by Brook Wilder
It’s not tears, damn it.
She didn’t have time to cry, not now. Not here. She had to be strong. Not just for herself, but for Preston as well.
It was only her. She was the only one that could get them out.
And it’s not going to happen just sitting here, thinking about it. Move, Red!
The voice inside her head sounded just like Preston’s, deep and gruff but with an edge of softness and endearment. It spurred her into action.
Olivia crawled over him, still conscious of the voices outside. But, after a moment, the sound of motorcycle engines filled the air. They were driving away. At least the coast would be clear when they finally made it out of that death trap.
If.
If they make it out.
Olivia cut off that line of thought brutally. They had to make it out. She wouldn’t accept anything else. She sure as hell wouldn’t accept dying here from the fire that was even now trying to eat everything that it could.
Olivia stumbled on her knees next to Preston’s prone form. She reached out and ran a shaking hand over his bruised and bloody face, and then down to press two fingers to his neck. She let out a sharp huff of breath. There was a pulse there. It was soft, but steady. He was alive. She could do anything else as long as she knew he was still alive.
Olivia’s hands swept down to his shoulders of their own accord. Her mind was still reeling from the fact that he was alive. Those hands grabbed at the front of his shirt and shook him as hard as she could. But he didn’t respond. Not even the flicker of an eyelid.
“Come on, Preston. Wake up, you irritating, annoying, overbearing, arrogant, wonderful man.”
Olivia shook him again, not even aware of the stream of words falling from her lips, but all too aware of the heat that was rising quickly inside the trailer and the thick black smoke that was starting to fill the small space. They were running out of time.
She grabbed him again, shaking, pulling with all the strength she could muster. She pulled back one hand, wincing herself as she let it fly and slapped him on one cheek to try and rouse him.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her hand stinging from the blow.
But he still didn’t wake. He just lay there, as if his body had already given up to the inevitable death that was getting closer and closer.
“No! No! I won’t let this happen! I’m not going to let you die, Preston Osbourne!” Olivia said fiercely.
But, despite her best efforts, desperation began to fill her.
Of all the ways she thought she would die, being burned alive by a gang of bikers certainly hadn’t been one of them. Olivia had to fight the urge to laugh hysterically, clawing back the fear that filled her like bile. Instead, she used it to fuel her anger, feeding it until that was all she could feel, until it drowned out the terror.
Cursing loudly, Olivia got to her feet and bent down towards him, reaching underneath to hook her hands beneath Preston’s shoulders. She tried to drag him to the back of the trailer, but she only managed to move him a foot or so before she collapsed under his weight.
“Damn it, Preston. Why do you have to be so tall? And muscular. Why couldn’t you have been thin and scrawny,” she muttered as she shimmied back around to his side on her knees, not about to give up.
She kept trying, shaking him, hitting him, pleading with him to wake up.
The flames were getting closer, the heat becoming almost unbearable, and it was harder to draw in oxygen with every breath as the smoke in the air became thicker and thicker.
Olivia fought off tears but no matter how hard she tried, they still fell, making tracks through the smoke and soot on her cheeks. She sat back, suddenly hopeless, and that when she realized it. She knew then that the thing that scared her most was losing Preston. Somehow, he had wormed his way into her life and had become a vital part of it without her even realizing. She couldn’t even imagine her life without him. She didn’t want to.
She couldn’t lose him. That, more than anything else, gave her the courage to keep moving, to keep trying. Not to give up on him, on them.
Olivia jumped to her feet and hurriedly scanned the trailer. The windows were cracking and bowing in under the heat and the whole place was burning now, the thick black smoke almost too thick to see through. But she wasn’t about to leave Preston behind, leave him there to die alone.
Olivia spotted the glass of water on the table that she’d poured for Knox what felt like a lifetime ago. It was still half full and she reached for it, gripping it hard in one hand as she dumped the whole thing onto Preston’s face.
She looked around for something else, anything else. But, before she could find anything, the sound of spluttering drew her attention back to Preston.
He was jerking on the floor, coughing and wiping the water from his face, and finally he opened his eyes blearily, staring up at her in confusion.
“What the hell?”
“Oh, thank God!” Olivia collapsed next to him, her legs suddenly shaking so hard with relief that they couldn’t support her weight any more.
But she knew she couldn’t stop yet. They were almost out of time. What had it been, eleven minutes? Twelve?
She propped Preston up, helping him get to his feet, wincing at his rough sounding cough and the way he stumbled.
“Come on. The place is on fire. We have to get you out of here now,” Olivia whispered, supporting more than half his weight and fumbling with each step.
