“Shit!” Nick grunted and ran the few steps to the breakers, pulling her along with him. He gave the main breaker a flick, killing the power and blanketing the house in a dark silence once again.
“What happened?” she asked fearfully.
“Someone is in the house.”
Although she was unable to see him, she heard the slight quiver in his voice and felt his grip on her hand tighten. “What are we gonna do?”
“Listen to me, Kelsey.” He grabbed both her arms. “We’re going to go up the steps and head for the sliding glass door on the side of the house. Did you see it earlier?”
“Yes. I remember it.”
“Now, if anything happens or we get separated, I want you to get out of the house as soon as you possibly can and call Tim, okay?”
She couldn’t contain her whimper when he pressed his cell phone in her hand. “I don’t want to leave you. Stay with me, please?”
“I’ll stay with you as long as I can, Kelsey, but if I have to take out Anthony, I want you to promise me you’ll get out of here and as far away from the house as you can. I need to know that you’re safe.”
“But…”
“No!” he whispered forcefully. “I need to know you’re safe. I can’t concentrate on taking Anthony out if I’m looking for you. We’ll both be safer if you just listen to me, okay? You get out of the house and as far away as you can. You promise me!”
“I promise,” she said tearfully and pulled him into a fierce hug. “Please be careful.”
“I will, baby. Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing, okay?”
“Okay.” She nodded frantically and gave him a quick but passionate kiss. Reluctantly, she pulled away.
“You ready, Bright Eyes?”
She took a steadying breath. “Yes, I’m ready.”
“That’s my girl. Come on. Let’s go.”
They reached the top of the stairs quickly but quietly, Kelsey acting as a second skin as she moved behind him. Nick stopped, apparently listening for any signs of where the intruder was in the house. A few steps later, he ducked her down and hid them both behind the kitchen island.
He silently motioned to Kelsey, who could see his shadowed figure in the moonlight, and pointed to the glass door he’d referenced.
She looked across the room and nodded, amazed at the shakiness of her hand versus the steady rock of his as their fingers remained firmly intertwined. When he gave a soft kiss to her forehead and released her hand, she watched as he started to crawl towards the entrance to the living room.
Shots rang out, flying through the doorway and striking everywhere around them. Nick jumped back, throwing himself over Kelsey as a flurry of gunfire rang above their heads and over the island that sheltered them. Sparks flew as bullets ricocheted off the fridge and stove, while others burrowed themselves in the walls and cabinetry.
The shots stopped suddenly. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Anthony called out.
“You first, asshole!” Nick shouted as he braced himself behind the counter and began firing the rifle.
Kelsey cowered down, her hands over her ears and her knees to her chest. Other than the day they’d visited the gun range, she’d never been this close to real gunfire and it absolutely terrified her.
It didn’t take long for Nick to run out of ammo. He ducked for cover, tossing the rifle aside and pulling the handgun out from the back of his jeans. He gave Kelsey a quick glance and rose to resume firing. The gunfire rained above their heads. Shards of wood and the tile of the countertop littered their bodies along with a blizzard of dust as the bullets seemed to come closer and closer to where they hid. Nick grabbed her to hide beneath him.
The gunfire stopped. In its place was a sound Kelsey recognised. The clicking could only mean Anthony was reloading his weapon. They had a chance.
Nick jumped up and pulled Kelsey with him. He darted through the kitchen opening with his weapon aimed towards Anthony and pushed Kelsey in the direction of the sliding glass door. “Kelsey, go now!”
“Nick!” she screamed, terrified to leave his side.
Both men seemed to recover simultaneously and opened fire once more. Nick dived behind the coffee table while Anthony remained hunched beside the couch.
She was petrified watching the violence unfold before her. It was as if the seconds lasted hours as she contemplated what to do next. Then she remembered her promise.
‘I’ll stay with you as long as I can, Kelsey, but if I have to take out Anthony, I want you to promise me, you’ll get out of here and as far away from the house as you can. I need to know that you’re safe.’
She turned towards the door and threw it open before running into the night. By the time she had reached the neighbour’s yard, she had Nick’s cell phone in her hand and was scrolling through the contacts in a desperate search for Tim’s number.
