Page 79 of Fireworks
“I don’t need you to shout at me again. I just needed to know—” She was cut off, words lost on her tongue.
“You just rush headfirst into everything, not caring if eejits like me have to clean up your mess!” His fist slammed into his chest, face turning the same red as the fire truck behind them. She’d never seen him this way, not even last time they’d fought. He was unrecognisable, veins protruding from his neck and his voice hoarse with anger. “You don’t know how lucky you are to have people who care about you. Who want to protect you. Some of us don’t. And instead of being grateful, you act like we shouldn’t bother!”
“That’s why I’mhere,” she begged, because she understood now. The farmhouse. The scars on his back. The fact he’d left town when he was young. His incessant need to protect those around him, even at his own expense. The warnings he’d drilled into Brook and the other children about how quickly a fire could burn away everything. She couldn’t be sure, but those scars were old, silver, and he’d looked at the house’s scaffolding like he’d lost something in that same spot. “I’m here foryou!”
“Well you shouldn’t be.” His nostrils flared. “Go home.”
“No. We’re not fighting anymore. I care about you, Warren,” she said desperately.
He turned away. “Nate …”
“Aye, I’ll see she gets home,” Nate muttered.
“Lorna.” Warren beckoned to the firefighter by the truck, the one who had all but told her that Warren was as reckless as her when it came to his safety.The first to arrive and the last to leave.
Eiley couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, as she watched him run back towards the fire, repositioning the helmet on hishead so he was protected again. He didn’t look back, like he found the flames easier to stomach than her.
Wasshe selfish? Thoughtless? Ungrateful?
Did she just keep making everything worse?
At her crestfallen expression, Nate sighed. “You’re not going to go home, are you?”
“I tried to tell him that I …”
“I know. He can’t really listen. He’s full of adrenaline, not thinking. But we can’t do this now, so if I tell you to wait for him at the fire station, will you?”
She nodded obediently. She wasn’t done yet. She needed these cycles to stop, needed to stop pushing away the first sign of something good she’d had in a long time.
If that meant it was Warren’s turn to fight her, so be it. But she was tired of letting life happen to her, letting the bad things win. She wanted good, and not just any good, buthis. Him.
She just wished it hadn’t taken a wildfire to realise it.
35
Dawn had broken by the time they were given the all-clear. Warren rode with Nate in silence, hollowed out by a night spent wrangling with something far more powerful than him. Since the house fire, he’d always thought of flames as a living, breathing thing, his greatest enemy. No amount of taming them through his many years of service had tamped down the stomach-clenching fear he felt when faced with them. He’d learned to turn that fear into adrenaline, determination. Learned to be smart and patient in their midst. Fires didn’t win anymore.
But this one almost had, and knowing it might have reached the bones of his new house – or worse, the place where families lived, whereshelived – had rattled him in a way he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
He’d wondered, for a moment, if he might lose everything again. The sight of her had only stoked the terror, and he hadn’t been able to think straight. His smoke-addled mind hadn’t been able to cope with the idea of her anywhere near such a dangerous beast.
“Are you okay, mate?” Nate asked from the driver’s seat, looking just as exhausted as Warren felt. They’d been the laston the scene, making doubly, triply sure that the flames were out completely. They could come back, Warren knew. They could deceive you into thinking it was safe, and then leap out and devour twice as fiercely.
“Fine. Just knackered. Ready to sleep.”
Nate nodded, but his frown didn’t ease. “Eiley … she said you were building a house up there. I didn’t know that.”
Warren rubbed his fingers over his unkempt stubble, annoyance sparking and then dying just as quickly. He didn’t have the energy to feel it now, nor did he have the energy to lie. “Aye, I am. It’s always been something I wanted.”
He was just glad the flames hadn’t spread far enough to touch it. He wasn’t sure he’d survive losing two homes in the same place.
“Look, mate, I need to tell you something,” Nate said.
Warren waited.
“I let Eiley stay at the station. She’s probably waiting for you.”
“For fuck’s sake, Nate.”