But at least they were moving. They weren’t burning. They weren’t dead. Yet.
“Charlie said there was an emergency hatch at the back somewhere,” Olivia explained hastily between panting breaths. “We just have to find it before this whole place goes up.”
She was surprised at how loud the sound of the fire was now, roaring in its hungry rage, but she ignored it. She could ignore anything. They were going to live, damn it. She would make sure of it.
“Yeah. Yeah there is,” Preston wheezed, his voice so hoarse she could barely make out the words, but he pointed one smoke-grayed finger. “I grew up in a trailer home just like this. There. It’s there underneath that bench seat.”
Olivia scrabbled at the piece of wooden board and it lifted easily. Underneath was bare earth. There way out!
“Okay. Come on big boy. Out you go,” Olivia said as she tugged him forward.
He opened his mouth to protest, but she turned on him.
“Don’t argue with me! You need my help to get out. Just accept it, damn it!” she snapped.
He turned with a docility she hadn’t expected. At least he knew sense when he heard it.
Painfully slow, Preston got one leg over, then the other, and Olivia really did have to support him as he climbed down the narrow hatch and rolled out of view. She wasted no time hurrying down after him.
The flames were burning hot and furious now, as if the fire could sense that its prey was getting away. Olivia and Preston rolled away from the burning trailer and she cast a quick glance around before stumbling to her feet. But the whole place was deserted. She didn’t need to worry about being seen.
The gang had probably wanted to be long gone before the police arrived. And, now that she thought if, that would be a good idea for them as well.
She was still holding on to Preston as they made their way over to where his motorcycle was laying tipped over on its side on the ground. The other bikers had smashed it up a bit, but it was nothing that Preston couldn’t fix. No serious damage had been done. It was just one final petty act of rage and humiliation from them before they’d left. Like spitting on a dead man’s grave.
Preston swore under his breath the whole minute that it took him to get the bike upright and the engine running, and they didn’t hang around any longer. Preston got on and Olivia hastily jumped on the motorcycle behind him, wrapping her arms around him too tight, but he didn’t complain.
He didn’t say another word at all as he gunned the engine one more time and they rode away.
Less than a minute later there was the sound of a big explosion behind them and, when Olivia looked back over her shoulder, she could see the flames licking high in the sky, climbing even above the trees. It was the trailer home they’d just barely escaped from. There would be nothing but ashes left now.
As they rode, Olivia couldn’t get the image out of her mind. The fiery inferno was there, like a virus inside her that she couldn’t delete. It was part of her now. Programmed forever.
She lost track of time as the miles of concrete and blacktop passed beneath them in a blur, but she was grateful when Preston pulled over and a deserted rest area came into view.
It took almost more effort than she could muster at the moment to lift her leg over the motorcycle and slide to her feet. She had to steady herself against the machine for a moment until she was sure she could take a step without falling flat on her face.
Neither of them spoke as Olivia took Preston’s hand in hers and led him to the rest room. She was glad it was empty of anyone else. She didn’t think she could handle pretending to be normal at the moment. Normal was the last thing she felt.
She locked the door after them, just in case there were any other travelers that wanted in, and then dragged him over to the sink. In silence, Olivia pulled out a handful of paper towels and wet them in the sink before reaching up to dab off some of the blood and smoke from Preston’s face.
He grabbed her wrist, halting her attempts, and his dark blue eyes blazed so fiercely she couldn’t meet them.
“Thank you,” he whispered soft and rough.
Olivia tried to shrug it off, but he slid his other hand across her jaw, tilting her face up until she had no choice but to meet his gaze. It burned just as brightly as the fire they’d left behind.
“You saved my life, Olivia. You could have left me there. You could have saved yourself, instead you risked everything… for me. I can never… just, thank you.”
He kissed her then, slow and sweet and full of so much tenderness that it made her breath hitch in her chest. Preston pulled back inch by inch, leaving her even more shaken than she was, and Olivia desperately searched for some way to find her footing again.
“Hey, you would have done the same for me,” she joked weakly before glancing down at the damp rags in her hand, and then up in the mirror.
She winced, wishing she hadn’t.
“I look worse than you do,” Olivia said breathily, still trying to break the tension between them as she tried to get some of the black and gray streaks off her own face. Her clothes were hopeless, she didn’t even attempt to do anything to repair that.
“You look beautiful,” Preston said, and his voice was nothing but grave honesty as he took the damp towel and gently wiped at a spot on her cheek.
It had her breath catching all over again.
They both fell silent again as several moment past. Olivia just leaned there as Preston washed her face. It all felt so surreal that Olivia could almost believe it was just a dream. Some fantastic hallucination. That none of it was real. That none of it had actually happened.
