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“Kimberly!” Sam shouted, and Dean heard the terror he felt echoed in his partner’s hoarse cry.
Their suspect became an afterthought they dragged behind them like bad luggage as they circled around the flames in search of a way through. When they got to where they parked their car, they took the time to shove Grungy in the secured back and lock him in, then raced for the cabin, shouting her name the whole way.
When Kimberly burst into the upstairs room, she didn’t have time to recoil in shock at what she saw. Two naked women bound, beaten, and bloody lay on rotted mattresses. One lay so still, her body so covered in injuries, Kimberly feared she was already dead. Then the other woman sobbed and drew her attention.
“Help us!” she pleaded from a bloody, ruined face. “Please, please help us.”
And Kimberly legs just folded beneath her as grief, anguish, fury, and overwhelming relief swamped her.
“Shawna? Shawna!” Kimberly crawled, sobbing to her dearest friend on earth, and wanted to burn the whole world down for what’d been done to her.
“Ki-Kim-Kimberly?” She pulled her friend into her bosom as if she were a small child and held her for seconds they could not afford.
“Yeah, it’s me, sweetheart.” The words were inaudible croaks. “I got you. I got you now. There’s a fire. We gotta go. Can you stand? Can you walk?” Kimberly eased her friend back and reached for the cuffs on her wrists first, then went to work on ankles that had been chained achingly far apart. She sobbed as she undid them and refused to let herself think of what had been done to her friend.
“How’d you find me? Where’s D? What—?”
“The place is on fire!” Kimberly interrupted her. “No time! Can you walk?”
“I dunno. I think so,” Shawna told her as renewed fear overtook the relief in her voice at being found.
Kimberly hoped so, because when she turned to the other woman, she saw immediately that this one wasn’t walking out of here. She tried jostling her awake as she unshackled her, but the girl was completely out. And “girl” was right. Now that Kimberly had gone closer, she saw how small she was, and that fury raged higher inside her.
There was no way she had the strength to carry even a small girl in her condition, so she grabbed her by the arms and shuffled her onto her back. Kimberly doubled over and vomited again. She swayed on her feet, but she stayed on them, and then the three of them rushed out the door as fast as their battered bodies would allow.
When they got to the landing, the entire front of the house was an inferno. Kimberly stood at the top of the steps, swaying next to Shawna.
“We gotta risk it, Shawna!” she tried to shout. “It’s the only way out! Once we get down the stairs, there’s a back door. No fire on that side”
The only answer she gave was to wrap an arm around the two of them and begin helping Kimberly down. They’d only taken one step when the front door blew inward with a fiery whoosh that had flames licking straight up the stairs. The women screamed, scrambling back.
“We can’t wait!” Kimberly shouted and used her body to try to push Shawna forward. “Go! Go! Don’t wait for me! Just go!”
But Shawna wouldn’t leave her and only tightened her hold.
“No!” she shouted back, sobbing. “Together! Move!” And so they clung and tried again. The fire ate the rickety stairs like candy though, the dry boards giving out so quick they barely made it back to the landing. Shawna turned wide, petrified eyes to meet hers. There were windows up here. Hell, she’d take a broken leg over dying in a fire any day.
“Kimberly!” Dean and Sam burst in through the back of the house and came barreling into the front room without regard for their own safety. It took them only a fraction of a second to ascertain the situation, and then they were under the railing and shouting up instructions.
“Hand her down!” Dean told her as he and Sam raised arms to catch the unconscious girl. “Come on! We’ll get her.”
Shawna helped move the girl off her back and over the side of the railing, while all of them started to hack from the smoke. As soon as Kimberly felt the weight transfer from her arms to theirs, she turned to Shawna.
“You next!” Her friend didn’t argue—no time. She just swung a leg over the railing, and Kimberly held her wrists as she let herself down. She sobbed with unspeakable relief the moment her friend was in their trusted hands.
She felt like her limbs were filled with lead as she at last forced her own body over the rail. Fire screamed around them, the flames licking at her skin and leaving blistering welts and searing pain.
The landing collapsed while she was still hanging from it. She went down in a shower of burning coals and rotted wood, and the world first went red, then black.
Dean had just handed Shawna off to Sam and turned to help Kimberly when he saw her go down under wood and flame. “Kimberly!” Blind panic propelled him forward, all training lost as he heaved burning debris off her.
“Dean! Look out!”
He looked up, saw another wall falling, dug in his heels, grabbed Kimberly under the arms, and heaved backward with all the strength in his body. They missed disaster by inches. Dean scrambled to a crouch, caught her up in a fireman’s carry, and ran out of that cabin like the fires of hell were chasing them.
Because they fucking were.
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
