AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Cooper stood in the doorway that led to the living room. Noah’s mind took in his appearance. Oversized jeans, coat, hat pulled over his bald head, gloves on his hands. Snow wet on his boots. No pistol.
Noah rushed at him.
FORTY-FIVE
Josie got to her feet and ran after Brian. Outside, the smoke from the main house continued to rise upward into the sky. An occasional burst of wind sent plumes of it toward the rage room but for the most part, the air was still breathable. Still, she reached down into her coat and pulled the collar of her shirt up over her nose. Looking around, she saw no fresh footprints leading away from the building. There was only the shoveled path which was filled with all their tracks. The heat from the fire had turned those to slush. She looked down the slope but didn’t see him. Had he gone up toward the cabins? She turned to follow the path that way, but Alice’s voice stopped her.
“Josie! Where are you going?”
Josie lowered her collar. “I have to find Brian and bring him back. He’s not well. He could die out here.”
Alice stepped forward and grabbed Josie’s arm. “He could kill you! He could be the killer, Josie! Have you thought of that?”
“Yes,” Josie said. “But I still have to go after him.”
“Why? Is this because of what Nicola said? That Taryn’s blood is on your hands? She’s wrong, Josie. I hope you know that. If something bad happened to her, you couldn’t have predicted that. You did the right thing.”
Josie looked into her hazel eyes, now gold and amber in the sun. She didn’t believe Alice but there was no point in arguing.
“Thank you, Alice.”
Alice pulled at her arm, urging her back into the rage room. “Come back inside.”
Gently, Josie peeled her fingers away and squeezed her hand. “I’ll come back when I find Brian. But listen—” She broke off. She had told Sandrine she would not tell Alice about what she’d discovered regarding Taryn, Brian, and Nicola. Even if she had wanted to tell her, there hadn’t been an opportunity but now, Josie worried about leaving Alice behind with Nicola and Sandrine, in a situation in which she didn’t have all the information. She’d been too exhausted and overwhelmed the night before to question Sandrine’s motives for keeping Alice out of the loop. At this point, did it matter if Alice slipped up or lost her composure again? If something happened to Alice before they got off this mountain because Josie didn’t tell her everything, could she live with herself? The answer was no. She wasn’t even sure she could live with the fact that whatever fate Taryn had met was likely her fault.
“What is it?” Alice said, still clutching Josie’s hand.
“I need to tell you some things. We don’t have much time so I’m going to tell you everything I know as quickly as I can and then I’m going to go find Brian and bring him back to the group. I need you to stay calm.”
Alice’s posture straightened. The fear in her eyes receded, replaced by something Josie had seen among many of her colleagues when they had to stow their personal emotions in order to get the job done. It was the ER nurse, comfortable in crisis and chaos, taking over. She was prepared for anything. Relief coursed through Josie’s body, loosening the tense muscles in her shoulder blades.
A blast of smoke from the main house hit them. Josie pulled her shirt up over her face again and led Alice down toward the shed. Then she told her everything she’d learned so far, leaving out her theory that Brian might be Sandrine’s sibling. Alice listened, her hand gripping Josie’s more tightly with each word until Josie’s knuckles ached. Sensing Josie’s urgency and knowing they could be interrupted at any moment, she didn’t ask any questions. Instead, when Josie finished, she said, “I can’t let you go after Brian alone.”
“I’ll be fine,” Josie said.
“You don’t know that.”
“I’ve taken on people a lot more frightening than Brian.”
Alice gave a weak smile. “That doesn’t make me feel better. What about the rest of us?”
“You’ll be fine here as long as you stay together,” Josie told her. “There’s no sense in all of us freezing outside. Go back inside. Stay close to Sandrine and wait for me. I promise you I’m not going to provoke Brian. I just want to bring him back to the rage room. I can’t risk any more of us disappearing or getting injured or killed.”
Reluctantly, Alice left her and ran back inside the rage room. Josie waited until the door closed and then she followed the melted path up past the main house, keeping her nose and mouth covered and going as quickly as she could. As she passed in front of it, a blistering wave of heat hit her so hard, she felt like she might fall over. She veered off into the snow to get away from it. As she passed Sandrine’s cabin, she saw that the siding had begun to melt. Josie willed her feet to move faster but the snow was still high and difficult to push through. Her chest was tight. It felt impossible to take a deep breath. She was regretting her decision to go after Brian when she saw him sitting on the front steps of his and Nicola’s cabin. He was hunched over, elbows on knees, head turned toward the fire. It was still smoky here but no more so than in the rage room.
Standing in front of him, she spoke through the fabric of her shirt. “Brian, please come back to the camp.”
He didn’t move, didn’t look at her. His voice was flat when he spoke. “I don’t want to go back. I’d rather be out here, in the open air.”
Josie lowered her shirt. The back of her throat still felt thick and coated with soot. “You can sit out in front of the rage room, then. Just come back. No one goes anywhere alone, remember? It’s not safe.”
“The smell brings it back,” he said, eyes still fixed on the fire. The middle of the building had started to collapse onto itself. The glass of the large windows in front had already cracked and shattered in some places. Flames licked through the openings. “You know, the others, they heard the screams. That was the thing that always stayed with them, but for me it’s the smell. It takes me right back to that time in my life.”
Josie’s eyes watered. “I know the smell is a trigger for you but you’re not safe out here. Please, just come back. It’s important that we all stay together for when we’re rescued, which should be soon, I hope.”
His eyes were glassy and unfocused again. He was back in some place she couldn’t touch. Los Angeles, probably. During the fire that had killed over a dozen people in his group foster home.
