Fire in the Woods (18 page)

Frigid air from the room rolled into the hallway. David backed away.

What’d we get arctic room or something? You gotta be kidding me.

“Stay here,” I said.

Crossing to the far corner of the room, passing the two double beds and the desk area, I found the air-conditioning unit to the left of the glass doors. I switched the dial to ‘heat’ and opened the sliders to let the slightly warmer air into the room.

I turned to find David behind me, placing the soup on the small table and balancing the two hot chocolates in his trembling arms.

“Here, let me help you.” I sat him down and rubbed his arms, doing my best to get his circulation running. His teeth chattered. If I didn’t get him warmed up he was going to freeze to death.
“I’ll be right back.”

I opened the closet and found an extra spread alongside the ironing board and spare pillows. I scooted the floral material out of the bag and threw the quilt over him. The smell of stale hotel room wafted from the blanket as he gathered the fabric tightly around his shoulders.

“Okay, let’s get you warmed up inside.”

I opened the veggie broth and handed him a spoon. David raised his brow and looked at me quizzically.

“It’s liquid food. We call it soup. There’s vegetables in it and water.”

He dipped his spoon in the cup and sipped it. “Mmmmm. It’s good. Warm.”

“Yeah. Soup always thaws me out in the winter. It should help.”

I held my hand over the heater. The little dial was turned to the highest temperature setting, but only a trickle of heat emanated from the metal slats. I dragged the curtain to the side to let some light in. Beyond our fourth-floor balcony, a pinkish glow outlined the tops of the trees in the forest behind the hotel. Despite the coolness of the room, the air coming in the door had become decidedly colder. The door thumped against the frame as I secured the lock.

David held the cardboard container up, pouring the last dribbles of soup into his mouth. “That was great. Thanks.” He licked his lips. His eyes lingered on the bag.

“Are you still hungry? I got you some melon and strawberries, too.”

I shimmied a fruit tray out of the wrapping and handed it to him. Reaching to the bottom of the bag, I nabbed my roast beef hoagie and set it on the table beside him.

His nose crunched up as I unrolled the white deli wrapping. Ignoring his disgust, I bit into the luscious beefy goodness.

David hunched over his fruit, trembling lightly under the blanket.

“Take another sip of the hot chocolate,” I said, handing him the cup. It seemed to warm him for a moment, but the chill soon returned. I lifted the makeshift-mug. “Drink more.”

He nodded, shaking the cup within trembling fingers between sips.

“All right, I guess I need to think of something else.”

I stood and rubbed my face. Whenever I had a chill, cuddling up in bed always felt the best. I rolled back the covers from one of the mattresses and helped David get in. He huffed and grunted beneath a shiver as I tucked the sheets and blankets around him.

Why wasn’t the room warming up?

At a loss, I glanced over to the other bed. I certainly wasn’t going to be cold with the heat running all night. I stripped the second bed, throwing all the covers onto David.

No dice. He still shook like a nickel in a truck’s change tray.

I sat on the edge of the bed. A ball formed in my throat as I felt the vibration of David shivering through the mattress. I needed to find a way to warm him up.

Body heat.

I groaned. “Okay, Maggie, you win.”

The heavy, warm blankets weighted me down as I snuggled up behind David. Spooning, Maggie would have called it. I wrapped myself around him, holding tightly to counteract his shaking. As the trembling subsided, David’s breathing leveled off. I listened for a moment before relaxing my hold.

A content smile formed on my lips. I guessed the whole body-heat thing was a good idea after all. I rubbed my cheek against David’s sweatshirt, enjoying the quiet cadence of his breathing.

He smelled like pine trees and dirt, and a little like Dad’s cologne. I snuggled closer, pressing gently against his back. His muscles flexed at my touch, but his breathing remained steady. I wondered what he’d think if he were awake. Would he be mad that I held him so close? Would he enjoy it? Would he pull me into his arms?

A tear formed at the corner of my eye. It didn’t matter what he felt. It didn’t matter how either of us felt. Tomorrow night he was going home.

