Page 110 of Ignite

My phone had been beeping non-stop all day. I couldn’t turn it off. I wanted to think they were all from people remembering the date and daddy. I wanted to wrap their condolences around me like an invisibility cape. I could hide out here with my horses for a day, and tomorrow I’d deal with whatever my life had become.

Tomorrow, if I lived, I’d do a lot of things differently. But looking out at the sky, I stopped believing in miracles.

Bleep.

Another message. I shoved my phone deeper in my pockets. I couldn’t look—what if none were from Ethan?

What if they were?

Damn him.

Damn him for not trusting me.

Damn him for making me doubt myself, today of all days.

When Darin had turned up, I’d looked at him as if he was nothing more than a drunken acquaintance that needed protecting from his own poor decisions. I no longer saw him as the man I loved.

Ethan.

How could I have lost my heart to a man who never asked for it and never deserved it?

Because the only thing holding either of us back was pride. His and mine. Would it have killed me to compromise?

I hated my inner voice—she never let me lie to myself.

The sky had gotten darker and the stench of the national park disintegrating beneath the path of the firestorm became overwhelming.

I needed to get the horses to the float and take them down to the dam, or die trying.

I needed to find the old water pump and hoses, take them to the dam, set up, and be ready to save what I could.

I needed to not die alone.

I needed one chance to tell Ethan that I could never be sorry for hitting his ute, because it forced us to meet. I could never be sorry for our nights together, because they made me realize what I’d been missing in a man.

One chance. All I had to do was take out my phone and call him.

But in the middle of a hellfire storm and chaos, my legs and arms failed me. I collapsed into a crying mess at the entrance to the stables, watching the first embers float down. Without any grass, they died in the dirt.

It wouldn’t be long before a lucky ember landed on the stable and I could only hope smoke inhalation would take us before the flames.

I needed to move, to act.

But I was tired … too tired to move or think clearly. Part of me knew it was the smoke. The other part of me knew I was resigned to having nothing to live for. The town was in the direct path of the fire and even if I lived, my family home and business would be gone.

My tears flowed freely but I tried not to sob loudly and scare my horses even more than they were. But each inhale hurt like a bitch, and I could feel the smoke incinerate my throat. It wouldn’t be long now, I assumed. I didn’t even have the energy to raise my head for one last look.

All I could do was cry. I’d spent my life being strong. It seemed poetic that I’d die in a moment of weakness—giving up on life because the man I loved had given up on me.

If only I could shed enough tears to wipe out the fire before it wiped out my town.

BEEEEEEEEP

BEEP—BEEP—BEEP

A car horn? It had to be a dream. All my friends were out fighting the main front or at the emergency services center coordinating rescues.

Ethan would be safe. He’d probably be watching the news reports from the safety of Sydney and laughing with his friends about the tomboy girl he’d fucked in a two-bit town that had been burnt to the ground. Within a month, he wouldn’t remember me. By the time the next football season came around, he wouldn’t remember the town.

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