Page 99 of Smoke and Fire
Let's hope,I responded,that Bastian doesn't hate me for it later.
He could see it as a point of pressure, like I wanted to force him into revealing himself by showing fan support. That wasn't the intent, of course. Bastian had more support at his back than he thought.
Perhaps, if he saw it, he'd realize all the love his fans had for Jess and want to communicate with them more, evenasJess.
Katrina faded away. Another car parked in the grocery store parking lot across the street—our lot was long since packed—and four women rushed over. Lizbeth watched them with a sigh. Another round of titters came from the back room, then raucous laughter followed.
"Any updates?" Lizbeth asked quietly. Although she hadn’t said the wordfire, I could tell by the undertones of stress that's what she meant.
"Not that I've seen on my phone."
Lizbeth frowned.
The levity of all these Jess fans seemed to float around, nearly inextinguishable. Growing haze and smoke and wind made it impossible to forget what happened in the mountains north of us, no matter how much these women seemed immune to the fire. Although, I couldn't deny that the distraction felt nice.
I had intentionally avoided looking at the fire plume until I couldn't help myself anymore. By the time I glanced at the northern skyline, it was too late. Smoke had moved into the valley, obscuring anything more than 100 yards away.
Only the churn of the reservoir and the stores across the street were visible. My throat hurt. The scent of burning wood filled every single breath. The eerie light it created was like looking at the world through an orange glass. It lent a still, strange feeling to all of Pineville.
Meanwhile, the Jess crowd continued to mill inside and outside.
Some of them walked by and laughed the fire off. "We'll leave once Jess shows up," one woman reassured a friend as she headed out the door, probably to head to the loft entrance in the back. "I promise!"
The locals kept an eye out and muttered about animals at home. Everyone waited for something, but it wasn't the same tension.
In between orders, I checked my phone for new texts and worried over Bastian. Wind gusted outside from the northwest, as if driven from hell. It blasted the side of the coffee shop and sent leaves scuttling by.
What were the odds that such terrible weather could happen right when an epic fire waited to engulf us all? It felt as if the weather actively conspired to make everything worse.
Sometime around ten, my phone vibrated with a text.
Sione:We evacuated from camp last night.
Dahlia:Lizbeth mentioned that. Where are you staying?
Sione: At a hotel in Jackson City. Did you get the stabilizer jack fixed?
Dahlia:Not yet.
My RV was good and stuck at the campground. At this point, I’d have to hope the fire didn’t come this far south because I couldn’t move my trailer. If the fire came this far south and burned up the RV, I wouldn’t be penniless thanks to insurance.
I would be homeless.
Sione:Sorry, cuz. We didn't have much time. We even had to let the horses loose.
My stomach flipped when another message came through right then, this one an alert. Red bars blinked on the top of my phone in warning, giving a low, annoyingbleepwith it.
Mandatory evacuations in progress for the Lower Pinegulch Area.
I blinked, read it again, and frowned.
A quick search for the local Pinegulch area made me gulp. According to the map, Pinegulch was the canyon where the fire had originally started. Now it raced to the east.
My finger trailed along the canyon, which led right to a marked highway. Right across the highway lay Adventura. But there was more, because the whole Pinegulch area now under mandatory evacuation encompassed several miles south of there as well.
Including my campground.
Ugly.
