Eli ripped his helmet and mask off as he covered my body with snow, burying my burning clothes in it with desperation asI thrashed, clawing at him wildly with hands black with soot and smoke.
“Easy, baby,” He drawled, as other firefighters surrounded me, helping him put out the flames on my legs and cover my skin with the blessedly painful snow. “Don’t move, baby!”
A loud screeching of tires echoed over the sound of the fire engines and their sirens as Travis’s truck bombed through the snow, sliding to a stop in my peripheral vision before his massive frame raced around the vehicle, falling to his knees at my side.
Another scream ripped from my lips as my brain felt like it was going to explode in my skull from the pain as he helped Eli hold me down in the snow.
“Shh, Shade.” Travis stared at me with a broken look in his eyes. “We’ve got you. I’m so sorry, baby. We’ve got you now.”
I fell back into the snow, sinking into it as my screams felt like they were still ripping through my throat, but I could no longer hear them. All I could do was stare up at the two men I loved more than I could have ever hoped for, as darkness started to pull me under.
Damnit.
I was still going to die, my heart raced so fast in my chest there was no doubt in my mind that it would eventually give out, right before their faces vanished completely.
Life was really fucking unfair, but at least now I felt no more pain or fear. Just darkness.
My hand ranover the wood beam, the smooth strength familiar under my skin as I tried to focus on work. But my mind was elsewhere.
With Frankie at her afternoon class, nearly broken with worry but forcing herself to keep focused.
Waiting for the Chief to call me with the good news of Danny’s arrest.
Wondering how Eli was handling it all and hating that he was in the middle of a shift at the firehouse.
I took a deep breath, forcing the worry from my shoulders as my phone rang.
Frankie.
I hit accept and lifted it to my ear, hoping for good news, when I got only chaos through the speaker.
A scuffle. Tires squealing.
A muffled cry.
“Frankie?” My voice cracked, and everything froze around me.
Her sobs bled through the line, muffled and frantic. Then Danny’s voice, sharp and menacing, filled my ear as he roared his rambling threats, incoherently slurred words of vengeance and violence.
Ice sliced through me.
I didn’t think as I grabbed one of my guys’ phones off the bench where they were taking a break. “Timmy, call 911 and tell them to patch through to this phone!”
My guy just stared at me, my crew falling silent, “Trav?—”
“Do it!” I roared.
And then I was running. Out of the shop, into the truck, my keys shaking in my hands as I jammed them into the ignition. My tires squealed, gravel spitting in my wake as I tore down the road.
I had no idea where to go. But I listened to Danny’s sick voice telling her all the vile things he was going to do to her.
Her screams kept echoing in my head, rattling my bones, louder than the engine of my truck as I sped toward town, louder than the pounding of my pulse.
I opened the second phone and called Eli, praying he’d answer. “Sup, Timmy?”
“He has her.” I barked.
There was a slight pause on his line as I put Frankie’s phone on speaker with his, holding the phones together. “Trav?”
