Page 11 of Ignited

A gust of wind made the tent shudder. Smoke billowed inside. Behind it he saw a flicker of flame.

Shit. The straw was on fire.

Boomer hesitated, then ran for the front of the tent. Another gust of wind blew in, and flames licked up the side of the canvas. Tufts of burning straw floated into the tent and drifted to the floor, starting a dozen tiny fires in the dry floor covering.

He couldn’t put it out. It was already too big, too scattered.

He ran back to the lion’s cage, stomping every bit of fire in his path, and blew the lock.

The lion burst out, almost knocking him down, and raced toward the slit in the back of the tent. Boomer moved on to the leopard’s cage, his hands starting to shake. The fire was gaining on him fast.

The tent filled with smoke, flames roaring up the canvas and snaking across the floor. He could hear screams outside now, people yelling, but no one was going to be able to save this place. Not before the animals died.

The flames were catching up to him, the heat making the skin on his face feel tight. The smoke grew thicker, and he coughed, his eyes watering.

The leopard was free, and then the bear. And last, there was the panther.

It wanted to kill him; he could see it in its eyes. It wanted to kill everybody. But he couldn’t leave it here to die. Nobody deserved that.

His head was spinning now, and it was hard to breathe in all the smoke. He blew the lock on the panther’s door. The animal burst out in a rush; the cage door slammed back and hit Boomer in the side of the head, spinning him and dropping him to his knees. Everything whirled dizzily around him. He couldn’t see, didn’t know which way to go.

The panther must have ripped through the slit in the tent, because a blast of air rushed up the aisle between the cages. It hit the fire, and flames surged through the tent.

The heat was unbearable; the thick smoke stung his eyes and filled them with tears. Stay low, he told himself. Smoke rises. Dizzy with smoke and heat, he crawled in the direction the panther had gone.

Have to keep going, he thought. Have to. But somehow he was facedown on the floor, the sawdust gritty under his cheek.

A shadow passed over him, and he looked up, blinking, into the tiger’s face. She opened her mouth, her enormous, deadly fangs glistening. He couldn’t fight—he couldn’t breathe. Boomer just closed his eyes, feeling her hot breath on his face, and waited for the bite and the pain.

Instead, he felt a jerk and a tug at his backpack, and then he was sliding over the rough sawdust, straw scraping his face as the tiger dragged him to safety.

“We’re here.”

Boomer looked up with a start, realizing they’d arrived at the fight club. It was a shabby barnlike building with neon lights in the grimy windows, and a straggle of sagging Christmas lights across the front.

The large parking lot was three-quarters full, scattered groups of people making their way into the building. His brother had parked without him even noticing, and now he looked at Boomer, his eyes slightly narrowed in an expression no one but Boomer would know was concern. His brother said, “Don’t get your hopes up.”

“I’m not.” They both knew he was lying.

“Even if it’s her, what do you think is going to happen?”

“I don’t know. I just—” He shook his head. He had no fucking idea. “But what if it is her, and I didn’t come? I’d always wonder.”

His brother gazed at him for another moment, and gave a brief nod. “Okay. But if Cisco asks her to suck his dick dry and she fucking kills him, I’m making you carry his body out.”

Chapter 6

It was Saturday night, and Karisma was in the ready area at the back of the fight club, doing stretches and warmup drills she didn’t need. At least it kept the other fighters from bothering her.

She didn’t have a coach or a manager to give her pep talks or keep people away from her. She didn’t even have her own corner man to give her water and patch her up in the middle of a fight. One of the guys who worked in the club had been helping her out. Jake.

He was an all-right guy—a sometimes fighter himself. Not handsy, and he didn’t come on to her hard enough to be annoying.

She’d been thinking about asking him if he was interested in working for her—muscle and local intelligence. She’d been coming up empty on Thanatos’ location, and she needed somebody who knew the area, with local contacts who might know about a reclusive billionaire living in the middle of nowhere.

Airplane landing strips, helicopters flying overhead, food deliveries, maintenance on an estate—no matter how reclusive someone wanted to be, there were always connections to the local community, if you knew where to look for them.

Maybe she’d talk to Jake about it after the fight.