The wind howled, a sudden, brutal whip across the bluff, carrying with it a cloud of gritty ash and the smell of roasting pine. The roar of the fire intensified, a living, breathing beast clawing its way up the incline. Hollis’s grip on Junia’s arm tightened, his gaze fixed on the shack where Toby slept, oblivious. Cold prickled Junia's neck despite the wall of heat. Toby.
“The axe,” Junia gasped, her voice raw against the wind’s shriek. She shoved off Hollis’s arm, her feet finding purchase on the shifting soil. “The old woodsman’s axe in the shed.”
Hollis didn’t question it. He was already moving, a dark blur against the orange glow, heading for the small, decrepit storage shack near the edge of their land. Junia tracked his strides, the heat pushing hard against her face as fear set her teeth on edge.
She ran towards the shack, smoke rasping in her throat with each breath, soot stinging her eyes. Hollis emerged, hefting a heavy, rust-pitted axe that gleamed dully in the firelight. He tossed it to her, the weight nearly pulling her off balance, before he grabbed a shovel and a bucket from inside the shed.
“We need a break,” Hollis yelled over the inferno, his voice strained. “Clear the brush, any fuel you can. I’ll douse the edges.”
Junia didn’t pause. The axe felt impossibly heavy in her hands, her muscles, so accustomed to gentle napping and light stretches, protesting immediately. But the image of Toby’s sleeping face, innocent and vulnerable, pushed away the discomfort. Her self-imposed rule of ‘no hard labor’ evaporated like dew in the face of the encroaching flames.
She swung the axe, a clumsy, desperate arc that bit into the tangled gorse and dry, brittle shrubs that dotted the cliff edge. Her movements were awkward, unpracticed, but fueled by a primal fury. The blades sliced through stalks, tearing at roots, each chop sending splinters and dirt flying. Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead, mixing with soot and tears brought on by the smoke. Her forearms seized and her shoulders cramped, but she chopped anyway: swing, bite, tear. Swing, chop, pull.
Hollis worked beside her, a whirlwind of motion. He doused small, creeping fires with water from the bucket, stamping out embers that landed too close, his shovel scraping a trench of bare earth. The air grew thicker, hotter, the crackling of the blaze now a deafening roar. The very ground trembled beneath their feet, a living tremor from the fire’s relentless advance.
A ragged, wheezing cough cut through the chaos. Junia turned, axe raised, to see a soot-stained figure stumbling onto the bluff. Marnie Chisholm. Her expensive, tailored jacket was ripped and scorched, her face smeared with ash, eyes red-rimmed and squinting against the sparks. She looked like a ghost, or a survivor of a battlefield.
“My ledger!” Marnie shrieked, her voice hoarse, raw with panic. She pointed a trembling finger toward the mill, or what was left of it, a pyre of collapsing wood and metal. “My financial ledger! I dropped it when it started! It’s still there, near the office ruins!”
Junia stared, her axe still poised. The shack, Toby, their entire home was threatened, and Marnie, faced with the destruction of her own ambition, was focused on a box of numbers. A dry, harsh scoff left Junia’s mouth, choked off by a sudden draft of grey soot.
“Are you insane?” Junia yelled, her voice ragged with disbelief and contempt. “The valley is going up in tinder, the shack is right in the line, and you're hunting paper?”
Marnie took a stumbling step closer, her eyes fixed on Hollis, then back to the inferno. “But the plans! The investments! Without it, everything is gone! You have to help me get it!”
Hollis didn’t even glance at her. He kicked a flaming branch away from their rudimentary firebreak, his jaw locked tight. “There’s no getting near that, Marnie. It’s too late.”
“No!” Marnie wailed, her voice cracking. “It can’t be too late! My entire future is in that box!”
As she spoke, a sickening groan ripped through the air. A thick bough, charred and spitting orange sap, snapped from a Douglas fir standing ten yards off. It plunged downward, a flaming spear aimed directly for Junia, who was still mid-swing, her back to the falling inferno.
Before she could react, before the terror could even fully register, Hollis moved. A blur of dark clothing, a grunt of exertion. He threw himself over her, tackling her to the ground, his body a shield. The branch cracked across Hollis's shoulders instead of her crown. A searing hiss, a choked cry of pain. The heat was immense, even through Hollis’s body, radiating through her own.
Junia scrambled, pushing against his shoulders. He rolled, gasping, onto his side. The back of his shirt was smoldering, a dark, angry burn already blistering through the fabric and onto his skin. A faint, sickening smell of scorched flesh filled the air, mingling with the pine smoke.
“Hollis!” Junia cried, her voice tearing from her throat. Her hands hovered over the burn, not daring to touch. The heat radiating from him was intense, a stark contrast to the rough fabric of his clothes. This wasn’t a drifter’s thin cotton. This was fine linen, now ruined and sticking to the wound.
Before she could do anything more than stare in stunned horror, the wail of sirens pierced the roar of the fire. Flashing red and blue lights flickered through the smoke-laden air as a fleet of emergency vehicles roared up the single access road to Shiver Cliff. Firefighters in heavy gear spilled out, deploying hoses, shouting orders.
A man in a soot-streaked chief’s turnout coat rushed towards them, taking in the scorched clearing. He stopped dead when he saw Hollis, sprawled on the ground, Junia kneeling beside him. He faltered, mouth slightly open.
“Mr. Teague!” the chief exclaimed, his voice booming over the din of the fire. He knelt quickly, his gaze sweeping over Hollis’s injured back, then to Junia. “Are you alright, sir? We heard about the mill. What happened? I wasn’t aware you were even in Oakhaven for this, not on this side of the deal. Mr. Teague, CEO of Pacific Logistics, are you seriously hurt?”
Junia went rigid. Pacific Logistics. The title hung between them like heavy lead. Hollis, the impoverished drifter, her husband of convenience, lay burned and gasping, his cover blown wide open by the fire chief’s shocked question. Beside them, Marnie gasped, a thin, strangled sound of pure, unadulterated horror.