Page 25 of The Barn: Frost and Q

Twenty

Q uentin stared at the guys. Really, he expected Boone to be up here bugging him, even Carson sometimes. But all three of them, including Tug? That was too much. Come on, Tug had made a special trip just to come in and see him? So this was like a fucking intervention? “What do you guys want?”

“We’re worried about you.” That was Carson, who was leaning forward on his sofa, expression one of sincerity and concern. “You seem to be a little out of control, and we thought maybe you need some help. Maybe you need… I don’t know, some care maybe since he is gone?”

“You mean my husband?” He wasn’t going to lose his temper, he hoped. Although he was on a hair trigger. Frost had been gone for ten days fighting this wildfire, and it was only seven percent contained. And now Frost was out in the mountains. The danger level was just too damn high for comfort.

“No.” Tug grinned over from where he was sprawled out and rolled his eyes. “What Carson means is your Dom, honey.”

“I don’t need this shit, guys, seriously. I have a lot to do, so tell me what it is you want me to know and then get the hell out so I can get to work.”

“The problem is that you’re not doing anything but working,” Boone said. “You didn’t even order food in yesterday.”

Because he was supposed to order in food when his man was on the ground eating MRE’s and figuring out how not to get killed in a flashover.

Something was wrong.

He knew it unequivocally. He could see where Frost was with the team. He had the topographic maps. He had the weather. He knew what the wind was supposed to be doing and what it wasn’t. Something was wrong.

“You’ve got to get some sleep, man.” Boone stared at him, shaking his head. “When’s the last time you had a bath? You’re obsessing over him. He’s a professional. He knows what he’s doing.”

“So am I,” he snapped. “I’m good at this.”

“You can’t do it anymore.”

“Shit.” He whipped around in his chair and got all up in Carson’s grill. “What did you say to me? Do you think that for a second the fact that my legs are not steady affects my ability to decide whether or not the guys are safe? Seriously?” Was he screaming? He thought he might be screaming.

He was absolutely screaming.

“You’re obsessing. You’ve got to stop.”

“I have to do a lot of shit,” Quentin snapped.

“I have to get out of bed. I have to function. I have to run our fucking security systems. I have to check the weather patterns over where my husband is. I’ve got to order inventory.

I have got to feed my motherfucking dog.

” He got that some of the twinks here, some of the subs here were on a twenty-four/seven fucking lifestyle.

He got that some people craved submission all the time.

Whatever submission he had? Every bit of it belonged to Frost and Frost alone, and he would do whatever the fuck he wanted to, because he was one-fifth owner of this goddamn motherfucking building, which meant that, together, he and Frost owned forty, and they were controlling owners.

“We’re just worried about you. That’s all.”

“Go you and your bad self. Be worried. But don’t tell me what I can do and what I can’t do. Because that doesn’t belong to you.”

Fuck. His head hurt.

Boone stared at him. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do. I’m not trying to be all down on you and shit. I’m your friend; I’m worried about you. You’re starting to look a little bit like a ghost. And you kind of stink. Like, seriously. Whoa.”

“Yeah. Look, take a shower. Get cleaned up, have some dinner, and then you can get right back to it. We won’t even need you to take a nap.” Carson winked at him. “But you know, basic hygiene is important.”

He flipped Carson off. “Fine, I’ll go take a shower and shit, but come on, guys—” He glanced back over to the screens, something catching his eye. “What are they doing?”

“Who?”

“Frost and them.” He frowned.

“What’s going on?”

“They’re walking right into a death trap.” He grabbed his headphones. “Frost, Frost, you gotta talk to me, man. You gotta talk to me. You gotta turn around.”

“What?” There was some crackle and shit online.

“Listen to me. You gotta turn round. You gotta turn, turn, turn. You gotta listen to me and turn your men around!”

“Cap says we’ve got to get up this side and control this burn.”

“You’re fixing to have an eruption. It’s fixing to go. The VOCs are too high. You’ve got an upslope wind. That son of a bitch is climbing up on the back of you. Turn around, go, go, go!”

The crackling on the line just got worse, and he heard Frost grunt. “Fuck me. We got to turn around, turn around, Chauncey! Back it up, back it up, team! Back it up.”

The phone went dead about the time that the screams started.

Q whipped around and stared at them. “I told you something was wrong, you fuckers.”

Frost should have known better. It was too fucking quiet. It was too freaking weird, and the air smelled like danger. Not only that, but there was a tickling at the back of his neck. Something that he always associated with trouble, and they needed to get the hell out of Dodge.

“I don’t like it,” he told Chauncey.

Chauncey shook his head. “Me either. Cap insists that we’re cool.”

“Yeah. Cap’s not here.”

“Quit being pussies, you two. Come on, let’s get this done,” one of the almost rookies snapped.

God, it must be fucking good to be twenty and full of cum and confidence again.

Still.

Everything itched, and it was so fucking quiet. No birds. No rustling in the trees. Nothing. It was like the plants were holding their breath. Fucking leaf breath.

Q would think that was funny.

“I’m so retiring after this.”

“Don’t say that. You know that means that shit’s going to hit the fan,” he growled, and Chauncey stared at him.

“It’s gonna hit the fan, buddy. We haven’t lived through this many fires not to know that.”

“I think I’m going to call it.” He radioed into the base. “I’m not liking the way this feels.”

“We’ve checked all of the data; you’re doing fine. You just need to go around to the west, and you should be able to set up another firebreak.” Dispatch sounded confident, and he guessed he should, too.

They kept moving.

He wasn’t talking. He was listening, focused on the line of smoke coming up over the next rise.

He didn’t like this. There wasn’t anything about this that worked for him. But he needed more of a reason to pull all of his team back than that he didn’t like it. It was harder to trust himself after the shooting. It was harder to believe in his gut than to know what was right and what was wrong.

If he could trust himself, he would have known Q was in trouble. He would have figured all of that out already. He should have sensed it.

He should have?—

Pay attention, you idiot, or you’ll never sense anything ever again.

The second that Q broke in over the handset, hacking right in and blasting him, he knew though. “Frost, you got to talk to me, you gotta turn around.”

He nodded even, as he was arguing and staring at Chauncey, who was already whistling and making hand and arm motions to retreat.

“You gotta turn around. You gotta go. You gotta get out of there, man. You gotta get out of there. You gotta get out of there.” That was pure terror in Q’s voice.

“Everybody out! Head down!” he yelled, knowing in the pit of his belly that it might be too late.

He felt the rush of fire more than he heard it, and when he met Chauncey’s eyes, he saw the truth.

They both knew the shit was fixing to hit the fan.

They bolted down the rocky ridge, moving as fast as they could, pushing the kids in front of them like they were shelties herding sheep, all of them hurtling pell-mell down the way.

The explosion, when it came, was short and sharp, the air almost being sucked right out of the entire world, the oxygen turning to heat. All he could do was push the others in front of him and run and run and run, praying with all he had that everyone was with him and knowing it was a lie.

There wasn’t any time to think, there wasn’t any time to be scared. There was just pumping blood through the muscles in his legs and trusting in his training.

And hearing the screams of the module around them.

He saw Chauncey stumble beside him, and he whipped around and grabbed the man, forcing himself to keep them both upright.

“Don’t you fucking fall. Don’t you fucking do this to me and become some motherfucking cliche from some dumbass action-adventure movie, you motherfucker!”

There’s no question that he was going to lose here. He might have already. There was no winning here for them, but he’d be damned if he lost Chauncey. Not today.

He couldn’t save everybody, but he’d be damned if he was gonna lose everybody either.