I walked in like I belonged there—which I did, I had a fucking room—hurried up the stairs, and walked down the hallway. Her door looked normal, no claw marks or otherwise. I pressed the beeper.
I could hear it on the other side. But she didn’t respond.
Panic and urgency flooded me. I used my training from Scott to unlock the hotel room and had to balance between hurrying and not giving myself away and—
Emily was asleep.
I walked over to her, turned off the beeper, and looked at her. She looked stress, sure, but I guess she’d slept so little that she had literally no energy to stay awake with. I still looked all over her room, checking every nook and cranny to see if anyone had pulled any bullshit.
Nothing.
As far as I could tell, Emily had had the best rest of her life in this room.
I left, making sure the door locked behind me, and went into mine. It, too, looked untouched. I breathed a sigh of relief. It wouldn’t last—Emily was like me, she didn’t let random things bug her; there would have been a real reason for her to feel this fear—but at least for now, we didn’t have anything to act upon.
I collapsed into the bed, sucking in a deep breath. I had some good news. But I still worried about Kelly. Did Sean know about her? He had to since he and Emily dated for some time. People just didn’t keep best friends a secret from their significant others.
At first, I found the connection a little bit too irrational, even for someone like me. But as time went by, it just seemed more and more disturbingly that something was amiss. I didn’t have anything rational to say why I felt that way; I just fucking did.
It may have looked like desperation to anyone else, but for me, I had to know more. I pulled out my cell and called Kelly.
She didn’t answer. That by itself wasn’t disconcerting, but it wasn’t ideal, either. I decided to give it five minutes before I called her back, hoping that would give her a window for her to call me back in.
Those five minutes passed, and she did not call back. I remembered from last night how she’d shut her ringer off before passing out, so perhaps she just didn’t notice the call.
But at this point, the concern had reached its highest level yet. I could not justify going to bed without checking on her at least once to make sure everything was in the clear. And so, with one last check-in on Emily—who still slept on her bed, looking like she didn’t have a fear in the world—I hurried back down to my truck, hopped in, and sped off back to the house.
Only a couple of hours had passed since I’d last seen her, but in our world, it usually only took a couple minutes for a situation to go from stable to critical. I swore to God, if Sean was there, the things I’d do to destroy that fucker…he wouldn’t even know what had hit him. He might think I was a dangerous man from our last encounter.
But I had shown mercy. Too much mercy. I hadn’t killed him. And this time, that wasn’t going to be the case.
As I approached, I noticed something that put a pit in my stomach. There was an orange glow with smoke rising over the trees. That wasn’t because of a backyard fire.
I slammed my foot on the accelerator, ignoring all traffic laws and common-sense safety measures. I could handle peeling out. I couldn’t handle being slow when Kelly was in danger.
I pulled through the forest and came to her complex just in time to see my worst fear.
Her house was on fire.
“Fuck!” I roared.
I gunned the accelerator as close as I could to the front of the house without getting in danger. I got out and went to the front.
“Kelly!”
I got no response. I looked around for anything—Bucky, footprints, an open door…nothing.
I took a breath. As shitty as this was, panicking would make it worse. This late at night, she was probably upstairs, in her room. The dog…well, I could only pray the dog was either with them upstairs or outside. But as cruel as it sounded, Kelly and Charlotte came first, Bucky next.
“Kelly!” I shouted again, this time making my way around to the side of the house, near her window.
“Liam!”
Oh, thank God. It was her voice. I ran, no, I fucking sprinted to her window. She leaned out.
“Kelly!”
“Liam! Listen, there’s a ladder in the shed. Go get it. There’s no time!”
I heard sirens in the distance. I knew Kelly wasn’t just spouting off words. If she said there was no time, we’d run out of time two minutes ago.
I turned around, found the shed, and slammed into the door with my shoulder. I fell to the ground but opened the door. I scanned the room quickly, found the ladder, and carried it back to the house. I propped it against the side of the house.
“You gotta hurry, Kelly!” I yelled.
A loud bang went off, like a gas line or something caught fire. Kelly stumbled, and I almost went up there myself. But she rose just seconds later, Charlotte in her arms. I held the ladder steady as she nervously climbed down, and when her feet touched the ground, I wrapped my arms around her and Charlotte, turned my back to the house, and led them far, far away. Even more parts of the house went up in flames, and the smoke became so thick that, yes, it would have been too late.
Thank fucking God I was a paranoid son of a
