The Dust and the Roar by Porter Cat

Author:Porter, Cat
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wildflower Ink, LLC
Published: 2019-07-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I jumped on my bike and hit the throttle, tearing out of the parking lot, through Clay Street, around the gas station. At top speed, I hit the curve of the road, the pine trees a green blur as I raced to the opposite end of town where the old Dillon’s General Store and Feed Store warehouse stood.

What would I find?

Was Isi there?

Oh God, please, please, let Isi not be there.

My bike roared up the last curving hill to where the warehouse stood. I was hit by a wall of heat. Acrid smoke filled my nose, my lungs. Sirens wailed behind me. Tires screeched. Yells, shouts. Commands over a radio.

Great flames licked up the side of the old commercial building from a blazing interior. Was it too late? I bolted from my bike. My entire being screamed for Isi. My rabid gaze fell on her car in the parking lot. The cobalt blue of her Chevy truck was brilliantly lit under the fierce glow of the fire.

NO.

I ran.

Two men pulled me back. “You can’t! You can’t!”

“Let me go! Isi’s in there! Isi!”

A crash and a sickening crackle, another explosion. “There goes the roof!” The roof buckled, collapsed, and the flames instantly grew more vicious, devouring what they’d been fed.

“Oh my God!”

“Stand back!” a fireman gestured us back.

“Isi? Isadora!” I shouted. “Isadora’s in there!” I ripped myself from their hold and ran. And ran.

“Wreck.” That voice. A fist punch to my chest, taking my air with it. My body jerked around.

Tear stained and staggering, red-faced, hair flying in the hard, hot winds. My pulse jammed. I ran. To her, to my life, my woman.

“Baby.” I opened my arms, and she fell into me. “Oh my God, baby. I saw your truck, and I thought … I thought…” My throat stung against the worst words. “Oh fuck, you’re okay, you’re okay…” I rocked her, I pressed her into my chest.

“My dad is in there.”

“What?”

“Dad…” She collapsed in my embrace, and I lifted her up in my arms.

“Isi!” Isi’s cousin Ryan, the cop, came running over. My hold over Isi tightened, and her head fell back, her hair streaming over my arm. Isi helpless, Isi weak … no, not an option. Not her.

I placed her down on in the grass and gave her CPR.

Ryan hovered over us. “Isi? Come on, Isi!”

“She said her dad was in there,” I said between sucking in breaths.

“Uncle David? Oh, shit!” Ryan turned and spoke into his walkie-talkie, his jaw tight, his knuckles white as he gripped the device.

A cavalry of firetrucks and ambulances arrived. Isi’s eyes blinked open at the wail of sirens. “Baby, I got you. You’re okay, you’re okay.” I squeezed every limb, rubbed the side of her face, her chest. I needed to feel she was alive, I needed her to feel me. She was in one piece, she was all right, but her eyes were filled with water, they were red. Her face was smudged with soot. Her hair was fine, not singed.

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