Page 65 of The Barn: Frost and Q
Frost should have known better.It was too fucking quiet. It was too freaking weird, and the air smelled like danger. Not only that, but there was a tickling at the back of his neck. Something that he always associated with trouble, and they needed to get the hell out of Dodge.
“I don’t like it,” he told Chauncey.
Chauncey shook his head. “Me either. Cap insists that we’re cool.”
“Yeah. Cap’s not here.”
“Quit being pussies, you two. Come on, let’s get this done,” one of the almost rookies snapped.
God, it must be fucking good to be twenty and full of cum and confidence again.
Still.
Everything itched, and it was so fucking quiet. No birds. No rustling in the trees. Nothing. It was like the plants were holding their breath. Fucking leaf breath.
Q would think that was funny.
“I’m so retiring after this.”
“Don’t say that. You know that means that shit’s going to hit the fan,” he growled, and Chauncey stared at him.
“It’s gonna hit the fan, buddy. We haven’t lived through this many fires not to know that.”
“I think I’m going to call it.” He radioed into the base. “I’m not liking the way this feels.”
“We’ve checked all of the data; you’re doing fine. You just need to go around to the west, and you should be able to set up another firebreak.” Dispatch sounded confident, and he guessed he should, too.
They kept moving.
He wasn’t talking. He was listening, focused on the line of smoke coming up over the next rise.
He didn’t like this. There wasn’t anything about this that worked for him. But he needed more of a reason to pull all of his team back than that he didn’t like it. It was harder to trust himself after the shooting. It was harder to believe in his gut than to know what was right and what was wrong.
If he could trust himself, he would have known Q was in trouble. He would have figured all of that out already. He should have sensed it.
He should have?—
Pay attention, you idiot, or you’ll never sense anything ever again.
The second that Q broke in over the handset, hacking right in and blasting him, he knew though. “Frost, you got to talk to me, you gotta turn around.”
He nodded even, as he was arguing and staring at Chauncey, who was already whistling and making hand and arm motions to retreat.
“You gotta turn around. You gotta go. You gotta get out of there, man. You gotta get out of there. You gotta get out of there.” That was pure terror in Q’s voice.
“Everybody out! Head down!” he yelled, knowing in the pit of his belly that it might be too late.
He felt the rush of fire more than he heard it, and when he met Chauncey’s eyes, he saw the truth.
They both knew the shit was fixing to hit the fan.
They bolted down the rocky ridge, moving as fast as they could, pushing the kids in front of them like they were shelties herding sheep, all of them hurtling pell-mell down the way.
The explosion, when it came, was short and sharp, the air almost being sucked right out of the entire world, the oxygen turning to heat. All he could do was push the others in front of him and run and run and run, praying with all he had that everyone was with him and knowing it was a lie.
There wasn’t any time to think, there wasn’t any time to be scared. There was just pumping blood through the muscles in his legs and trusting in his training.
And hearing the screams of the module around them.