I tried to push the thought from my mind and concentrated on the compass in my back pocket as the sharp metal clip cut into my butt. My cell phone poked my hip in my front pocket as well. Despite the pain, I didn’t move. David was warm and asleep, and I didn’t want to wake him.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The real reason I didn’t want to wake him was because he might move away from me. I savored the sensation of him breathing, letting everything that was David seep into my pores. Shame fluttered through my chest, but I didn’t care. Laying so close to him felt too right to be wrong.

I did manage to shift slightly to avoid leaning on my phone. I hadn’t turned it back on since listening to my father’s message. My chest tightened, imagining Dad sitting behind a desk somewhere, dragging his fingers across his scalp, worry riddling his features. He wouldn’t sleep. He’d stay beside a phone—or maybe he was out there looking for me…Maybe even in one of those helicopters searching the trees. I wished I could call him, but I’d have to wait and explain when this was all over—and ready myself for ten years of being grounded with extra chores.

Bending my knee, I was surprised to feel the drag of rubber against the sheets. My sneakers were still on. I hadn’t taken off David’s either. My Mom would have had a cow. I contained a snicker. Here I was, lying in bed with a boy in a hotel room, and I’m thinking that Mom would have been mad about our shoes? Seriously,
our shoes
?

I smiled, thinking about my mom and enjoying the comfort of being so close to another. Every muscle in my body relaxed, encompassing my frame in the same sense of calm that caressed me whenever David was near. Real or feigned, I couldn’t tell, but it didn’t matter.

Exhaustion fingered its way in, making my lids heavy. Sleep wasn’t far behind.

***

My eyes fluttered open. A panicked rush of heat throttled my body as I realized David wasn’t cuddled up next to me. I reached across the bed, moving my hand along the warm sheets. Why was I alone? The prickly fingers of fear edged up my back as I sat up. “David?”

He stood in dark silhouette beside the closet, standing flat against the wall. He held a finger to his lips and pointed to the floor.

My heart fluttered. I choked back the pang of terror building in my throat as I peeked over the mattress. A small black tube snaked across the floor, slithering further into the room from beneath the only safe exit. A white light emanated from the snake’s tip—just like in the freaking movies.

I got out of the bed and grasped David’s hand. I held him close, like we were lovers, and stepped over the tube, easing him toward the sliding glass doors. “They’re watching us,” I whispered, leaning close to his ear. “That’s a camera. As soon as they pull it out of the room, they’ll break in.”

David nodded and unlatched the lock on the glass door behind me.

My heart thumped rampantly. Please, Lord, tell me he’s not going to…I peeked over the balcony to the lighted parking lot below. We were on the fourth floor. What if they…

The camera zipped back under the door and disappeared. David slammed open the glass sliders, and his grip tightened around my waist as he jumped over the railing. The sensation of my stomach falling out from under me seemed to last for minutes. My ponytail flapped in the breeze before my body jolted to a painful stop when David’s feet hit the asphalt.

My lungs emptied. I gasped for air, grabbing my throat.

“Halt!” A voice shouted.

“Stop right there!” Flashlight beams blinded me. My vision blurred. Someone wrenched me out of David’s arms as streetlights and flashlights whirled through the darkness.

“David!”

My heart raced as I heard a man’s voice cry out. The flashlight nearest me hurled through the air. It wasn’t until it hit the base of a streetlight that I realized it was still in a soldier’s hand, nearly twenty feet away. The man crumbled to the asphalt.

“Jess!” Dad’s voice boomed over the confusion as a horrid cracking sound resonated through the sound of a scuffle. Another MP fell to his knees.

My gaze shot to the balcony. A blurry vision of Dad hung over the edge, reaching toward me. The whites of his eyes came into focus; huge and imploring. I took a step back and stumbled into the man holding my wrist.

“Don’t move!”

A rifle poked out of the darkness, pointed at David. I didn’t even think. I lunged forward, throwing myself between David and the gun. I held up my shaking hands, my gaze centering over the shotgun—into Bobby Baker’s eyes.

“Get out of the way, Jess.”

I shook my head. Above, Dad pounded the balcony’s rail and darted back into the room. David’s fingers slipped into the back of my jeans. I felt his hold tighten over my belt-loops.

“Jess. Move.” Bobby grinded his teeth, his face twisted in a sneer.

“No way. You don’t understand.”

