Page 38 of Fire Island (Fire Island #2)

Thirty-Six

CALLUM

R eese spins back on the sand, a hand rubbing over the back of his neck. “They caught her, they?—”

“Who and where.”

“That old hut, and there’s two of them.”

I take off for the forest.

The world around me blurs as time grinds to a halt.

The air in my lungs stalls out, never to return.

Branches whip my face, neck, and shoulders.

I thunder through, not feeling a thing. It doesn’t take long before I come across a guy in black sweats and a black T-shirt running through the forest toward the south.

I slide to a halt, crouching behind a tree as he closes in on my position.

The second he’s close enough, I jump out, tackling him to the ground.

“What the hell!” he screeches. “Get off me.”

I pin him to the ground with my forearm sunk into his throat. “Who the fuck are you?”

He chokes under my weight, hands pulling at my arm to no avail.

“I promised her she would be safe on this island. That the thing haunting her would not draw a second breath if it ever stepped foot on this floating fucking rock. Guess that means you.”

“Plea—”

I slam a fist into his face. His head lolls to one side. He’s out cold.

Well, fuck. That was too damn easy.

Footsteps crash toward me, rustling the forest alive as they approach. Reese bursts through a layer of bushes, breathing heavily.

Hell.

“You should have stayed on the beach. Waited for Em.” I push to my feet as his gaze drops to the scrawny unconscious guy at my feet. “He ain’t dead yet. Watch him. I’m going to find Evie.”

“We’ll be right here,” Reese says, stepping closer to the limp body on the ground.

I make my way to the fishing hut. The small rustic structure my family spent happy, sunshine filled days in. The point our school holidays orbited around as kids. Now it’s been reduced to this tarnished scenario by some fucker who doesn’t belong here.

The hut comes into view. I hesitate, leaning on a tree to listen.

The sounds I can hear I can’t make out.

I move closer, watching every step I take. Evie’s whimpers drift through the forest and into my ears, and I file my molars down. Hands flexing into fists, I shift for a better view, and heat spills through my veins at what I see.

Lying on the filthy floor, she trembles. The guy pinning her there sends a blade over one breast, a fine line of blood welling up behind it.

The ringing in my ears drowns out every one of my senses.

That limit, the one every man has when it comes to the people he loves—I just smashed right the way through it. The fucking wrecking ball is still swinging, crashing into my sense of self-preservation...

My world, mere feet away.

My everything to lose.

Unable to control another thing, I rush to the hut, flying through the doorway.

He looks up, knife still on her chest.

I tackle him, sending him toppling backward, slamming into the floor. One knee sunk into his gut, I slam my fist into his face. His round moon face jerks as my knuckles crash down, strike after strike.

A small little sob spills from behind me.

I glance back. Evie is sitting up, wrapping her ripped shirt around her body. Tears streak her face. I hold her gaze for a moment, letting my heart see she’s okay.

“Cal!”

My shoulder burns, bursting with pain. Something thuds up the side of my head. Stars flood my vision. I turn back, but it’s too late. He grabs my throat. Dropping my gaze to the knife stuck in my shoulder, I growl, the sound squeezing through his grip.

His face is bloodied, his nose leaks, and his left eye is busted. The scowl on his face cracks his injuries further, and blood flows freely. “You know what happens to fucking heroes?” He seethes.

I hang in his grip as he rises to his feet. My hands hang by my sides.

I feel the floor behind me, hoping to find the knife.

Soft fingers meet mine, placing the knife in my hand as she moves closer in my peripheral. I fling the weapon round, aiming for his thigh.

He kicks the knife from my hand.

His knee slams into my chest.

Air flies through my lips, leaving my lungs vacant.

I hunch over, gasping, unable to catch a decent parcel of air.

“Heroes die, fucker.” He leans down, plucking up the knife that fell from my hand.

On my knees in front of the man who cost mo nighean six fucking years of her life, I can only wonder what drives a man to do such a thing. To take a life as easily as this.

“Now you die, on your knees, while she watches.”

“Go on, boy. Do your worst,” I spit.

“No, Cal. Please, stop this. I surrender...” Evie moves to my side. “I surrender!”

“Too late, Butterfly. Besides, you’re already mine.”

“Never.”

The guy chuckles like she just told some witty joke.

His hand grips my throat, closing off my airway, as his gaze hovers across her body with a sickening expression.

My gut sinks at his lurid gesture. I can’t breathe, and I groan before gasping out, “No... Plea—my life for hers. T-take mine... let her go.”

There is no way I’m living without this woman. No way I’m letting her wear this consequence. That’s a fresh hell I can’t take. I don’t give two fucking shits who started this, I’m finishing it.

His attention shifts back to me, his hand raising across his chest diagonally, ready to strike. The hand around my throat crawls into my hair, tugging my head back.

Evie moves in my periphery.

It’s then I notice her left hand behind her back.

His arm slashes toward my exposed throat.

“I said no ,” Evie breathes, lunging forward.

Her hand flings up and around. The small blade in her grip finds its mark. His knife-wielding fist strays, thumping into my jaw, the blade missing by inches.

Knife sunk deep into his carotid, Evie twists her wrist, stepping closer. Then a little closer again.

Shock floods his widened eyes. His grip falls from my hair, the knife in his hand clattering to the floor. He fumbles for her wrists. His face breaks. “Butte?—”

He hits his knees.

She bends, following his movements as she holds his gaze. “This is how this story ends. Your life for Joshua’s. Now we are even.”

