Shadowed Flame

by RJ Blain

  Within five minutes, I had all of the necessary cables, mini tripod, batteries, and memory cards stowed in my new camera bag. I somehow found room to shove my laptop’s new charge cable in my carryon. While fresh out of the box, the slim camera had a half-charged battery. Disregarding the instructions, I decided to put it to the test, stowing the larger camera in my purse.

  My first goal was to photograph every last inch of the airport on my way to security. I’d work out my anxiety by snapping photos and find out just how long my new camera would last before it either ran out of battery or I trashed the button by clicking on it so many times.

  “At the rate you’re taking pictures, someone’s going to think you’re a terrorist scoping the place out,” a silky smooth yet masculine voice rumbled in my ear. I squeaked, dropping my camera. The lanyard spared it from crashing to the floor. Instead, it took a dive down my blouse. With my face burning, I dug the camera out of my cleavage and spun on a heel to face the speaker.

  What was it with men deciding not to wear their shirts to the airport? I got a really good look at his chest, which had a remarkable lack of hair. What sort of man waxed his chest?

  I didn’t care what color his skin was; in the airport’s overhead lights, the sheen of his sweat made my fingers itch to find out if he was nearly as smooth as he looked. The thought only made my face burn hotter. Instead of looking up like I should have, my gaze dipped to his stomach to get acquainted with each and every one of his abs.

  Dad liked working out and did a good job of it, but he didn’t hold a candle to the honed perfection on display before me.

  “Like what you see?”

  Why did people always want an answer when they asked a question? It was so unfair. Deciding I had already embarrassed myself beyond redemption so it didn’t matter what I did, I hopped back several steps, lifted my camera, and snapped a few pictures before beating a hasty retreat in the direction of the security gate.

  I found my boarding pass tucked in my passport, which solved a lot of problems.

  With my ticket in hand, facing airport security seemed a far better fate than trying to explain my shameful behavior. I’d text Dad and let him know I had braved my worst nightmare on my own.

  I’d use up the rest of my allotment of words for the year if it meant I didn’t have another run-in with the sweaty man and his gorgeous, waxed chest. It was one thing to sneak peeks at a half-naked man; I did it all the time at the gym when I thought no one was looking. I caught plenty of men watching me when I worked out, too, and I didn’t blame them for it.

  Breasts had a tendency to bounce, and mine were no exception to the rule. No sports bra in existence contained mine completely. They were just too large. Most men, however, at least pretended to look at my face while sneaking peeks at my cleavage.

  There were rules in polite society about objectifying someone of the opposite sex, and I had broken every last one of them in less than thirty seconds. To make matters worse, I had taken several pictures to immortalize the moment. Hustling across the airport at a pace that’d make Dad proud of my efforts, I popped the memory chip out of my camera, stuffed it in my purse, and swapped it out for a fresh one.

  If security decided to turn on my cameras to prove they worked, they would find an empty memory chip and not the flexed muscles of a man too damned handsome for anyone’s good, especially mine. Printing those photos would be the first thing I did when I got home.

  In my haste to snap the shots, I wasn’t even sure I had captured his face. With my luck, my camera shared my shameful lack of dignity, focusing strictly on his sinfully slick and smooth skin.

  Grandmother, at least, would be proud. Hell, if she found out about the situation, she’d hunt the poor man down, lure him home, and do her best to make sure I wasn’t actually a lesbian like she thought I was.

  The condoms I kept in my purse’s zippered pocket should have provided her with a few clues I was straighter than an arrow and interested in finding someone. I’d seen her rummaging through my things often enough when she visited there was no way she didn’t know I had them.

  Sometimes, I found more than I had stashed in my purse, probably a hint I should go get laid.

  Unfortunately for me, while I was as straight as an arrow, when it came to love and sex, I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn at point blank range.

  Condoms did me no good if I couldn’t find a man to sleep with. Daddy’s money attracted enough attention, but most men found my silence unnerving while I found their demands for conversation I didn’t want equally disconcerting.

