move.
For a second, nothing happens.
Then he lunges forward.
I stumble backward, coughing so hard my chest tears with it. My eyes burn. My throat feels scraped raw. I can’t tell if I’m crying from smoke or fear anymore.
Probably both.
The last two horses are the worst.
I open their doors and hope they simply run out. But they don’t.
They’re both shaking, refusing to move. Flames crackle along the rafters now. The heat has teeth, and it’s seconds away from biting.
I know I’m running out of time.
I know it with every breath I can’t take.
“Move!” I scream, voice breaking. “Please move!”
A beam groans overhead, and I know I have to make a choice. I’ll give it one more try, but then I have to leave. I can’t let this kill me and leave my daughter all alone.
I scream as loud as whatever breath I have left in my lungs lets me.
The sound snaps through the smoke.
Both horses bolt.
I dive sideways as they thunder past me, hooves striking sparks from the floor. One catches my shoulder, and I hit the ground hard.
For one second, everything goes black around the edges.
No.
I push up on my hands, choking, crawling more than standing. The barn roars now. Fire eats through the hayloft. Smoke drops lower, heavy and poisonous.
I stagger toward the door.
I can see the open doorway. I can see the yard beyond it. The horses are loose in the pasture, running wild beneath the orange glow.
Alive.
They’re alive.
I fall through the barn doors and hit the dirt on my knees.
Air.
Cold, blessed air.
I drag it in, gagging. My body shakes so hard I can barely stay upright.
Behind me, the barn cracks like thunder.
I saved them.
Somehow, I saved them all.
Then I hear another sound.
A sharp, panicked bleat.
My head snaps toward the smaller barn.
My heart stops.
Flames flicker there too.
“No. That’s not possible.”
It’s too far away from the main barn for the fire to have jumped that fast.
The thought barely forms before another bleat cuts through the night.
The bobcat and goats are in there.
“Oh no.”
I force myself up.
My legs nearly fold, but I run anyway.
The smaller barn sits beyond the side pasture, near the old enclosure. Smoke curls from the back wall. Fire licks up one corner, smaller than the main barn but growing fast.
The goats scream when they see me.
“I know,” I choke out. “I know. I’m coming.”
I yank open the side gate and shove it wide.
The goats rush me in a frantic wave, bouncing, stumbling, crying as they pour into the open pasture.
“Go!” I wave my arms. “Go!”
They scatter into the dark.
Then I turn toward Billie’s enclosure.
My body goes cold in a way the fire can’t touch.
Billie is pressed against the far side of her cage, low to the ground, her blind golden eyes wide. Smoke curls around the fencing above her.
She’s a bobcat.
A blind wild bobcat.
Reality hits like a blade between my ribs.
I can’t open her gate.
If I open it, she’ll run.
If she runs, not only could she hurt herself, but she’ll hurt someone. She already has in the past. The only reason she wasn’t killed was because the person she hurt begged for her to be saved.
I grip the gate with both hands, the metal not yet hot from the fire.
“Billie,” I sob.
She snarls, then coughs.
The sound breaks something in me.
I think about the playground a few blocks away that’s always busy with families.
“I’m sorry.” I fall to my knees in front of the enclosure. “I’m so sorry.”
The heat grows behind me.
Smoke drifts thicker.
Billie paces once, then crouches again, ears pinned flat.
“I can’t let you out,” I whisper. “I can’t. I don’t know what to do.”
My burned hand throbs. My lungs rattle. My knees sink into the dirt.
I press my forehead to the metal fencing.
“I won’t leave you,” I promise her. “Okay? I won’t leave you alone.”
The words come apart.
I can’t save her.
I saved the horses.
I saved the goats.
I can’t save Billie.
“Please,” I pray, voice shredded. “Please let the smoke take her first. Please don’t let her feel the fire. Please.”
Billie blinks slowly.
My tears fall into the dirt.
“I’m sorry, baby,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
Maverick pops into my head.
He has guns.
If he can get here fast enough, maybe he can spare her the pain.
The thought nearly breaks me, but I still pull out my phone with shaking hands and hit Maverick’s name.
One ring.
Two.
“Baby?” he answers.
“Fire,” I shout over the roar of the flames. “Please, help me.”
“Where are you?” he asks quickly.
“Sanctuary,” I cry. “Please, help me. I can’t –.”
The screen goes black.
Dead.
A scream tears out of me, and I throw the phone into the dirt.
Then the night explodes.
A boom cracks through the sanctuary so loud the ground jumps beneath me.
I scream and twist around.
For one frozen second, I can’t understand what I’m seeing.
Then I do.
The house.
My house.
Orange light fills the windows as flames lick up the front of the building.
Livy.
Still inside.
My heart tears out of my chest.
“Livy!”
I’m already running before I know I’ve moved.
Behind me, Billie screams.
Ahead of me, my house burns.
And my daughter is inside.
***Maverick***
Smoke stains the sky before we reach the sanctuary.
Thick black clouds roll upward, swallowing the stars, glowing orange from beneath. Sirens cut through the night. Red and blue lights flash across the road, the fences, the trees.
