Page 4 of Bound By Redemption
Blinking a couple of times to get my faculties together, I heard Austyn.
“Micah! Get your ass out here!” she yelled, snapping me out of my thoughts.
I rolled to my side and tried to make my way up, watching where I placed my hands and knees. Shit was everywhere.
The fire was all around me, looming like a snake ready to go in for the kill. On hands and knees I shook my head. Carefully, I got up, moved to the window and tossed myself out, falling to the ground even as Austyn tried to help break my fall.
“Go! Austyn, go! Go!” I ordered on several coughs, but Austyn didn’t listen to me.
Instead, she grabbed my arm as I unsteadily got up. I didn’t say anything else as it wasn’t worth the breath. I grabbed her hand, pushed every bit of pain down, and ran with her away from the house.
“Is Emery home?” I asked in our departure, hacking through the words.
Austyn’s head shook. “Her car’s not here.”
“You’re sure?”
“Fuck!” Austyn yelled over the raging fire. She was struggling to catch her breath as was I. The burn on every inhale only made me want to fall to the ground as exhaustion consumed me. It felt as though my insides were fried and wouldn’t allow air inside.
I pulled out my phone and handed it to her as I gasped in the clean air. “Call her. Now.”
Austyn dialed the number, fear written all over her. “Answer, dammit,” she grumbled on a gasp as I kept her moving further away from the heat. It felt like hours, but only took seconds before I heard, “Thank God. Where are you?” Silence, but Austyn nodded as I listened to the one-sided conversation.
“Our houses just exploded. Jacks is with Nox, right?”
“Good.”
Once we got far enough away, I stopped. Bent over, hands on my knees, I coughed the tar of the soot out of my lungs, or at least tried too. I listened to Austyn’s side of the conversation and was relieved to know Emery wasn’t inside.
“Fuck. I don’t know. It’s bad, Emery.” Austyn’s hand went through her hair. “Gotta get help.”
“Okay. Bye.”
Austyn hung up and dialed another number. “Our house just blew the fuck up!” she yelled into it. My guess was she was talking to Ryker and she was pissed, but it came out a bit jaded as she coughed her way through the conversation.
I watched as the two homes went up in a blaze of glory, not having the first clue how to stop the raging inferno. Really there was nothing Austyn or I could do at this point but watch everything she and Ryker had worked for go up in flames.
Fuck, I hated this shit. Not being able to fix something. It would take a fuck of a lot of water to douse these flames and a damn garden hose, even if I knew where one was, wouldn’t touch this place. There was nothing. My hands were tied. All I could do was listen to her talk with her husband.
“Micah’s here with me.”
“Shut it.”
“Okay. Okay.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
“Love you.” Her voice cracked on that phrase, and I felt it in my gut. Austyn was a tough cookie, but this would shake the toughest of people. It appeared it did her.
“Let’s go to the clubhouse. Everyone’s meeting there.” She coughed through the words.
“Got it.” I grabbed her hand once again, not wanting anything else to happen to the woman, and we ran to the other side of the pond where my SUV was parked. We got in and peeled off, not looking back at the ball of smoke and flames we’d left behind.
“Call Ensley. Make sure she and Remy got to the clubhouse, and tell her you’re okay.”
Austyn followed my direction for probably the first time in her life. And probably the last.
Air. We needed air. I rolled down the windows hoping it would cleanse my insides that burned.
