Page 125 of Ink and Ashes
“I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to her, Beau. I’m not wrong about this.”
“Okay. New plan, everyone,” he calls out, keeping his eyes locked on mine. “Redirect all resources to the fire in Creighton Valley.”
I nod at him, then get into my turnouts. Hart is sitting in the driver’s seat when I open the passenger door of the engine, taking my seat.
“Drive.”
CHAPTER 45
Holland
My head is throbbing when I open my eyes. I’m dizzy and disoriented. My feet and hands are bound with duct tape, and there’s tape on my mouth too. It’s dark wherever I am, and the space I’m lying in is so tight I can’t budge.
My heart rate accelerates as I try to recall what happened, but my mind is foggy. The space around me feels like it’s shrinking, and claustrophobia begins to creep in. Panicked, I start banging against the sides and kicking my feet, and that’s when I realize I’m moving.
I’m in the trunk of a car.
Fuck.
I exhale deeply through my nose, then close my eyes to calm myself down. I need to save my energy, and trying to escape right now isn’t going to help that.
I’m not sure how much time passes before the car rolls to a stop. I hear footsteps crunch against gravel, and when the truck clicks open, everything that led me here rushes to the forefrontof my mind.
The conference room. The email. The sketch. Calling Colson. Figuring out Joseph Welland really is still alive.
And that Pierce Whitlock is him.
I’m met with the same icy blue eyes I saw before I passed out. The eyes that belong to none other than Ember Grove’s fire chief.
“Well, well, look who’s awake,” he says, a wicked grin on his face. I shake my head, scrambling to get as far from him as possible, but it’s useless. He grabs me, holding me still as he adds, “If you fight, I’ll kill you right now.”
I swallow, fear engulfing me. And it only gets worse when he tugs me out of the trunk roughly and tosses me over his shoulder.
He begins walking, and I take my opportunity to figure out where we are. There’s a reddish-grey hue around us, letting me know the sun is starting to set. And when I catch sight of the burnt barn in the distance, I realize he’s brought me back to the place where everything began.
The Welland Ranch.
He makes his way up the broken front steps, then crosses the barrier into the house. Panic creeps in further as warmth wraps around me. I realize then that the house is already on fire. And that I’m about to be trapped inside it.
He heads through to the back, and it takes everything in me not to fight. But I don’t doubt that he really would kill me now, and if he does that, then I have no chance of making it out of here alive.
I keep my gaze trained on the floor as he turns the corner and begins walking down a set of stairs. When he reaches the bottom, he drops me with a thud, and I groan as I land against the hard floor. Tears stream down my face as I scan the room, and when I see a small window at the top of one wall, I know we’re in a basement.
I watch as Whitlock—Welland—grabs a gas can and empties the contents all over the room. He covers nearly every surface, the fumes from the gasoline stinging my eyes. When he finishes, he makes his way back over to me. He bends down and brushes a strand of my hair behind my ear in an almost parental-like manner,then tears the duct tape from my lips.
I cough from the smell of the gas, then rasp, “You’re not going to get away with this. They’re going to catch you.”
“I’ve been on the run for thirty years. I’m not scared of being caught.” He chuckles. “And I’ll be honest, it’s kind of a relief to not have to hide anymore. Bet you know something ‘bout that, don’t you, Hollis?”
I swallow roughly, but otherwise don’t react to his use of my given name. My throat burns from the mixture of smoke and gasoline as I say, “You and I are nothing alike.”
“Aren’t we? Two people running from our pasts, hiding from everyone, using an alias.”
“I’m not a murderer,” I say through gritted teeth.
His grin returns, then he pats me on the cheek and stands. He walks over to the corner of the room and lights a candle, placing it on the floor. He does the same in the other four corners of the room, and it hits me then that my chances of getting out of here are getting slimmer by the second.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask in an attempt to keep him here longer. I have my assumptions about how he got to this point, but I want to hear it from him.