My hands tighten around the handles.
The second we turn through the gate, chaos opens around us.
Fire trucks crowd the drive. Police cruisers block the yard. Firefighters drag hoses through mud and ash. Water arcs toward the main barn, but it’s pretty much all gone already. Animals are running all over the place.
The smaller structure beyond it burns too, flames chewing through the roof while smoke pours into the dark.
The house is still standing, but the fire inside it glows a color I’ve never seen.
Foster sees it too.
“That’s wrong,” he says when we cut the engines.
Spike looks at him. “What is?”
“All of it.” Foster swings off his bike, eyes moving from the main barn to the smaller one, then to the house. “Those buildings are too far apart. Fire doesn’t jump like that.
A horse runs past us, but Foster barely notices.
“And that house is burning too hot,” he says, voice going flat. “Way too hot for a normal residential fire.”
Tank’s jaw tightens. “Meaning?”
“Meaning somebody helped it.”
Men shout.
Animals scream.
Then I hear her.
“Amelia,” I breathe.
Her scream cuts through everything.
Not fear. Not pain.
Worse.
A sound I know all too well.
Grief.
No.
I run toward the sound.
She’s near the house, covered in soot, hair wild, one sleeve burned, blood on her hands. A firefighter stands in front of her with both arms out, blocking her from the porch.
“You don’t understand!” she screams at him. “She’s inside!”
“Ma’am, you can’t go in there.”
“My baby’s inside!”
The words hit me so hard my stride breaks.
For one second, I can’t breathe.
Flames burst from the windows. Smoke pours from the roof. Glass cracks. Wood snaps. Heat rolls off it in violent waves.
Amelia lunges around the firefighter.
He catches her arm, but she twists free with a scream and runs for the house.
I reach her before she makes it three steps.
My arms lock around her from behind, hauling her back against my chest as she fights me with everything she has.
“No!” she screams. “Let me go!”
“Amelia.”
“She’s inside!” Her nails dig into my arms. “Maverick, she’s inside. My baby’s inside.”
“I know.”
The words tear out of me.
I know.
God help me, I know.
She bucks hard, trying to break free. “Let me go. I have to get her. She’s burning.”
“You can’t go in there, baby,” I say, tears filling my eyes.
Flames burn high and bright out of nearly every window and door. There’s no way inside. She wouldn’t survive more than a few feet inside the door.
“My baby girl!”
Her voice breaks on the last word.
Something inside me breaks with it.
“Do something,” she sobs. “Please. Please, Maverick. Do something.”
I look at the firefighters.
They’re moving. Working. Fighting the fire with everything they have.
But it’s not enough.
I turn on the closest firefighter. “Is it even possible?”
His face is streaked with sweat and soot. “Sir, the fire’s too hot. The back half is unstable. We’re trying to knock it down enough to make entry.”
“A ten-year-old girl is inside that house,” I snarl. “Do your damn job and save her.”
Amelia collapses against me with a broken cry.
The firefighter flinches, but he doesn’t move toward the door.
Because he knows.
He knows what I refuse to believe.
A hand lands on my shoulder.
Spike.
“Maverick.”
I shake him off.
“No.”
Foster steps past us.
At first, I barely notice him.
Then I see his face.
He’s staring at the house like he’s reading it.
Smoke.
Windows.
Roofline.
Flame pattern.
Wind.
He’s not looking at fire.
He’s looking at a map.
“Where’s her room?” Foster asks calmly.
Amelia sobs, barely able to answer. “Upstairs. Pink curtains. Second door on the left. But she was in the living room when I left.”
“Kids always go to their comfort zone when scared,” he says distractedly. “She’s probably under her bed.”
Foster takes a long look.
Then he moves.
Fast.
He runs to the nearest fire truck and yanks open a compartment.
“Hey!” one of the firefighters shouts.
Foster ignores him as he grabs item after item and pulls them on with brutal speed. Pants and boots first, coat next, helmet. His hands know where everything goes. No hesitation. No wasted motion.
A firefighter reaches for him. “You can’t just—”
“I’m certified,” Foster snaps. “Former Phoenix Fire. Interior search and rescue. Get me a tank.”
The man hesitates.
Foster gets in his face. “There’s a child inside. Get me a damn tank.”
That does it.
Another firefighter moves.
Fast.
Tank stands frozen beside Spike, face pale in the firelight.
“Foster,” Spike says.
Foster looks at him, and something passes between them.
Not words. But trust.
Then Foster turns to me.
“Keep her out of the building. It’s going to collapse any second now.”
Amelia’s body goes rigid in my arms.
“No,” she whispers.
Foster’s eyes soften for half a second. “I’m gonna do everything in my power to find her.”
“You don’t know that,” Amelia cries.
“No,” he says, pulling the mask over his face. “But I know how to try.”
The firefighter slaps the air pack into place.
Foster checks it once. Twice.
Then he looks at me again.
“Don’t let her follow me.”
I tighten my arms around my trembling woman as she starts fighting all over again.
“Foster!” she screams.
He turns toward the burning house.
For one heartbeat, the entire world holds still.
Then Foster runs into the smoke.