Page 26 of Redwood Blaze
She rolls her eyes. “Not the time, Phoenix, but… I love you, too.” She holds me under my arm and we limp along. The fire crackles behind us.
“How did you find me?”
“Your beacon. Cole put a search out on it.”
I forgot about the beacon built into our jackets. Thankfully Cole hadn’t…
Wait.
“Do you know a Blake from Diamond Ridge?”
She sighs. “Yes, but the Blake you know, isn’t the actual Blake that I know.”
I shake my head at that sentence and grunt after when my brain revolts. “What… what’s that mean?”
“My ex, Gideon, is pretending to be Blake Weston from Diamond Ridge that I used to work with. I’m worried about the real Blake. When I called his sister Blythe answered and said he was in the operating room for a subdural hematoma in his brain from being hit in the head at least half a dozen times, Callum.”
“Shit, and I thought my once was fucking enough. Is he going to be okay?”
“They don’t know.”
Her body shakes and I shuffle to a stop, turning her and pulling her into my body. “Hey, baby, I don’t know what to say,but if your friend is anything like you, he’s a fighter. I know this so much more now than before and before I thought you were Mike Tyson level. Now you’re Mohammad Ali.”
“Ali couldn’t take Tyson,” she mumbles against my chest.
I chuckle. “You’re probably right.”
“Probably?” she looks up. “Tyson had the early round power and inside touch.”
“But Ali has speed and man he can take a punch over and over. Unlike me. Dang I went down like I have a glass jaw.”
“No one ever expects to be hit, Callum.”
“I’m not going to ask, I’m going to assume what he’s done to you in the past. And that makes me want to kill him, Millie.”
She shivers and that’s all I need to hear.
And then we hear screaming. Men screaming over the com and we can hear it through the forest.
“The team!” she yells and as much as I’m not sure I can, I take out after her toward the sound When we round the bend, we see them in a clearing and every tree around them is on fire.
Except one.
My fear of heights slams into me. The tree isn’t just tall, it’s a giant. But there’s nothing that will stop me from doing what’s needed to save my guys. I slap on my boot spurs and wrap a harness around the tree. Millie starts at the bottom branches, taking off ones she can reach. I shimmy slowly up the tree and slice off branches as I go. They fall like icicles off of a warming building.
When I’ve hit about the halfway point, the guys scream it’s far enough, so I shimmy back down.
In unison, Millie and I saw down the tree to drop right in the middle of the ring so that they can walk out on it. It takes time and the inferno ring is enclosing quickly. The guys are huddled in a mass in the middle, backs to back, twelve bodies. And I can only assume we know who started the fire to trap them in.
The tree starts to go. The flush of the oxygen outward will make the fire enflame, so we only get one chance before the ring will be fully engulfed.
“Get ready to run!” I call out and the guys line up.
The tree starts to fall.
No matter how many times it happens, I’m always amazed at watching a piece of nature tumbling to save other nature— flora and fauna. Every second seems longer than the last.
Then there’s the crack and it smacks the ground, a mini earthquake rocks our world and the guys start scrambling down the trunk as soon as it settles. Dust is still rising and the initial burst of air has pushes the flames out of the way but then it roars back.
