Page 105 of South of The Skyway

“Oh my God.” I turned the music down as panic bleated through my veins. There were three trucks kicking up dust ahead of me, sirens silencing them as they hit the dirt. Beyond them, the entire house was lit orange, smoke billowing into the evening sky as dusk became darkness.

No.

I didn’t have a chance for the why’s or the how’s since my eyes hopped from Rhyett’s trailer to the rideshare I’d seen earlier. The back passenger door flung open and the driver braced outside with a cell to his ear.

The thing they never tell you about an unmanaged blaze is that it’s loud. Ears full of a deadly, crackling roar, my gaze flicked from the firefighters leaping into motion to the driver on the phone, and then back to the house. It was somewhere in the back, yet the glow assaulted every window downstairs—the kitchen? Where was Rhyett? He wasn’t talking to the firefighters, and there was no way he’d retreated into the RV to watch through tinted panes.

“Rhyett?” I yelled, looking around as dread settled in my stomach. The responders were shouting orders, flying into motion while the driver and I were frozen in place. “Rhyett?” I called again, my brain finally locating the control panel for my feet and hurtling us towards the rig. Something ached as I snatched the handle, throwing the door open.

“Rhyett?!” I repeated as I flew inside, already knowing he wasn’t there. Having cleared the tiny space, I jumped back outside as the rental SUV screeched onto the dirt lane, not even fully stopped before Jameson, Milo, and Maverick were all out of the vehicle.

Absently, numbly, I moved towards the building, horror gripping my throat as the chaos unfolded. I was flung back into my body when a little gray rabbit sprinted across my path to the house. A little gray rabbit that nearly caused me to faceplant.

Mind grappling with why that tugged on my consciousness, I stumbled a step forward, battling the icy terror that little rabbit planted in my path.

Royal.

FORTY-SEVEN

RHYETT

No government organization on the planet could assemble quite as fast as the Rhodes family during a crisis. It was that reason and that reason alone that had stolen twenty seconds from my response time to send an alert to Jameson after I’d shouted for the driver to call 911.

Basilio. Basilio, the first-generation Cuban immigrant whose name meantroyal. He’d told me in the car while I was trying not to spiral, and some fucked up part of my brain chose to not only remember it now but had connected it to the reason I was in the least intelligent pinch of my life.

Royal.

Brexley’s fucking rabbit-adopting dog was yelping as I sprinted for the house, aiming to turn off the gas line. The deepest part of my mind had heard her the moment the car door opened. And like the enormous idiot I was, I’d decided to save her. Not just because I firmly believed that dogs are too damn good for us and we could never deserve them, but because this dumbass dog was the closest thing to family Brexley had outside of Noel.

Which led me here. With my big ass shoulders wedged between fallen two-by-fours, filtering air through my shirt as I tucked as close to the mud-covered earth as I could. Vaguely, my mind registered the fire ants fleeing as quickly as colonially possible, some still bothering to take chunks of me with them for the road. Not only was I pinned, but I’d been reduced to insect fast food. Fucking fantastic.

“Royal,” I hissed again, swearing as she whined and shifted, refusing to budge. “Come on baby girl! Come on, we gotta get out of here. Your mama will never forgive me if something happens to you.” A prolonged, indignant cry somewhere between a whimper and a hound dog left her mouth. She moved towards me, though my brief relief was cut off when she shuffled right back.

“God damn it, Royal! Come on. Come. Come, girl.”

Under ordinary circumstances, those were my favorite words to utter. The fucked-up coping mechanism that was dark humor crawled up my spine as I focused on my surroundings. Was that my subconscious deciding we’d very likely die here? Fuck. Not a great sign when your brain starts cracking jokes, especially when the adrenaline should be sharpening everything.

“Come!” I demanded, slapping the ground only for her to whine again, digging in fierce, tiny pulls into the dirt like she was trying to yank something out of the earth. That’s when I spotted it—a baby rabbit. The damn dog was about to kill us both trying to save a baby rabbit. I’d assumed she was stuck down here, unable to get out, but no, she was playing superhero to a rodent. “So fucking help me, if you get me killed, I’m coming back to haunt you forever.” Coughing, rotating and twisting, shimmying and breathing, I managed to wiggle out of the pinch point, glancing over my shoulder as the fire truck lights finally flashed across the lawn.Thank fuck.

Army crawling through the mud, aware of more headlights sweeping under the deck, I worked my way over to her, growling when the rabbit retreated deeper in the direction of the foundation of the house. The thing kicked and squealed when I clamped down around the back of its neck, lifting the wood it had wrestled under away to set it free. The instant the damn bunny bolted, Royal released her tense muscles and started belly crawling back to where I’d come from.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I snarled. My pulse was hammering against my temples, lungs starting to protest the proximity to the fire. I hacked out a wheezy cough, tucking my shirt back over my nose.

In the world's stupidest rescue to date, we both made our way towards the flashing lights, wincing or whining when the house behind us groaned. Slithering along, cursing my own stupidity, my eyes spotted her jeep beside the rideshare. Brexley.My Brexley. She’d come after me and arrived at my family’s dream house in flames, with me in the mud below the back porch with her crazy ass dog. We had to get the fuck out of here before things escalated. Because I had to hold her. I had to tell her what she meant to me.

Royal slipped under the deck, immediately spinning back to stick her nose under the wood lattice almost like she was waiting for me. “Crazy girl,” I muttered, lowering myself deeper into the dirt and shimmying back under the border.

Before she could do something else to get us roasted alive, I scooped up Royal and started to distance us from the house.The house.I’d panicked about what had been an almost complete family estate, but the oily dread had been swallowed by fear when I’d remembered this damn ball of muddy fluff.

Muddy fluff that was currently frantically licking the grime off my face like she was aware she’d almost gotten us both killed. “So help me, you better fetch beers from the fridge for the rest of your life,” I muttered, adjusting her damp furry frame in my arms. She just licked me faster, earning a laugh that turned into a coughing fit. The Rhodes family championship belt for World’s Biggest Dumbass officially went to me. I’d always sworn it would be Maverick.

“Okay, okay,” I said, wincing as I leaned away from her sloppy kisses, overtaken by another coughing fit as we made our way across the yard. “Yes, I love you too, you rabbit savior.”

There was a deafening crack from behind us, followed by the shattering of glass. I winced. So much for a family oasis.

FORTY-EIGHT

BREXLEY

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