Page 64 of Precious Hazard (Perfectly Imperfect #11)

The fire moves like waves through water, spreading in every direction like ripples across a lake.

More windows shatter as something flies into the living room through the glass.

Small. Explosive. Bursting into an immediate fireball.

Once the flash subsides, more flames spread around the area of impact.

The living room is now almost completely on fire. The carpet. The couch. The bookshelves.

It’s coming. The arms of the fire are reaching for me.

Closer.

Closer.

Closer.

I can’t look away. Can’t move. Can’t utter a sound.

My world has turned into an inferno.

“Fuck, baby, tell me where you are! I’m coming for you!”

I’ve lost the ability to breathe. My lungs seize up once the smoke and its putrid burned odor invade my senses. Regardless of the passage of time, that particular smell is permanently carved into my memory.

Crash.

More broken windows.

Crash.

Another on my right.

Crash.

That one was in the kitchen.

I wait for flames to spiral around my feet.

Nothing happens. Strange. What gives?

The gaping holes in the glass form a sort of mini wind tunnel. A burst of fresh air swooshes across me. It’s brief and jarring, but not enough to shake off this paralysis.

Outside, night has fallen. The dark has swallowed everything beyond the fire’s reach. Nothing moves. Nothing exists in that darkness. Nothing but the wind and the echo of my jackhammering heartbeat.

I stare. Stare while, lit by the flickering light of the blaze around me, the figure of a man fills the frame of a broken kitchen window.

Stavros’s father.

Lifting a gun. Pointing it at me.

Smiling.

“Tara!” Arturo screams on the other end of the line. He sounds desperate. And so, so far away.

I should do something, right? Duck. Run. Magically teleport. Are there other options?

But I can’t do anything. I can’t even think clearly. I feel like an observer stuck outside my body. A spectator who is incapable of performing a single simple act. My body has frozen in this particular position, with the phone pressed tightly to my ear and my limbs unable to move an inch.

I don’t even hear the gun go off. The only reason I know it has is because of the burning. Not the wall of heat at my back, but the gut-tearing pain in my abdomen. My knees give out; my legs fold under me. I drop to the tiled floor, landing on my side.

I lie.

Motionless.

Somehow managing to keep the phone pressed to my ear. My field of vision: the living room, utterly consumed by flames.

“It’s the same,” I whisper. “The fire. It smells the same.”

I jump out of my SUV, my gaze flying to the house beyond the blocked gate and the remnants of a bullet-riddled vehicle. The flickering orange light dances inside, while thick smoke billows from the broken windows, turns the blood in my veins into ice.

No!

The thunder of my beating heart drowns out the sounds of the chaotic gunfight all around me as I race toward the raging inferno.

“Tara!” I yell into the phone. “You need to get out of the house. Right now.”

Pain tears through my arm as a bullet grazes my shoulder. I block it out. Don’t even stop to shoot back. There are almost a hundred and fifty yards between me and the burning house. And my wife is inside.

“Do you hear me, Tara? Can you get out?”

She takes a shallow breath. “I can’t forget it.” Her tone is strangely serene. Peaceful, even.

“Tara!” I roar, hoping it will jar her out of the obvious stupor she’s in. She’s probably in shock, panicking. The night Greta lit the fireplace in Tara’s bedroom, my wife appeared to be rooted in place until I wrapped my arm around her.

“This smell. This… hellish heat. It was the same on the night we lost Dina. My parents. Twenty years. Twenty years and I can’t forget.”

A man with an automatic weapon is kneeling on the ground to my right, using Tara’s helicopter as his cover. He’s changing the magazine and getting ready to open fire. I shoot him in the head as I continue to run. “You have to get out of there, gattina ! Please!”

“Drago should have taken Dina out first.” Tara’s voice remains calm, as if she doesn’t even hear me. “I cried. She didn’t. So he picked me. He chose the wrong sister. Dina would still be alive if I’d been braver, then Drago could have picked her instead of me.”

“Tara!” I yell, desperate to get through to her. There are now fewer than twenty feet between me and the front door.

“I messed up.” Her voice is so small, so mournful. “I always mess up.”

At the far edge of the driveway, I notice Tony supporting a woman as they flee from the house. For a split moment, I think it’s her. But no, it’s Greta.

“Where is she?” I roar as I run to them.

My housekeeper looks up, her face ashen. “She’s”—she coughs—“she’s still inside.”

Crushing fear squeezes my heart, spreads into every cell of my body faster than the flames destroying my home. I take off, closing the distance, and kick in the front door.

Thick, black smoke and unbelievable heat surge into my face. I toss the gun and lift the flap of my jacket over my nose, stepping inside.

Seems that most of the Molotov cocktails were thrown through the living room windows, because the whole area to the left of the front door is engulfed in flames. The blaze has spread along the entire span of the west wall, consuming drapes and furnishings, climbing to the ceiling.

Urgent calls replace the sounds of gunfire outside, and I recognize Nino’s voice among many others, yelling my name. Screaming for me to get out.

I’m not going anywhere without my wife. Even if it means we both burn to ash inside the damn house.

“Tara! Answer me, baby. Where are you?” I shout into the phone, but no sound comes from her end of the line.

The flames have reached past the main stairs, eating their way across the other side of the ground floor. We’re mere moments from the whole thing turning into a life-size furnace, and I can’t see her! Can’t find my wife! With all the smoke and blistering heat, I can’t see shit.

The phone.

I still have the phone.

Half blinded, I barely manage to cut the call, then immediately hit redial.

Smoke fills my lungs, and I stumble, praying I’ll hear the ringing over the crackle of flames and the beating of my own heart.

Access to the second floor is completely blocked by a floor-to-ceiling wall of fire.

Madonna Santa , please, please don’t let her be upstairs.

A faint melody, only just audible over the frantic noise. From somewhere in the kitchen. I turn around.

There. Just behind the breakfast bar, curled on her side, my wife lies on the tiled floor. Thank God the blaze hasn’t yet reached her.

“Tara!” An animalistic roar leaves my chest as I run and scoop her into my arms. I can’t even clearly see her face at this point, but I detect the rise of her chest under my palm.

She’s alive.

“I’ve got you, baby,” I murmur. “I’ve got you.”

Cradling my precious cargo, I carry her through the fires of hell that are destroying our home. Thanking God and every saint above for letting me find my wife. For not being too late. For giving me a chance to save her. Without her, there is no me.

“Arturo!” Nino yells, running toward me once I step outside.

“I need to get her to a doctor,” I cough out as my eyes scan her body, checking for injuries. “She must have inhaled a lot of—”

The words die on my lips. Panic. Overwhelming panic slams into me like a freight train. The sight before my eyes cannot be real. Blood. The entire front of Tara’s dove-gray sweater is saturated in blood.

“TARA!” I roar.