Page 99 of Burn With Me

“Wait up, man, you can’t go in there alone. You know how the fires have started and what his pattern is. If he’s the one who has been setting the fires, the doors are where he starts them, so we have to be smart about this.”

Spinning on my heels to face him, I yell, “I don’t give a fuck how we get in, Sam. The woman I love is in there, and I’m going to do everything I can to get her out. Regardless of the risk or consequences.” Pam and Penny walk slowly toward us. “Pam. I need you to take Penny back to your car and wait there till I get back. If anything happens to either of you, she’ll kill me. I’m going to get her out of there.”

Pam nods at me, and I turn back around and jog toward the greenhouses.

“Luke, will you wait one damn minute?” Sam says as he grabs my shoulder. “She’s my sister. I’m with you, but neither of us will do her any good if we die on our way in. We have to find a safe way to enter.”

I stop and take in my surroundings. In the distance, I hear glass shattering as the heat becomes too much, thick smoke billowing out as it escapes the confines of the greenhouse.

He’s right. I take a breath to center my thoughts to come up with a plan. If we go in the wrong way, it’ll be for nothing.

As my gaze roams over the farm, I notice more flames consume the front part of the structure, and they seem to be moving backward.

“There.” I point toward the main entrance to the building. “The fire seems to have started in the front of the building and is spreading toward the back. Noah!”

“What’s up?” he says, jogging up to us.

“I need you to ask Pam which motion detectors were set off and in what pattern. I don’t have my phone on me to use my app. I’ll be on channel eight.” I look down and adjust the channel on my walkie.

“Yeah, give me a minute,” he says and runs off to Pam and her car.

I approach the building, and Sam asks, “What are you thinking?”

“If we can trace the way the sensors were tripped before the fire took them out, we can hopefully find the last one they used and use that door,” I tell him when Pam comes on over the radio.

“I have the app open. What do you specifically need?” she asks.

“I just need the location of the last sensor that went off before the system went out,” I tell her, staring at the building as the fire spreads back, slow and steady.

“The one labeled NBD1”

“Thanks, Pam. Tell Noah to let everyone know the person who has been starting the fires is inside. They’ll know how to fight it. But you have to stay in the car, okay?”

“You are going to get her out, right?” she asks, her voice thick with emotion, and I have to force a deep breath.

“That or die trying.”

After putting my mask on, I point to the new back door, as Am calls it.

Sam comes up next to me with his mask on, and we make our way to where we’ll enter.

“We could lose our jobs going in there. This is your last chance to turn back,” I tell Sam.

“Fuck that. I don’t care if I lose my job. I got both of your backs. Let’s go get her. We need to turn our radios back to channel three.”

Nodding, I turn back toward the greenhouse. I pick up my pace and have never been happier with how Amelia designed this building, with the offices in the center point and branches going out from there.

It means the fire has to work harder to get to the back part.

I yell at Sam as I get closer to him. “I’m pretty sure the fire started in the front part of the office section and spread to the new section.”

“I’m not mad. Hopefully, that makes it easier to get to her.”

“I hope so too.” I try to look in the windows next to the door but can’t see anything past the smoke.

As I go to grab my Halligan, I freeze.

I have never been nervous to walk into a fire before.

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