Page 56 of Bristol

“You two take the Escalade. I’m going to drive the perv van.” The amount of joy on Reaper’s face should be illegal. He takes way too much pride in torturing the shit out of people. It’s a good thing he can buy his way into and out of nearly everything in this damn world.

Mo and I make our way to the Escalade and I toss him the keys.

Reaper follows the Escalade down the long and winding gravel drive that we came down the other day when we arrived for this stake out. I feel a sense of relief as we drive away from this godforsaken place.

I’m so lost inside my own head that when a loud booming explosion sounds, I nearly jump out of my skin. The farmhouse we are driving away from is engulfed in flames. My heart sinks in my chest and I swear I’m going to fucking throw up as Mo whips the Escalade around, slamming the gas and hauling ass back to the house.

“Fuck!” he shouts. He throws it in park a couple hundred feet from the burning house and we both bolt out. All I can think is that I fucking left those kids and that girl inside this fucking house thinking they would be safe and I’ve failed them. I’m running so hard that my lungs and legs are burning. I barrel toward the back door and fling it open, jerking my hand back as the metal burns into my skin.

The house is burning. Everything inside is on fucking fire. Mo stands beside me at the back door. We have to do something. A loud cracking noise comes from somewhere upstairs, and I hear the shrieks of the boys. I have to get to them.

“We have to get in there!” I shout.

I’ve never felt like much of a hero. I don’t know what that’s like. I’ve always been a selfish man, usually looking out for myself and the people close to me and that’s it. But I am compelled to save these children. All three of them.

I take a deep, cleansing breath before I shove my way inside, fighting the flames as I try to get to the stairs to the basement. It’s so smoky I’m struggling to see my way around and the fire is hot. My skin feels like it is going to melt off at any given moment.

I find the stairs and clear them two at a time. The basement is smoky, but not as bad as the main floor. The girl and the two boys are in the corner. She has her hands wrapped around them, protecting them.

All three run to me. And now I have to figure out how the fuck we are all getting out of here. The flames are relentless, burning through the frame of the house quicker than I can fathom. The cracks and booms of pieces of the house falling apart makes everyone jump with each sound, me included.

I hear knocking and scan the room. There’s a small window in the upper left-hand side of the room. Mo knocks a few times then shoves his fist through it, shattering it and sending glass flying everywhere.

“Bring them here!” he yells.

I rush over with the kids and send them up to him one by one. First the smallest boy, then the other. Finally, I send the girl through. The window isn’t big enough for me. The small girl barely fit and I’m twice as wide as she is, at minimum. Mo and I share a look before he speaks.

“Go back out the way you came!” he shouts.

It’s smokier now, even with the window busted out down here. The house is burning fast and I’m in the motherfucking basement. Pieces of burning wood begin falling around me and the smoke is so thick and it’s flooding in through the only door that leads out of here. I make a run for it, convinced I’m going to do exactly what I did to get down here. Take the steps two at a time and bolt for the back door. I make it up two stairs when the floor above me caves in, landing on top of me. It’s heavy and it knocks the wind from my lungs when it falls. I struggle to free myself from the debris that has me trapped, and the more I fight, the harder it is to breathe.

Dark spots blur around the edges of my vision and though I’m fighting to get out, I can’t breathe. The air down here is too thick. I kick my foot hard, trying to get free and the last thought that crosses my mind before I black out is Well… fuck.

Chapter Seventeen

BRISTOL

“Okay, that’s the last of it,” Kris says, setting his tattoo gun down. He steps back and looks down at my back.

“Wow.”

I smile. If he’s impressed, I cannot wait to see what Sebastian thinks.

“Here, hand me your phone. You gotta see this.”

I hand him my cell and he snaps a picture of my back. He flips my phone around and hands it to me. The image before me takes my breath away. It’s even more perfect than I ever could have dreamed. The detail and shading are so perfect that I want to just stare at it and admire it for forever.

“I’m going to spray it down and wipe it then wrap it.”

Kris spritzes alcohol on a paper towel and wipes it down my back. Some of the spots from earlier this week have already started healing but I can most definitely pinpoint the areas that he worked on today. The cold sting of the alcohol makes me tense, but I quickly relax as soon as he’s done.

He rubs a smooth cream over my back then covers it with saran wrap, taping it in place across my shoulders and lower back.

“All done. I’ll step out so you can get dressed. I would avoid a bra for a bit until it’s healed so that it doesn’t rub too bad.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Kris steps out and I sit up, pulling my shirt on. My back is sore. What we thought would be a day turned into three days. But it was well worth it.

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