Our bodies collided.
A clash of souls.
I hooked her around the neck, trying to pin her, hold her.
She jerked free, so frenzied that she reeled, her footing gone. She stumbled back until she hit the desk.
I dove on her, and we slid across the slick wood, knocking everything that had been on the top to the floor.
Papers and the phone and the candle.
And we fought. Arms and fists and ripping hair. Fought until a big body was yanking me off. I screeched and kicked and fought. Fought in fury. In hate. In the desperate need to get to Frankie.
Frankie.
Frankie Leigh.
Aaron’s cologne filled my nose, the memory of it making me gag. I struggled to break out of his hold, but he was too strong. He tossed me aside. As if I was nothing.
Trash.
Just the same as he’d treated me before.
Aaron grabbed the box from the floor and then snagged Janel by the wrist. “We have to get out of here. Right now.”
My attention caught on the floor across the room. A tiny flame leapt to life. The candle a match to a piece of paper that’d floated to the floor.
Part of me wanted to go for it. Stamp it out. Protect my gramma’s legacy. But none of that mattered if they got away with Frankie. I couldn’t—wouldn’t allow it to happen.
Hand-in-hand, Janel and Aaron ran down the short hall and escaped out the back door. The door they’d most likely broke in through.
Frankie was my only concern. Not a building or its memories or the hopes of what it may be one day.
Only that little girl.
Crying out in pain, I struggled to get to my feet, chasing right after them. By the time I made it out the door, they were sprinting toward a black Durango parked in the back lot. In my periphery, I could see the spark of fire.
And I knew my grandma’s restaurant was getting ready to go up in flames.
I didn’t slow, only pushed myself harder, desperate to get to Frankie.
Aaron tried to force Janel around to the front passenger seat, but she diverted and wrenched open the back passenger door. “Frankie . . . Frankie?”
Janel started to panic, shouting it again. “Frankie!”
Struggling to jerk out of his hold, she whirled on Aaron. “Where’s Frankie?”
I stumbled to a stop halfway across the vacant lot, heart crashing against my ribs.
“Warned you, Janel, but you wouldn’t listen. We’re not taking that fucking kid. We’re getting out of Gingham Lakes and out of this country, and I won’t have anything slowing us down. Now, let’s go.”
“Where is she?” she screamed.
Even though he seemed to avoid it, Aaron’s attention darted back to the diner, expression twisting in the briefest flash of guilt.
Guilt aimed at my gramma’s diner that was going up in flames.
No.
Oh my God.
Slowly he shook his head. “Didn’t expect the fire. That’s not on me. Now get in or I’m leaving you behind.”
Janel’s expression froze in horror. And I thought maybe it was the first time I saw any true humanity in her. Any true care. Just as fast, it was gone, and Janel started around to the front of the SUV.
She was just going to leave her.
I spun around in my own horror. Flames licked out from the back window and glowed through the gaping door.
For a flash, my eyes squeezed closed, my gramma’s voice a whisper in my ear. Her presence overwhelming, so much I could feel her belief penetrating to the depths of me.
All moments matter. We just rarely know how important they are until the chance to act on them has already passed.
I’d always known Rex and Frankie were worth the chance. This one might cost me it all. Everything. But they would always, always be worth it.
My feet pounded against the pavement. Adrenaline and fear were a thunder that stampeded through my veins and whooshed in my ears.
I held up my arm as if it might protect me when I barreled through the doorway and into the kitchen.
Smoke swallowed me.
Taking me whole.
Black.
Thick.
Suffocating.
Holding my breath, I tried to get as low as possible as I began to search.
When I couldn’t do anything else, I tugged my shirt over my nose and gave in.
Inhaled.
It burned.
Burned so badly that my lungs wept, just the same as my insides.
Heat licked across my skin, so hot I wanted to scream.
Scream for help.
For sanity.
For Frankie.
Most of all, for Frankie.
I groped along the walls. Trying to find my way. To make sense of where I was.
Disoriented, I fumbled, trying to focus.
A wall.
An oven.
The pantry.
Oh God, the pantry.
The door was closed.
When I’d left this evening, it’d been wide open. I was sure of it. I’d been moving things in and out and had propped it open.
I slid my hands over it, feeling, searching. Relief wrenched from me when I found the latch. I managed to drag it open.