Evie jerks back, the knife dislodging from his neck. Gripped in her hand, it drips crimson dots to the floor at her feet.

Blood spurts from his neck with every heartbeat.

Suffocating on the gurgling red spilling from his mouth, he falls onto the floor.

Evie drops the knife, her body trembling as she stares at her bloodied hand for a beat. With a wobbly cry, she turns back, falling on her knees.

“Oh my god.” Her hands claim my face. “Cal, are you alright?”

I wrap my hands around her fingers and press my forehead to hers. “I’m alright, mo ghràdh.” I tug the blade from my shoulder and blood seeps through, soaking my sleeve. It’s not as bad as I thought.

“Did you find Reese?” she says, leaning back.

“I did. He’s standing sentry over the other guy.”

She huffs a strangled cry of relief, and I rise to my feet. “Come on, Em will be waiting.”

She holds a hand up as her face crumples, her body still shaking.

“I just—” She turns to the side, losing her stomach to the floor.

Shock is setting in, and she’s taken a beating. Bloody cuts litter her chest and neck and shoulders. Christ, I should revive the asshole just to kill him all over again.

But I didn’t kill him.

I’m not the hero in this story.

Evie is.

Lord knows she’s saved me more times than I can count.

In ways nobody’s been able to for the last twenty years.

I lean down and scoop her into my arms, wincing as the wound in my shoulder burns.

But I don’t care. “No arguing, baby girl. This is how you’re leaving this old hut.

Safe and in my arms. And the second we cross that threshold”—I nod to the weathered front door—“that’s exactly where you’re going to stay. ”

Fine hands sink into my beard, pulling my mouth down to hers. Hovering, not quite touching. “Sounds like a promise, Callum McCreary.”

“Hell.” I sink my face into her hair and groan. Breathing her in for a heartbeat, I lift my head to find her searching eyes. “It’s the only one I’m ever going to make you keep.”

We cross the threshold, not bothering to look back. As we near the spot where I left Reese, Evie wriggles in my arms. “Can I borrow a shirt?”

I let her down, pulling my shirt from my back. She slips it on, buttoning up a few buttons in the center. Her fingers still coated in red, she studies them briefly.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” I say softly, taking those fine little writer’s hands in my own.

They may be small, but they are formidable.

Infallible. It’s no wonder that, between her incredible mind and these pretty little digits, she’s an author who reaches hearts and minds.

“I’m so fucking proud of you, Evie baby. ”

I hold her to my chest, kissing the crown of her head as the first tears fall.

All choked up, I stay holding her until the emotion clears and her body wrapped around mine is all that registers.

“You two need a room?” A lilt-lined voice reaches us.

Reese.

I chuckle into her hair, and we put space between us.

Reese reaches the area we stand in, dragging the still unconscious guy behind him with both hands. “Was wondering how long you were going to be. Don’t tell me you had an unnecessary pit stop while I was on guard duty.”

I double-check the guy is still breathing.

Fuck, that’s the last thing I need, another tortured soul on my hands.

I lean around Reese to see the rise and fall of the guy’s chest.

Still breathing.

Thank fuck.

“No pit stops, but I do need to wash up a little,” Evie says.

“There’s a waterhole a little way to the north,” Reese offers, waving a hand in that direction, like this is our first time on our own damn island.

“Take that fucker to the beach and meet Em.” I pull the radio, still miraculously attached to my hip by its metal clasp, off and hand it to him. “We’ll meet you there in a bit.”

“Sure. Come on, fucker.” He slides the radio into his back pocket and walks south, dragging the guy behind him.

He’s going to have a sore head when he comes to.

I turn back to Evie, sweeping her into my arms. I walk for the waterhole, and her arms slide around my neck.

“You know, Mr. McCreary, this kind of feels like riding off into the sunset.”

A hearty laugh escapes me that echoes through the trees. “Only your mind could connect those two.”

When we reach the waterhole, I don’t bother slowing, don’t release her.

I walk into the water, wading into the cool, cleansing waters like both our lives depend on it.

Like our souls do.

The water laps my back and soaks Evie’s shorts through, and I let her down.

“Arms up,” I rasp.

She obeys, lifting her arms over her head.

I slide my shirt and her cut-up one over her head, tossing them in the water.

I tug my T-shirt from my back and push it into the water.

Bringing it back out, I wring it out before dabbing it over her chest to clean off the blood.

She hisses when it sweeps over her cuts.

And when she is clean of a dead man’s blood and her own, I dot kisses above each wound as if it’ll accelerate the healing.

“Cal?” Her voice is too soft. Her hands wander up my neck, resting on my jaw.

I look up to beautiful browns that have darkened since we left the hut.

All the adrenaline has her body in a frenzy. I can tell by the way she scans my face and her hands wander my body. Pressing against me, she closes in.

“Close your eyes, fear milis.”

My eyes slide shut, the blood that’s been racing through my body plunging south, heat building with only the touch of her fingertips as they skitter over my shoulders. Then... she disappears, and the loss of her touch is cold.

“Keep them closed,” she mutters. The water moves. Sloshing. I hear drips and then something slapping to the water’s surface. Warm legs wrap around my waist.

“Open,” she breathes.

Eyes widening, I find her brown eyes burning as she nips my mouth. Only when her tongue slides over mine do her eyes close.

Hands sliding down her spine, I knead her bare ass.

Fuck me, mo ghràdh.

This is going to take longer than we thought.