Page 44 of The Highlander's Twisted Deal
Squeezing his eyes closed, Callum tried desperately to think of something, anything beyond his lost parents and the tainted blood in his veins.
Jealousy is like a disease, his memory conjured up in the voice of his uncle.It can be hereditary.
* * *
Callum opened his eyes, woken with a jolt by the shouting. He sat up in his bed, narrow and short and built for a child, and stared at the doorway. His room was dark, of course, but an orange, flickering glow crept under the door from the room outside. The main room of the apartments he shared with his parents.
Smoke, too, was creeping under the door, making him cough and his eyes sting. Fear surged up his throat.
“What have ye done?” he heard a voice cry, shrill and strained, barely recognizable as the soft, kindly voice of his mother. “What have ye done?”
Callum clapped his hands over his ears and closed his eyes with the confidence of a child that seeing nothing and hearing nothing meant that there was no danger.
The door to his room banged open, and his eyes flew open. Smoke and heat poured into the room, and Marcus stood in the doorway, gasping for breath. Blood splattered the front of his shirt, a detail that Callum would only remember later.
“Fire,” Marcus rasped. “There’s a fire. We need to get out, lad. We need to get out now.”
Callum wanted to move, to get out of his bed, but his legs wouldn’t allow it. Marcus crossed the space in a few great strides, sweeping him up. With no further ado, he turned and raced into the simmering heat outside Callum’s door.
The fire was everywhere. It was eating up the polished wooden floors, dancing on the rugs, climbing up the tapestries. The smoke was thicker than ever, burning Callum’s throat and making his eyes water so hard that he could barely see.
Marcus carried him, holding him tight. Callum blinked, thinking that his eyes were playing tricks on him. It took a moment to understand that the irregular shape curled up on the ground, surrounded by fire, was in fact his parents.
Old Laird McAdair lay on his back, his arms and legs splayed out like a puppet with its strings cut. He did not blink and did not breathe. Callum was sure that he saw something jutting out of his father’s stomach, but then his eyes were watering so badly.
His mother, her beautiful soft hair undone and falling around her, was bent over her husband. She was crying, great heaving sobs that shook her shoulders.
“I’m coming back for ye!” Marcus bellowed. “I’m coming back for ye, Jane.”
“Save me boy,” Lady McAdair rasped in a voice choked by smoke and tears. “Just save me boy.”
Marcus turned, and they were greeted by a burning tapestry, half covering the exit. Callum gave a moan, burying his face in his uncle’s shoulder.
Marcus swore under his breath and then tucked his nephew safely underneath his cloak, thick and woolen and drenched with water.
“Hold yer breath, lad,” he muttered.
Callum felt his uncle close his arms around him. Then, they were running forward, and he could smell burning flesh and hear his uncle screaming.
“Callum? Callum, wake up!”
Callum jerked awake, the smell of his uncle’s skin burning still in his nose. That was a smell a person never forgot.
Duncan was standing over him, frowning. “Ye were having a nightmare,” he said, somewhat unnecessarily.
Callum rubbed a hand over his face. “Aye. I was dreaming about the fire.”
His cousin winced, settling down in the chair opposite. “How awful. I’m sorry, Callum.”
Callum shook his head. “No, thank ye for waking me. I dinnae wish to relive it again. Uncle Marcus could have died saving me.”
“It’s too bad he couldnae save Aunt Jane, too.”
They did not, of course, mention the obvious. That the former Laird McAdair could not have been saved from the fire because he was already dead.
It had taken Callum years to learn that. It was better for him to think they had both died in the fire instead of the truth.
“I have something to tell ye, Duncan,” Callum said, at last. “About Ava.”