  If I wanted to talk, I would. When I wanted to, I did. While I could probably dip into the shallow end of the gene pool for a night of fun, I wasn’t quite ready to turn into a slut, no matter what my grandmother wanted.

  I suspected she just wanted grandchildren, and since Dad wasn’t putting out, she was fishing in the adopted granddaughter pool for a great-grandchild. At eighteen, I had plenty of time, and we all knew it.

  So Grandmother snuck condoms into my purse, not realizing her son was a step ahead of the game and had taken me to the doctor at thirteen for birth control. I kept the condoms because I sure as hell didn’t want to catch anything from my non-existent one-night stands.

  Dad was a lot of things, but he understood other men, and he didn’t take stock in the traditional belief girls and women were immune to sweat-slicked, bare chests.

  Waxed bare chests.

  Maybe I didn’t fall in love easily, but damn, I had enough lust for two. I stifled a groan and beelined for security, integrating into the line so I could head to my departure gate and put the whole airport behind me.

  I glanced at my boarding pass, my eyes widening as I realized I wasn’t taking a direct flight. The first leg of the flight took me to Boston before connecting to London.

  I blinked, rubbed my eyes, and checked the boarding pass again. The destination hadn’t changed.

  When I met up with Dad, we were going to have a long talk about why we were flying to London, England. Rule one would be discarded, and rule two would be up for negotiation.

  The destination explained why we were flying commercial at least. Flying the corporate jet overseas cost so much even Dad hesitated to book it. I whimpered, and all thoughts of bare-chested men fled under the pressure of an unexpected trip to England with nothing more than a carryon.

  The noon rush at the airport left the lines a mess, but the security guards were moving people through at admirable speeds. In what felt like a blink of an eye, but was actually closer to forty minutes later, I was ushered through to one of the gates. I handed my passport and boarding pass over to the agent, who scanned it before handing it back.

  “Where are you going?”

  I hated security, but if I wanted to escape without having to deal with the gauntlet of additional questioning, I needed to pretend I wasn’t shaking and that a film of sweat wasn’t forming under my blouse. “London.”

  “Purpose of your trip?”

  “Business meeting,” I replied, keeping a close eye on the box with my carryon and my purse.

  It passed through the machine, and the agent in charge of the device grabbed my bag and pulled out my laptop. “Turn it on.”

  I opened it up, and since I hadn’t taken the time to shut it off, I tapped in my password, minimized the presentation, and turned the screen to the agent for his scrutinization. He tapped on the trackpad to prove it was an actual laptop before nodding his permission to put it away.

  “When are you returning?”

  Thinking fast on my feet was part of my job description, and all the other times we had gone overseas, we had returned within a week, so I replied, “In a week.”

  “Have a safe trip.”

  I blinked at him, and he blinked back before cracking a grin and gesturing for me to grab the box with my purse, my bag, and my shoes. I gathered my things, stunned I had cleared security without a fuss, and headed to the next checkpoint before he changed his min
d about letting me through.

  I found a cafe and parked at a table for two, sighing from relief at the chance to sit down. Grabbing my phone out of my purse, I texted Dad to inform him I had navigated through the perils of security without a hitch and asked how long it would take him to make it through the gauntlet.

  My phone rang ten seconds later, and before I had a chance to say hello, Dad blurted, “Go to the gate and wait for me there.”

  He hung up on me before I could do more than open my mouth in astonishment. Why would he call me to say that when he could have texted me? I stared down at the phone, tapping to return his call.

  The call went straight to voicemail.

  My creeped-out-o-meter redlined. Grateful I had already paid for my coffee, I got up, grabbed my bags, and debated whether to be a good daughter and do as told, or risk going through security a second time to find out what had gotten into Dad.

  I didn’t have far to go to reach the gate, which meant if I decided to be a bad daughter, it wouldn’t take me long to return to where I belonged. I selected Sam’s number as I walked and held my phone to my ear while I dodged other travelers on my way back to the security checkpoint.

