He frowned. “You should go first. You’re the woman.”
But I wouldn’t be able to pull myself up easily with my hands tied together. “And you’re blind,” I said, desperately trying to loosen the knots again with my teeth as the flames worsened and blazed closer. The stifling heat etched its way under my skin.
“You sure love to point that out, don’t ya? You know that makes you sound like a fucking asshole every time—”
“Dan, just go! I’m right behind you.”
As he started to climb, I continued trying to free myself though I was coughing nonstop. The rope was too tight and I couldn’t get a good grip, much less see what I was doing. It was taking entirely too long. If I didn’t do something fast, I wasn’t going to make it out.
Frustrated, I looked for something to cut them off, but the barn had obviously not been used for some time and there were no tools lying around. Just as I was about to give up hope, I spotted a rusty panel of roofing tin leaning against the far wall.
I covered my mouth with the inside of my elbow and stayed low as I made my way through the hazy gray smog in the room. Lining my wrists up on either side of the tin, I moved them back and forth in a sawing motion, allowing the rope to rub against the jagged tin as I held my breath.
Smoke burned my tear-filled eyes and heat from the hot tin seared into my skin. One faulty move had the rust slicing into my arm, and I let out a sharp yelp. Blood trickled down my wrist as I continued to use the jagged edge as a knife to cut through the binding.
The moment the rope gave, I stumbled back through the thick fog, groping for the rotting ladder that would lead me to safety. Once my hands found it, I climbed, hoping the shaky ladder wouldn’t suddenly break and my slippery blood-soaked hands would hold me and keep me from falling back down into the fiery abyss.
A cry tore from my throat as pieces of the burning barn fell down around me. With every sure-footed step and every capable handhold I pulled myself up with, my chest burned more and more. I breathed deeper as I climbed, only ingesting more of the toxic air.
At the top, I crawled over the ledge and landed on my back, gasping for air. I wheezed, my achy lungs threatening to collapse with each breath. I grabbed the railing and pulled myself to my feet, turning toward the large window in the wall of the hayloft. Orange tendrils surrounded the opening.
I wasn’t sure how far of a jump it was and had no clue how Dan managed it on his own, but he hollered from outside. He’d made it. Yet I stood transfixed by the fire, trapped on the upper floor of the barn, mentally preparing myself to jump through a burning ring of flames like a circus tiger.
I’d always had this chronic fear of being burned alive. Now, with the fire crackling around me, it was my worst nightmare come true. A self-fulfilled prophecy. But if I had any chance of getting out, I’d have to do it. Only one thought kept me from moving my feet.
Had my mother felt the same panic and desperation when she died?
Residual memories of my mother’s smile and laughter washed over me. So vivacious and beautiful. Yet, my father snuffed out her light and crushed my soul. Cut all of our lives short by his callousness. His ruthlessness. His need to burn everything around him to the ground. Even the intense heat searing into my skin couldn’t thaw that frozen image in my mind.
If he couldn’t have me, then he’d burn us all to hell.
Taking a shallow, smoke-filled breath, I sputtered and gasped for clean air. Weakened by the lack of oxygen, I collapsed onto the wooden floor as the surrounding hayloft spun sideways. A knot formed in my sore throat, keeping me from swallowing. I wanted to cry, but my dry eyes seemed incapable of producing tears. There was no energy left in my body to get me to the opening, and as the lights in my eyes dimmed, I thought of the one person who mattered the most.
Cowboy.
The image of his face replayed over and over in my head like a looped recording, torturing me with his glittering green eyes and taunting me with his cocky grin. Pain seared through me at the devastating thought of never seeing him again.
No! I can’t lose him now.
I blinked my stinging eyes to sharpen my focus and made out the blurry hayloft opening surrounded by fire. Only ten damn feet away. Even though the notion of moving an inch exhausted me, I had to make it out. For him. For us.
Using the only reserves I could muster, I lifted my body up and crawled toward the opening in the wall. My hands and knees skimmed the old wooden floor, collecting splinters from the desiccated planks as the breaths wheezed in and out of my chest.
As soon as I made it to the hayloft doors, I hung my head over the edge and gulped in huge breaths of fresh air as smoke billowed out above my head. My eyes focused on the ground, measuring the distance of my jump to safety, and nausea rolled through me. Oh God. The second story was much higher than I’d anticipated.
I started to shove myself back from the edge when my right hand pushed against something that moved. Peering back over the ledge, a sense of relief washed over me and I nearly cried. A small wooden ladder hung from the side of the hayloft doors, leading toward the ground.
Upon closer examination, though, my heart sank and my distress returned. Half of the decaying ladder dangled loosely to the trim by only one rusted nail, while the bottom half—the most important half—was missing altogether. I’d still have to jump.
But it wasn’t like I had a choice.
Swinging my legs over the edge, I eased out onto the ladder while holding onto the building for dear life. If the shoddy ladder broke beneath my weight, I didn’t want to go down with it. At least not right away. The rotting wood held, so I released my hand from the trim around the hayloft doors and grabbed onto the wooden pegs of the ladder. It wobbled a little, and I tightened my grasp.
I climbed down, executing a slow, careful descent, but it didn’t matter. About a quarter of the way down, an eerily familiar voice yelled out my name. I faltered and my foot slipped. The wooden step broke beneath my weight, and I plummeted at least fifteen feet to the ground.
The sudden impact knocked the wind from my lungs, and an intense pain rocketed through my shoulder, radiating down my outstretched limb. I tried to cry out, but no air passed my lips. In silent agony, I cradled my injured shoulder to steady it and gasped for oxygen while the excruciating pain echoed through my arm. I couldn’t move it.
But no matter how significant the blinding pain shooting through my system was, it didn’t have anything on the crazy tricks it played on my fading consciousness. While I lay there on the ground, unable to move, a hazy figure came into view and hovered over me like an ominous dark cloud.
And I caught a glimpse of his face. “D-Dad?”
Then I swirled into darkness.
I couldn’t breathe.
Choking and gasping, I awoke to something digging painfully into my stomach, expelling what little fresh air I managed to gulp in. My memory flashed back to the burning barn, but the searing pain in my left shoulder fast forwarded to the part where I fell off the ladder.
Then my head lolled, swinging back and forth in the air freely like a pendulum as something moved beneath me. Correction: as someone carried me. My eyes shot open to see the back of a man’s legs as his work boots kicked up dust with every step. Realizing I was upside down, my head spun and my stomach churned.
Each step he took sent a spike of pain into my throbbing arm. A man had thrown me over his shoulder and carried me away from the blazing building. But why? Where was he taking me? And who was this—no, I knew who he was.