Page 65 of Combust
It led him several dozen feet down an aisle lined with shipping pallets. Ahead of him, he saw that a stack of baled trees had collapsed into a smoldering heap on the floor, blocking his progress.
The distress signal continued to shriek from somewhere on the other side of the obstacle…or was it coming frominsidethe pile?
Then he saw one of Maggie’s steel-toed boots, barely visible beneath the heaped greenery that was rapidly turning into a funeral pyre.
Cade roared, and frantically began dragging trees off her. The top items were already burning, but he barely noticed the pain as he used his huge forepaws, with their digging claws, to pull them away.
Sparks landed on his shoulders and sides, adding the stink of scorched hair to the confusion of overwhelming odors in the barn. He ignored the stabs of agony and dug through the mess of branches and trunks as fast as he could.
Finally, he cleared enough of the springy, smoking firs and spruce away to seize the back of Maggie’s jacket in his jaws and drag her clear.
She stirred weakly, then pushed up to a kneeling position, one-handed. Her other arm was locked around the limp form of a child. Relief flooded him.She’s alive!
He could guess what had happened. When the stack of Christmas trees collapsed, Maggie had thrown herself over little Emily, shielding the unconscious girl with her own body.
Alerted by a crackling roar, Cade swiveled his head. To his horror, he saw flames racing towards them.Time to skedaddle from this hellhole.
He tugged at Maggie’s jacket again, urging her in the direction of the door, located somewhere behind him.
Never releasing her hold on Emily, Maggie staggered to her feet. She steadied herself against his shoulder, then grabbed a handful of his fur.
Cade understood what she wanted from him. The space was too narrow for him to turn around, so he began to back out the way he’d come, leading her to safety.
They made it as far as the space with the jumble of machinery. Then, suddenly, light poured in through the open door, and a pair of flashlight beams pierced the smoke, landing on Maggie and Cade.
“Maggie!” Cade recognized Dane’s voice as he rushed forward and swept her up in his arms.
The other firefighters had finally arrived.
Cade staggered after Dane as he carried Maggie out of the barn. His head spun with a mixture of potent smoke and sheer relief.
He’d never been so happy to breathe clean air and see blue sky when he emerged into the bright afternoon sunlight.
Someone grabbed his neck-fur. “Dude, you’re on fire!” Ash Swanson said urgently, swatting at Cade’s back with his insulated leather gloves.
Now that Ash mentioned it, Cade hurt all over, but his paws and shoulders were the worst. The churned-up mixture of snow and mud felt heavenly against the burned pads of his feet, so he lurched out of Ash’s hold and flopped over onto the nearest patch of snow, rolling in it until the burning sensations eased.
His nose was still clogged with the scent of flaming resin, but he detected the distinct, all-too-familiar stench of his own singed fur.
He gagged as memories rose like a flooded river inside him, and threw up his lunch.
When he’d heaved himself dry, he sat on his haunches, shaking hard with the aftermath of the close call. His Maggie had almost burned to death in there.
He looked for her, and spotted her sitting against a tree nearby. She was downing a bottle of water as Dane and her uncles hovered over her.
Everything’s okay now, he reassured himself, trying to stop the tremors so that he could shift back to human.I’m a bit singed around the edges, but Maggie’s alive. And she saved the little girl, too. It all played out differently this time.
With a groan, Cade shifted back to his human form. He needed to update them with what he’d learned about Austin and Denise.
When his shift completed, he tried to get to his feet. And promptly fell over, face-first, into the snowdrift.
It didn’t feel anywhere near as nice on his bare skin as it had against his fur, but he didn’t have the strength to move.
He was dimly aware of hands lifting him, and a soft, warm blanket enclosing him.
“…second-degree burns on his palms and feet,” someone said, before everything faded out.
Cade blinked himself back to consciousness, and found himself lying in the bed of a pickup truck, cocooned in blankets.
