Page 12 of Up In Flames

Curving in my abdomen, I leap in a circle to snag my hand around an outcrop of branches. I’m finally on the deadly side of the fire. Flames lick at my body from all directions, consuming strips of the coating on my protective gear. Beneath me, the conflagration salivates with fiery hunger.

Don’t think. Move. Do.

Hanging by one arm, I whack at the tree with the axe like… well, like a madman with an axe to grind.

Hah. I can make bad jokes in the worst situations. Guess they’ll put that on the tombstone.

Chunks of woodchips go flying, some of them slicing into my chin and cheeks. Something tears into my throat. Finally, I hear the wood scream again, this time with a death rattle.

I don’t think. I bounce, pulling at the resistant trunk until a snapping sound rings louder than the singing flames. An endless second hangs suspended between ticks, until everything speeds up triple time. Suddenly, I’m falling through the air straight into the flames, the top half of the tree coming down with me.

On top of me.

There’s no time to try to angle away from it or the pit of flames. I hit the ground hard. Every bone in my body feels like it shatters. My body begins to crisp. My lungs collapse. There’s no air to breathe.

At least the tree landed next to me instead of directly on top. That’s some sort of miracle, though in the end, it probably won’t matter. I’m dead either way.

Darkness pulls me down as my gear singes onto my skin. My last thought, strangely, is of Nina and her soft slide of pussy.

Proves I’m a guy, I guess.

CHAPTER 5

Nina

“It’s coming along. Just a few more chapters, I think, and maybe a round or two of edits?” I cross my fingers as I speak into the phone and look out my bedroom window at the scene of my recent mortification. No honking huge fireman to save and arouse me today. Nope, just the promise that if I leave my tiny home to shop for something useful, like food, I’m certain to meet with someone who will have seen… something.

I’m so not in the mood for infamy, at least, not more than I usually garner. I’m already notorious for writing dark vampire romance. But the truth is, I may be everyone’s conversation over a cup of coffee today, not only for getting stuck in the tree and mooning half of Mossburg, but also for the way the town’s favorite fireman fingered me into orgasm. Did anyone other than Mari see and understand what was going on?

I hope not, but it’s a small town. People always seem to know everything. Somehow.

“Look, Nina, I can set you up with a writing therapist I know. You’ll have to go to Charlotte, but Casey is great with writer’s block. Uses hypnosis, you know?”

I turn from the window and throw myself back into the conversation I’m having with my agent. I resume pacing back and forth over my pink flowered rug that complements, but doesn’t match, the one in the living room.

Always complement, my mother used to tell me. Matching is for trailers.

It’s the only advice I ever took from her.

Not that it matters. Since I’m single, I get to decorate any way I want. If I want princess and girlie, that’s what I get. Besides, it’s not like any guy has seen the inside of my upstairs in over a year, unless I count nine-year-old Nicholas. He spends a lot of time in my guest room, where I write, playing weird video games in which he builds cities out of squares. Mr. Mittens enjoys sitting with him on the bed while he plays, which is a win for me, since otherwise the cat would be crouched on my laptop, preventing me from typing reasonable sentences.

“I don’t have writer’s block,” I deny, swinging back into the conversation.

Not a lie. I don’t have writer’s block. I have writer’s Berlin Wall. I’ve been on the first page of my current manuscript for three weeks, and I still have no idea how to get Darius to fall for Clove before the battle of Dunleaven wipes out the village in upstate New York where my series is set. The Dunleaven Vampires wrote themselves for the first six books. Number seven, though… I just can’t bring myself to care.

That’s the problem. I don’t care. About anything, really. And I don’t know how I got to this place at twenty-seven, but I doubt a few therapy sessions are going to set me in the right direction. I need… something more. I just don’t know what.

Maybe you should live your own life for a while and stop writing about other people’s.

Stupid interior voice. What does it know?

By the time I’ve hung up on Gloria, my agent, and won The Nobel Prize for Excellence in Lying, I’m ready for a nap. The problem is, I don’t have time to shut down. I promised to babysit Nicholas, and that means I need pineapple ice cream, his favorite treat. The specialty store in town sells it by the pint, but since it’s there and I’m here, I’ll have to get my ass out the door.

Which seems a little too much to demand of me, given the day I had yesterday, not to mention the call I just had with my agent. I look at the blank pieces of paper on my printer. No printed first chapter waits for my examination.

This is bad. Pineapple ice cream delivery bad.

“What do you think, Mr. Mittens? Should we order from Chase?”