Inside the house, the gunfire continued. Nick ejected the empty magazine from his weapon and replaced it with another, hardly missing a beat. He was gradually making his way around the table, determined to reach the son of a bitch who dared threaten them, when he began to smell the distinctive odour coming from the kitchen.
Oh, shit! That’s gas.
He thanked God Kelsey had got out. He switched directions and snaked his way to the open glass door.
If I can just get close enough…
“Tim!” Kelsey screamed when he answered the phone.
“Kelsey? What’s wrong?”
“Nick. He’s in the house. Anthony is shooting at him. He needs help.”
“He sent me a text, Kelsey, I’m on my way. I’ll be there in a couple minutes. Just keep yourself safe, okay?”
“Oh, God, please hurry,” she cried.
A deafening rumble came from behind. A giant fireball encapsulated the house, smashing out the windows and shaking the ground beneath her. The shock wave spread through the yard, knocking her off her feet and into darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Tim was only blocks away when he saw the giant fireball explode into the sky. “Oh, God…no,” he whispered.
“Kelsey? Kelsey,” he yelled into the phone. Judging by the background noise and the distant sounds of gunfire, he assumed she’d been outside. He hoped to God he was right, because Nick would be devastated if anything were to happen to her. No matter—her lack of response wasn’t good.
He tossed his phone on the passenger seat when he fishtailed the corner, horrified to find that his fears were correct. It was Nick’s house that had blown. After screeching his car to a stop, he jumped out and sprinted towards the scene as fast as he could, unsure that he wanted to see what had happened to his dear friend and partner.
Neighbours came out to investigate the commotion. Concerned only with the man who might still be inside the burning shell of a house, Tim didn’t veer from his course until he spotted Kelsey, on an adjoining lawn, struggling to rise. “Kelsey!”
She lifted her upper body from the ground slowly. “Tim?”
He dropped to his knees beside her and helped her to a sitting position. “Kelsey, are you okay?”
“Huh? Uh…yeah.” She rubbed her head. She looked up to the mass of flames. “Oh, my… Nick! Nick’s in there!”
“Where was he when you left him?”
“What?”
“When you left him in the house, Kelsey, where was Nick? What room was he in?”
“Oh…he… He was… He’d just left the kitchen. He was just outside the kitchen in the living room!”
“I’ll go get him, Kelsey. Just stay here, please.” He jumped to his feet and rushed towards the burning house.
Tim approached the side of the house, his heart sinking when he saw the smoke pouring out. He peeled off his shirt and tied it around his face, dropped to his hands and knees, and crawled inside.
“Oh, please,” Kelsey prayed. How did they get here? In a matter of hours she’d gone from being ready to run away from Nick screaming, to hearing him profess his feelings for her as they’d made love in the most profound way imaginable. Now, in the blink of an eye, she was faced with the terrifying possibility of losing him.
No, this can’t happen. Not now.
Why didn’t I tell him how I feel when I had the chance? He said he loves me how many times? I lost count. Why wasn’t I able to say it in return? I believed everything he explained, especially how difficult it was for him not to be able to tell me the complete truth about himself. Why couldn’t I have said those three little words? What stopped me?
“Oh, Nick. I love you,” she whispered as she started to cry.
Though her legs wobbled, she somehow managed to stand. She wanted to see something,
anything
to give her hope that Nick could come out of that building alive. As a nurse, she’d seen some horrific injuries, but she’d also witnessed many critically injured patients make miraculous recoveries. She prayed Nick was lucky enough to have survived the explosion. Anything else they could handle together.
“Please be alive, Nick. Please.”
Tim crawled into the inferno. The house was filled with fire, smoke and smouldering piles of debris, and he couldn’t see farther than a few inches in front of his face, but he was determined to continue.
“Nick,” he yelled, but his shirt muffled the sound. He crawled slowly, feeling the floor ahead of him with his hands.
He heard the creaking of the floorboards and knew they didn’t have much time. The upper floor was going to cave in or the ground floor was going to buckle. Either way, the house wasn’t going to be standing for much longer. He turned to see the door he’d just entered, but the billowing black smoke had already engulfed him, blinding him on every side. Though he was familiar with the house, he struggled with his sense of direction and continued forward, vowing to himself not to leave this inferno without his friend. Two more feet and he heard a groan and a gasp. “Nick?”
