Page 129 of Overtime Positions
“She called me—” My voice cracked, “The line is open, and it’s on speaker. He has her, Eli. I can hear him. I can hear her crying.”
“Jesus Christ.” The roar of his pained voice echoed out as another scuffle happened on the line, and Eli and I both went silent. Listening to a car door slam, and then a struggle before Frankie’s clear scream ripped through the air.
“Frankie!” I hissed.
“I’m tracking her,” Eli spoke, clicking through his apps to locate her. It felt like a million years passed as we listened to Danny throwing stuff and destroying things around her, Frankie’s cries in the background. “The rental!” Eli yelled, “They’re at her rental!”
“I’m on my way!”
“Me too,” He yelled, directing orders to his men, and then the roar of the fire engine filled the speaker. “We’re not far.”
I couldn’t tell where Frankie’s phone was, but there was rustling, and we couldn’t make out what Danny was saying, just her replies and soft cries until it cleared up again, like she moved, getting the phone in a better position.
“Danny—don’t.” She spoke.
And there was something hauntingly calm about her voice. Something I didn’t recognize.
Then Danny’s sick voice came through clear as well. “This is what it takes, Frankie! Wipe the slate clean. I have to burn the lies, burn their fingerprints off you, burn their touch from this place. When it’s ash, it’ll just be you and me again.”
“Oh my God,” I hissed, driving faster toward town as the distinct hiss of flames crackled through the line. “Eli. He lit it—he fucking lit it?—”
He barked out more orders and then the sirens of his engine blared in the background, the air horn sounded as they cleared around obstacles to get to her.
“Eli, you have to get to her. Please, Eli. You have to save her.”
“911 calls are coming in, Trav!” Eli barked, “Smoke showing from the house!”
“God,” I slammed my fist into the wheel. “No! Frankie, if you can hear me, we’re coming! Please just hold on, baby, we’re coming!”
Another scream ripped through the phone, one that didn’t sound human, one that shattered me right down the middle. I almost drove off the road.
“Get her out!”
Frankie’s screams echoed through the speaker, a repetitive broken record of horror as she burned, hollowing me out, shattering something I didn’t know could break.
I didn’t have to see it to know what was happening. I could feel it.
She was burning.
His voice was grim and steady, and it scared me more than anything. “We’re here. I’m going in.”
His line went dead, and I couldn’t hear anything else from Frankie’s. She’d gone silent as the noise of the fire burning around her filled the cab of my truck.
“Dear God,” I cried, getting closer to town just in time to see the smoke billowing up into the sky from three blocks away. “If you’ve ever believed in us, in mankind, then please, please save her. Because if you don’t, I’ll destroy everything around me in her wake. No one will survive my grief.”
Her screams rattledme through the speaker, shaking my core and trying to break my mind as we neared the scene. I could see the smoke long before we got to the street.
My training kicked in as I put my gear on as our engine roared down the street. I held onto the handle as we rounded the last corner and saw it.
The inferno.
My stomach dropped as Frankie no longer screamed through the line. Flames poured from the windows, the roof already sagging under the weight of the fire.
“We’re here,” I said into the phone, “I’m going in.”
My boots crunched across the frozen gravel before the engine even came to a full stop.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Lucy running from her house, eyes wide with horror as she saw Frankie’s house on fire and Danny’s truck parked in the back. The house was a coffin waiting to collapse, smoke pulsing out of every crack in the siding.
