Wilder than Fire by Olivia Noble

Author:Olivia Noble [Noble, Olivia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ThunderWords Press

Chapter 13

“You good over there, Luke?” I ask over the radio.

“Yeah, man. It’s getting under control. Worry about yourself, Chief!”

His chipper tone of voice and optimism gives me some hope and strength.

During the past forty-eight hours, the group of us have been constantly updating each other on the progress we’ve made, while also making changes based on the weather conditions. So far, we’ve had good fortune on our side and the predicted winds that should have been picking up by now have stayed down. During the last ten hours, I completed creating the control line in my section.

Tonight, I’m finally going to take a short nap. As I get back to my little slice of heaven in the middle of this raging forest fire, I toss my gear beside the little tent with a heavy sigh. I sit down on the ground and dig through my rucksack to find a protein bar to munch on.

God, I’m hungry. My stomach is audibly making noises and cramping painfully to try to get my attention. I am so hungry and so tired that it’s hard to decide which I need more. I almost fall asleep in the middle of eating the damn protein bar.

Forcing myself to crawl inside the tent and lie down, I take some deep breaths and try to rest. I don’t have much time before I have to start my hike back to base camp.

The last few days have been an intense battle with Mother Nature, but I always find my thoughts drifting off to think about Ginny over and over. Even when I’m faced with the daunting heat and flame of a raging forest fire scorching my face and hands, my mind is constantly being pulled and tugged back to images of her face. It’s almost as if my body is working harder and more efficiently than normal because I have a renewed purpose for being. I want to see her again. I have more reason to fight than ever before.

It's stupid, but after spending some time with her… I feel like there is more beauty in the world. Because there’s someone like her out there. Full of life, smiling, making mistakes. Trying her best every day. I feel like it’s even more important to protect a world filled with wonderful people like that, so that they are never harmed. Like my sister was.

I close my eyes to rest and let my body recover from the intense manual labor from the past few days. After all this is done, I think I want to fly down to Ginny and try to spend some time with her. Maybe for Labor Day weekend. Would she even want to talk to me after how I spoke to her? I don’t care—I’ll fucking beg her for a second chance. My final thoughts are of her as I fall asleep.

“Wilder, Wilder are you there?” It sounds like Ginny calling my name.

Slowly, I open my eyes. But instead of seeing her above me, all I can see is a thick covering of smoke.

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