  Sam’s phone went straight to voicemail, too.

  All things considered, the one person who probably knew what was going on was Annamarie. Swallowing a sigh, I hunted through my contact list, coming to a halt within sight of security.

  “Miss Evans?” Annamarie answered, her tone shocked.

  “Did Dad—” A flash of light drew my attention to the security gate, and before I could do more than turn my head to the source, a bang heralded a wave of heat and smothering darkness.

  Chapter Two

  Sometimes, Dad woke screaming from a sound sleep, and I knew the nightmares were back. He had spent a lifetime—mine—coping with what he had done. The cries penetrating the ringing in my ears reminded me of those nights, the nights when he relived killing my mother.

  Alcohol had evaporated from his life that night, but his change wouldn’t bring my mother back, and my real father had never come for me. Like my Dad had done with his bottles, my real father had discarded me the instant my mother was gone. So, Dad had made me his responsibility.

  I was grateful for that, I really was, but I still hated when he screamed. I hadn’t known my mother or my real father, and with Dad around, I didn’t need anyone else. Why did he have to scream?

  I registered the sound around me in the sleepy way I did at home, but the screams didn’t quiet like I expected; Dad’s cut off the instant he realized he was awake and no longer trapped in his nightmares.

  Dad was never so shrill, either.

  Noise enveloped me; the rare moments someone wasn’t crying out or screaming, something crackled. The sounds were muffled, although I couldn’t tell by what. A siren’s shrill blare added to the cacophony, startling me into sucking in a breath.

  Smoke filled my lungs.

  The harsh fumes jolted me to full awareness. Bursts of light danced and flickered somewhere nearby, and my eyes stung from the haze surrounding me. Thanks to winter nights nestled warm in front of the fireplace, I recognized the crackle, the heat, and the shifting illumination as flame.

  The memory of heading for the security gate at the airport crashed into me. Something had happened, something I couldn’t remember. The throb in my head intensified with every breath. A groan slipped out, and the sound woke an itch in my throat and lungs, which heralded a rasping cough.

  My chest hurt almost as much as my head. It took me longer than I liked to realize I was lying on my side. The flutter of anxiety in my stomach threatened to burst into full-fledged panic.

  I, Matia Hannah Evans, didn’t panic. I, Matia Hannah Evans, observed calmly and critically, prepared to dive in the instant Dad needed me to intervene and come to his rescue. Something had happened to make him call me to try to warn me away.

  Dad had somehow known something was wrong, and instead of heading away from trouble, I had dived into it head first.

  Was my father screaming? Had he, like me, been caught in the destruction? Bomb threats happened all the time. Not even in my nightmares had I ever imagined being at ground zero.

  A tremble ran through me. Dad had known something was wrong, and he had tried to warn me away. Tears burned in my eyes. Was he trapped somewhere nearby, waiting for me to find him? The thought of him trapped in the rubble terrified me far more than the fact I had been caught in the blast.

  Panicking would do me zero good. If I panicked, I couldn’t do anything for either one of us. I took deep breaths, fighting against the urge to cough.

  It was no different from work, if I thought it through a little. The first thing I needed to do was assess my situation. Once I knew what I had to work with, I could make a plan. I hurt, but I didn’t feel the stabbing agony of a broken bone. If I had escaped without breaking anything, I’d consider myself ahead of the game.

  I started with my fingers, wiggling them one at a time. My right wrist throbbed. Shuddering, I rotated my right arm, gasping at the ache in my shoulder. It hurt, but it didn’t feel broken.

  If it were, I’d be screaming.

  My left arm was pinned beneath my side, so I diverted my attention to my legs, starting with my toes. Warning jolts of pain shot up my calves, and I identified the cramp of muscles stuck in the same position for too long, which made me wonder how long I had been unconscious. I rotated my ankles.