“Tim?” Nick responded hoarsely, followed by a violent spasm of coughing.
“Come on, man. Let’s get the hell out of here.” Tim sighed in relief.
The combination of the blast and the smoke inhalation had weakened Nick, but Tim could feel he was trying to drag his body closer. He just wasn’t moving fast enough.
If there was anything Tim could count on, though, it was the unyielding determination of Nick Jensen. “Come on, man. You gotta help me here.”
“I can’t, dude,” he said before another fit of coughing. “I just can’t.”
“Nick. We gotta get the hell outta here. Get up, come on!” Tim was more than willing to do what he could, but there was no way he’d be able to drag Nick with the amount of debris in their way.
Nick continued to cough, unable to lift his heavy body from the rubble that surrounded him. “Go on, man. I’ll be right behind you. I just need a minute.”
Tim flinched when he heard a loud pop and the sound of breaking glass behind him. “No, Nick. We don’t have a minute. I’m getting you out of here. Now!”
He tried to pull Nick up, but the dead weight combined with the toll the thick smoke was taking on his own body caught up quickly. A large beam crackled behind them and Tim knew their time had run out. “Nick, Kelsey is waiting right outside. If we don’t get out of here, who’s going to take care of her? Do you want to leave her alone, make her bury you?”
“Kelsey,” Nick grunted, coughing repeatedly as he struggled to his knees.
“She’s outside waiting for you, man.” Crawling bit by bit, Tim guided Nick as they inched towards the opening that used to be the sliding glass door.
“Kelsey,” Nick coughed again.
“Come on, you can do it!” Tim yelled through his makeshift mask. “Stand up, man. There’s glass everywhere.”
With great difficulty Nick managed to stand, Tim supporting much of his weight by pulling up on his arm and shoulder. “Kelsey,” Nick huffed, unable to steady himself.
Kelsey stood on the opposite side of the driveway as she watched the flames engulf the house. She was paralysed with fear of what may be happening inside or, her biggest fear, what may have already happened while she stood at a safe distance. “I shouldn’t have left him,” she whispered tearfully, hugging her arms around herself as her worry grew.
She finally caught a glimpse of something through the cloud of smoke. She took a tentative step forward, praying her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her.
Another step and the image became clearer, but when she heard the coughing, by two different men, her hope soared. “Nick?” she called out when she saw Tim guiding a semiconscious man away from the house as fast as he could.
She rushed to Nick’s other side, ducking under his arm and propping his weight onto her shoulders as she helped Tim cart him farther away from danger. The groaning and rumbling of the house continued, signalling that the structure would soon succumb to the flames.
“Bring him over there!” Kelsey shouted as she pointed to a spot on the neighbour’s lawn. They stepped quickly and just as they reached the grass, Tim collapsed, taking Nick and Kelsey with him.
The two men coughed violently as they finally gasped for clean air. Tim pulled the shirt from his face and tried to breathe deeply while recovering from his exertions.
Kelsey turned Nick over, her instincts snapping her directly into nurse mode. She gasped when she saw the blood mixed with soot and dirt covering his face and hoped she was dealing with cuts from shrapnel and not a gunshot wound.
“Are you okay with him here?” Tim gasped. “Ronald and Faith should be here soon, but I need to get my phone from my car and call for more help.”
“Yeah, I’ll take care of him,” she said, assessing his injuries as he continued coughing on the ground in front of her. “Oh, Tim! Give me your shirt. I need clean material for bandages.”
Tim pulled the shirt off and glanced at it. “My shirt is filthy, Kelsey.”
Without any regard for modesty, Kelsey pulled her own shirt over her head and grabbed Tim’s. She slipped his on and began ripping hers into strips, her only thoughts on helping the man she loved as quickly as possible. “It’s okay, baby. I’ll fix you right up. You just hold on for me, okay?”
Tim watched her for only a moment before rushing to his car. Kelsey thought she heard him laughing before he began coughing heavily once again.
“Can you hear me, Nick?” she asked firmly as she began brushing his face with the strips she’d made from her shirt. She first had to find the source of the blood, then she could begin to treat it.