But the bloody cuts on Preston’s face and her own bruises proved to her that it was all too real.
“We’ll leave town,” Preston said suddenly, not looking directly at her as he spoke, still focused on cleaning up the remnants that the fire had left on her skin. “We’ll get as far away as we can. I’ll trade in my bike somewhere along the way and then we can…”
“No, Preston. We can’t just leave,” Olivia was shaking her head as she interrupted him.
A part of her wanted nothing more than to ride away with him, forget all of this, forget her old life and become something new. A phoenix rising out of the flames. But she knew that was just a dream. It wasn’t real. And it wouldn’t help them.
“They’ll hunt us down. Just like they did here. It’s easy enough to track a credit card, an ID. They would find us.”
“You have a better idea?” he shouted, his face suddenly twisting in anger.
But she knew it wasn’t directed at her. It was fueled by the same helpless frustration that she felt.
“You have a house hidden away somewhere that I don’t know about?”
“Well, sort of,” Olivia answered slowly, “I mean, it is hidden from Capone and his guys, but you do know about it.”
Preston just tilted his head to one side, giving her a confused look and suddenly Olivia had to suppress a grin.
“I’m talking about my house, Preston. Back in Hightower!”
“No way, Red. That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.”
He was shaking his head vehemently, but that didn’t deter her in the slightest.
“Just hear me out, okay?” Olivia pleaded with him, “Charlie said that Capone doesn’t know where I live…”
“Wait a minute. Did you say Charlie?”
Olivia shrugged.
“Yeah. He was one of the bikers at Knox’s trailer.”
“He was there with Capone? He was there with that animal?” Preston asked, his voice suddenly going too still and quiet.
Olivia had never seen rage like she saw on Preston’s face in that single moment and instinctively she reached one hand out towards him.
“Preston, he didn’t betray you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she whispered hastily, trying to calm the storm she could see brewing behind his eyes. “He saved our lives. If not for him…”
She trailed off, shuddering at the thought, unable to put it into words, just how close they’d come to death.
“Without him, we wouldn’t be standing here right now arguing about what to do next. I think I trust him. Don’t you?”
“I… yeah, I trust him with my life,” Preston finally said, but he still sounded disgruntled.
“Good. Then it’s settled,” Olivia nodded firmly as she took the now black-stained paper towel from Preston’s hand and threw it in the trash.
She wished it was that easy to throw away the memories, the fear, but she would just have to find another way to deal with those.
“I still don’t think it’s a good idea, Red.” Preston shook his head again.
But Olivia could see that the fight had gone out of him.
“We’ll be right in the Devil’s back yard,” he added.
“That’s why it’s so perfect. Don’t you see? They would never expect us to go back there, not least because they think we’re dead. It will be the safest place for us. The one place they will never look.”
Olivia had already made up my mind, and she could see Preston wavering.
“We can at least go for a few days. Rest and clean up. Figure out our plan. I have some money stashed away there, some valuables we can pawn if we need to.”
Preston let out a loud sigh.
“I still think it’s a bad plan.” he huffed again, following her out of the bathroom. “But I suppose it’s the only plan we have at the moment. Alright, Red, you win.”
He climbed back on to the motorcycle, which was dinged and dented now from the abuse. But it started just fine as Olivia slid on behind him, wrapping her arms tight around his waist.
“Let’s go home.”
Chapter 9
Preston ambled across the living room, checking that the curtains were fully drawn for what felt like the hundredth time since they had arrived back at Olivia’s quaint little cottage earlier that evening.
He hadn’t really paid too much attention when he had been there the last time. He’d been a little too distracted by the thought of Capone and the rest of the Devil’s Martyrs coming after them and the death threat hanging over their head. But, as he looked around, he could see that she’d already put her mark on things.
From the rug, a mishmash of geometric prints and primary colors, to the white couch, to the little odds and ends scattered strategically around the home, he could see her careful, precise but unexpected touch in everything.
He like it, he decided, as he looked around. He liked her clean, y
et eccentric style. It was pure Olivia. Maybe that’s why he liked it so much. It reminded him of her.
Preston turned back to the window, adjusting the curtain for time number one hundred and one. He just couldn’t seem to make himself relax. The more he’d thought through Olivia’s wild plan, the more he’d seen the advantages, but it still wasn’t easy to stay there, locked away inside the house.
His motorcycle was hidden away in the shed under some old, moth-eaten tarp. They were careful not to have any lights on that might reflect through the windows out into the night, nor did they walk directly in front of them, just in case there was someone watching. They were being as careful as they could be.