  My left one obeyed while my right twitched, and a stabbing tingle swept through my foot. Until I could get up and look at what was wrong, there wasn’t anything I could do, which left me with the problem of my arm. While my hand was free, my arm was pinned beneath me, and wiggling my fingers woke the same sharp tingling sensation.

  First, I needed to decide whether to roll onto my stomach or back. The smoke burned my eyes and decreased visibility to less than a foot.

  Would someone who could see color have an easier time? Could red, green, yellow, or blue peek through the gray shroud of smoke, or did it restrict everyone to my colorless life? Under normal circumstances, I liked smoke.

  Its color was one of the few truths I could rely on.

  I decided my back was the safer choice. If I could sit up, I could get a better idea of how much trouble I was in.

  I flopped with the grace of a fish out of water. Something hard and hot poked me in the back, and I hissed at the scrape of a jagged edge against my skin. My breath wheezed, and the ache in my lungs intensified.

  If I didn’t get out of the smoke, I’d suffocate. Fear gave me the strength to lurch upright, half twisted due to the position of my leg. Through the haze, I could make out the debris pinning my foot, ankle, and lower calf to the floor.

  Before its destruction, the airport had been a mix of stone tiles, carpeting, steel, concrete, and glass broken by utilitarian stations and an eclectic mix of casual, hip, and elegant shops and restaurants.

  Broken chunks of concrete and tile tangled with twisted metal littered the floor. Smaller bits tumbled off me as I took stock of what had fallen on me. Most of the chunks were small enough to offer me some hope of being able to shift them aside on my own, assuming I didn’t smother to death from the smoke first.

  Shaking out my hands until the worst of the tingling faded, I buttoned my top all the way to its collar and lifted it so I could breathe through the fabric instead of inhaling unfiltered smoke. I had no idea if it would help, but with no other options, I decided it was better than doing nothing at all. I bit on the fabric to hold it in place and breathed out of my mouth.

  I grabbed the first piece of debris and shifted it to the side. Once I was free, I’d find Dad, somehow.

  The smoke thickened while I worked, forcing me to stop and take breaks with increasing frequency. The stench of burning plastic deadened my sense of smell, and despite trying to breathe out of my mouth, I kept forgetting, and my nose, throat, and lungs burned. I didn’t know how long it took to free my leg, but once I shifte
d the last of the twisted metal away, I rotated my ankles to restore feeling to my feet.

  While I didn’t think I had broken anything, I hadn’t emerged unscathed. My head still throbbed. Dark smears streaked down my legs where I’d been cut by debris. Some of the gashes still bled sluggishly, although not enough to worry me. The burn in my lungs and chest bothered me the most. I wanted to cough, and I spent a lot of time clearing my throat to quell the impulse.

  Coughing would only make it hurt more; I’d learned that lesson the first few times I had lost the battle.

  The distant blare of sirens, the crack of crumbling concrete, and the groan of twisting metal kept the terminal from falling quiet. The screams had died down to low groans, and I shuddered. I got to my feet with the help of rubble. However tempting it was to ditch my heels, not even the smoke could hide the gleam of glass strewn between the rest of the debris.

  I swayed with every step and flinched at the crunches beneath my feet.

  A phone rang, its tones muffled. I listened to the chime, then discarded it as irrelevant.

  It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t Dad’s. I sucked in a breath, jerking in the direction of the sound. It didn’t matter whose phone it was. With a phone, I could call Dad’s. I couldn’t call my own house to save my life, but Dad’s number I knew. I scrambled in the direction of the device, climbing over broken chunks of concrete.

  The chime faded, and I couldn’t spot the screen’s light through the smoke.

  I waited, holding my breath in the hope it would ring again. It didn’t. Sighing, I cursed my stupidity for wasting the first few rings. I wormed my way off the pile and lifted my arm so I could breathe through my sleeve.

  The wreckage around me shattered my hopes one broken stone at a time. I had been on the fringe of the destruction. Dad must have been near the center of it.