Page 76 of His Pretty Little Queen

Thick grey smoke rolls along the bonnet, icing the dark metallic sheets in white and brown soot as I drive through the debris of the bushfire.

To her.

And I'm feeling.

So fucking much.

It’s dangerous.

Distracting.

Blackened trees border the road. The national park fire is a 360-degree glow of orange. The heat is immense, contracting the metal of my Chrysler. The fibres shrinking within this woodland furnace.

I head further into its depths, towards more scorching intensity. Ahead, I can only make out mere metres. Cracks rattle my bones as branches snap in half in the vast distance.

This is red, hot, earthly hell.

I roll down a dirt track, steering towards the meeting site. My mind drifts to the text message I received thirty minutes ago as I geared up. It read: "We will be there. I will keep her safe. You have my word, brother."

She's out in this heat, too.

Without me.

But "a leader is always alone",and I have never felt lonelier in my own presence than I do in her absence…Christ.I'll die before I let anyone take her from me. I'll crumble the world around her body.

The corridor of charred trees is narrower now, black limbs reaching over the track, the higher ones disappearing into the smoky air.

Passing through a scorched gate, I enter the campground. My fist tightens on the wheel as the glow of lights drill through the grey abyss. Ominous dots. One beside the other. The row of bright headlights alerts me to the barricade of bikes ahead. The dense fog hazes my vision of much more.

Flanking them will be Bronson, Carter, and three soldiers, on foot, navigating their way through this terrain.

Dammit.

They won't be able to see a fucking thing. Won't see my signal. And I can't get an aim on anyone. My heart thrashes hard under this premise. I won't lose them. I can't.

Unable to measure the distance between my car and the awaiting lights, I pull over. Fisting the wheel on a final thought of her, of the sweetness she gave me, the hints of what life and love could be, I inhale hard and exit the vehicle, feigning a smooth unaffected manner.

Still suffering it all.

All the way in my veins.

Rounding the bonnet, I open my arms wide, welcoming, calling out, "Now you have me. Let's talk about why we are really here." Honing my ears, I try to decipher movement, chatter, orders, anything, but the silence hangs with the thick smoke around me. Their engines are killed.

Interesting…

They are not in any hurry to get away. Not wary.

"Are you tired of hearing the name Butcher?" I go on. "Tired of seeing the name Butcher all over the news. Tired of having men refuse your business because of us. Of hiding from your own city."

"Where is my daughter?" I jolt to the north as his voice punches through the smoke from my left-hand side. The dark silhouette of a man appears through the smoulder, followed by the hazy outline of several in his shadow.

Dustin.

And I know this is an execution.

The tightness of my bulletproof vest below my suit reminds me they'll need to aim true. I press my hand to my collarbone. Hold the scar that mars it and recall what he had me do when I was eighteen. What I did for him. For Jimmy. "You don't want your daughter. You want me."

He scoffs. "I have promised her to one of these men behind me, you see, and he'll be rather unimpressed if she's not here."

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