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I didn’t see any flames and realized that the fire had to be coming from inside the bar. Fudging hell. No, I thought as I pulled my phone from my pocket and punched in 911. There was no other vehicle in the parking lot but I’d seen a car sitting on the side of the road less than half a mile down the road. What if someone was inside?
Oh God! I glanced back at Raven’s car and prayed that she’d left it there and was home with Willa and Lexa. Please, God. Please don’t let her be inside.
“Nine-one-one,” a calm male dispatcher’s voice filled my ear. “What is your emergency?”
“I’m at Hannigans’ Bar.” Wait. Was that the name of the place? Fea
r had me blanking out for a moment. Shaking my head I went on, certain that it didn’t matter if I got the name of the bar completely correct. There wasn’t another bar in the county with a similar name. “I think it’s on fire. And I’m not sure if there is anyone inside or not.”
“Okay, ma’am. We have firefighters dispatched to your location. They should be there within the next three minutes. Stay on the line with me and don’t go inside the building.” His tone was still calm and it helped to calm down my raging anxiety, but the longer I stood there the fear that Raven might be inside began to raise with the increase of the scent of smoke in the air.
I had every intention of staying on the phone with the man. From the growing smoke in the air and the heat that I was starting to feel emitting from the building I knew that there was possibly an inferno in there. It wasn’t safe in there. I needed to stay outside…
The blood chilling scream that rended the air made me freeze and all thoughts of listening to the man on the other end of my phone evaporated. Someone was hurt and I couldn’t take the chance that it was Raven, or anyone else in there that might be hurt or worse.
I dropped the phone and ran to the front door. The feel of the doorknob was warm, but not unbearably hot, telling me that the fire hadn’t reached that side of the bar yet. I pushed inside, my eyes searching the smoke-filled room and I stopped in my tracks when I took in the scene before me.
Behind the bar stood Kevin Samson, the man from some of my nightmares. This man, this crazy sociopathic lunatic had tried to rape me with the help of my old roommate and her boyfriend. The side of the bar he was on was engulfed in flames and he just kept tossing more and more liquor bottles into the fire, but he either didn’t care or didn’t realize that he had trapped himself in the fire he was making. There were three walls of flames surrounding him and behind the bar top.
I didn’t have time to worry about the idiot committing arson. Another scream bounced off the walls and my gaze was pulled to the two blondes fighting just twenty feet from me. Raven was on the floor with a girl I vaguely remembered on top of her punching her in the face with what looked like brass knuckles on her hands. Even through the growing smoke I could tell that Raven was bleeding and although she was trying to fight back she seemed more concerned with keeping the girl on top of her from hitting her in the stomach.
Oh hell no! This girl was not only hurting my friend but she was trying to hurt Raven’s unborn child.
I moved without thinking. I’ve never been in a fight in my life and by the looks of the fight currently going on I knew that I didn’t stand a chance against this bitch beating on my pregnant friend. I grabbed the first thing I came to, a chair that was sitting scooted back from one of the tables. It was heavy, made from a good-quality wood.
No one noticed me as I ran across toward the girls. Lifting the chair, I crashed it down onto the other blonde’s head. With a shout of pain, the other girl fell forward onto Raven—who stopped moving. Oh crap! Did I hurt her too?
Oh god. Oh fudge. Please, please, please. I moved quickly. Pushing the bitch off my friend I crouched down to examine Raven. Her face was bloody, her breathing shallow. The smoke was growing heavier in the air and the flames were making sweat roll down my face soaking my clothes. It wasn’t safe for Raven to be breathing this poison.
“Raven?” I carefully shook her shoulders. “Raven,” I shouted her name. “Please wake up. Open your damn eyes!”
She moaned but didn’t open her eyes. Behind me I could hear Samson cursing, probably realizing that he’d trapped himself in his own inferno. I didn’t care enough about him to want to help him. All I wanted was to get Raven out of there as quickly as possible.
I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to carry her, but maybe I could drag her without hurting her any more than she already was. I lifted her upper body and slid my arms under her armpits. Damn, dead weight made even a girl as fit as Raven more heavy than I figured she really was. It took all of my strength to drag her a few steps.
From outside, I thought I heard the sound of sirens. Thank God, help was on the way. Knowing that gave me a little added strength, and I dragged Raven as far as the door. I had to reposition my hold on her thin shoulders to open it. As fresh air blew against my back, the tortured sound of agonizing pain filled the air as strongly as the smoke that was starting to make my chest burn.
As if I were watching a terrifying scene in a bad movie, I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off the man who was now on fire. Vomit lifted into my throat as the scent of burning flesh overpowered the other putrid smells in the air. Samson was trapped; there was no way for him to get out. Even if he jumped he would have to go throw a good ten feet of flames as high as my chest. But there was no way he could jump to safety even if he wanted to now. His clothes were engulfed, and as I watched, his hair caught fire.
Raven shifted in my arms, moaned as if she was in bad pain and I had to tear my eyes off the nightmare across the room. Tightening my hold under her arms I dragged her outside just as three fire trucks skidded to a halt in the parking lot along with two ambulances.
From there, everything moved so fast and I was still so shocked from what I’d seen happening to Samson. It only took a matter of minutes but it felt like it took hours. While firemen in their gear rushed into the bar I watched as if having an out-of-body experience. Like I was watching it from above. Paramedics rushed to take Raven from me and I barely had time to register what they were doing before they were loading her into the back of an ambulance and rushing off with their lights and sirens blaring.
I noticed cops arriving just as a fireman was carrying the other blonde from the bar. Two other paramedics moved to take her, and I just stood there watching the front door of the bar. When they started breaking the windows I didn’t hear it. When three firemen carried out a foul-smelling, charred Samson, I couldn’t hold on any longer.
My knees went weak and I fell forward as vomit forced its way from my body. I caught the words “He’s just barely holding on” and then there was nothing but blissful oblivion as the world went black.
Chapter 16
Hawk
We were only two miles from the bar when I started to smell the smoke. The speeding ambulance with its lights flashing and its sirens raging passed us another mile down the road and my stomach began to twist into the kind of knots that told me I wasn’t going to like what I was going to find when we got to the bar.
Bash was the only one in front of me and we saw the fire trucks at the same time. I saw the change in him immediately. His head turned and he glanced back the way we’d come, as if he were looking for the ambulance, but it was already long gone.
The smoke in the air was thick. There were men with big water hoses spraying down the bar while others were rushing around. It appeared to be total chaos but I was still able to keep hold of my emotions. It looked like someone had burned down the bar, or had at least tried to. Other than what looked like broken windows I didn’t seen any outer damage, at least not from this side of the bar.
No, it wasn’t until I saw the two cars in the parking lot surrounded by all the emergency vehicles that my body turned ice cold and sweat broke out on my upper lip. Raven’s Challenger—and the Chevelle that I’d pretty much given to Gracie.