David’s other hand slipped to my waist, and a bolt of assurance wafted through me. I leaned against him and kicked as hard as I could, shoving the gun upward. The weapon shot into the sky.

Bobby cursed under his breath.

Shouts began anew as David spun me around, at the same time punching another soldier, sending the man flying off his feet. I didn’t see him hit the ground.

David grunted, and his grip on me slackened. I slammed against the pavement. My head throbbed, the world becoming a blur again. Soldiers barked orders. A mound of men piled on the spot I last saw David.

“I got you, Jess. You’re safe. It’s okay.” Bobby’s voice didn’t comfort me.

He yanked me to my feet. My ears rang. Steadying myself, I struck his chest. “You have to let us go. You don’t understand!”

“Jess!” Dad’s voice echoed through the mayhem. “Baker, what happened?”

“Dad?”

Bobby straightened. “I think we’ve lost her, Sir. It looks like that thing has her under its control.”

I twisted in Bobby’s grip. “No one has me under anything. Dad, you need to let me go!”

Dad’s face came into focus. He stared into my eyes as if maybe he thought I wasn’t really in there. He gripped both my wrists, gentle, but firm. He grimaced. “She needs to be detoxed and debriefed.”

“Detoxed? What the heck does that mean? I’m fine.”

Dad’s brow furrowed as his lips tightened to a straight line. He released me as Bobby pulled my arms behind my back. Bobby began to back me away from him.

“Dad?” I stumbled a few steps. “Dad!”

He turned from me, and approached the mountain of soldiers trying to hold David down. Bobby pushed me into the back of a police car and closed me in. I scrambled for the door handles and rattled the grating that separated me from the vacant driver’s seat. Nothing budged.

So this was it. Caught. Some friend I turned out to be. I promised to help David, and instead my psychotic father tracked me right to him. Dammit!

I slammed myself against the back seat. Bad idea. My head started to pound again, the pressure mounting and slamming like a bludgeon against a locked door.

The windows blurred. The car’s interior spun twice before my world faded to black.

I held my head as the car jiggled around a corner. The haze coating my vision slowly faded as the fog eased from my brain.

Damn, it wasn’t a dream.

I grabbed the grate in front of me. Two men in Army fatigues sat in the front seat. Our headlights illuminated a huge, metal box-on-wheels traveling down a road lined with trees on both sides. The megalith in front of us must have been some sort of armored car—probably the only thing they could find that would hold David. At least three, maybe four jeeps travelled behind us, and probably two helicopters from the sound of the blades cutting through the evening sky.

“Where are you taking me?” Their silence pissed me off more than being taken against my will. “Where’s David?” I slammed the grate with my fist. “Where’s my Dad?”

The soldier in the passenger seat flipped through papers on a clipboard. “There’s no need to hurt yourself, Miss.” He didn’t even bother to look up. “You might as well just…”

The armored car swerved left and then right. My heart jumped into my throat as the sound of screeching brakes broke the cadence of the helicopters above. The sound of metal crunching replaced the failed brakes, followed by blinding light and a deafening boom.

Our car swerved as flames flashed across our windshield. The cacophony of changing images swirled in front of me as my head hit the roof of the car, then crashed to the ground again before slamming back toward the roof.

A loud hum overtook my world. Splayed across the floor of the car, or rather flat across the ceiling, I spun like a calliope, only faster and without the horses. The seatbelts hung from the seats above me like oxygen masks on an airplane.

But we weren’t flying, right? Were we upside down?

We continued to spin, one second seeing dark forest, the next seeing flames and confusion. Everything I ate in the last year threatened a reappearance.

And the heat. So much heat.

And screaming. And yelling. Lots of yelling.

The scene blurred to nothing.

Mom? What’s going on? Where am I?

A green pasture appeared around me. One solitary tree stood in the distance. As I walked toward it, thousands of birds took flight from its branches. I reached for my camera.

Click.

Beautiful. The perfect photograph for my portfolio. I raised the lens for another shot, and a gong vibrated through the waving grass. I glanced over my shoulder, but there was nothing but meadow for miles. Another bang resonated through me, as if I were in a small, enclosed space.

“Jess!” David’s desperate voice boomed from above.