Into the Flames (Perilous Connections: Book Two) (18 page)

I grasp Aubrey’s hand and ditch
my backpack
.
“
Elaine, we’re going back.”

G
rateful sobs
begin to escape Elaine’s smudged mouth as
I begin to hus
tle back
from where
we’d come. I
move as fast as I can
, pulling and
lifting Aubrey along through the thick trees and the falling ash which makes the lan
dscape look like a
waste
land
. I focus
fiercely
on this and
try very hard not to think o
f Nate
and what will happen when I see him.

Nate

Shoving the last paper bag of gr
oc
eries into the back of the taxi
which sits
in front of the grocery store,
I pause to dust off the ash
from the top of the bags. The stuff has started falling so hard that the sky at only two in the afternoon is
blocked out and d
arkness is
plunging the outsi
de of the grocery store into swiftly approac
hing night. It’s a worthy mimic
of w
hat hell may look like and if I don’
t chang
e I’m
heading straight there.
I smile at my feeble attempt
at
humor.

A tug on my arm gets me to turn around
. I
t’s
the taxi man and he’s finally decided to haul his
skinny
ass from the comfort of the front of the car.

“Can we go right now?” I
ask with an edge to my
voice. I hate to think of Dap
hne waiting through this stuff. S
he must be afraid. Though she’s not given m
uch of a hint of it, she was
muttering
in her sleep
last night about the ash.

The
taxi man
wags his head adamantly, his eyes bright with some threa
t.
“C
an’t do that boss.
”

“What
?” I bark,
allowing some of my irritation caused by the man’s fidgety nature to poke through. I should not have chosen him
from
among the half a dozen of
taxis
that
had been trolling t
he hills looking for customers.

The volcano has
destroyed the tourist trade from the hotels and the f
erry is
the
last hope for these workers
to scrape together
a living.

He stares at me as if I’m the village idiot.
“
Da
volcano erupting. W
e got to go to
the
boat.” He rasps out, fear leaking from his voice.

I suppress a sharp reply. O
f course the
volcano is erupting!
It’s
been shooting ash for two
freakin
days!
I try to rein in my
escalating impatience.
“Look
man, I know that. The ash isn’t
that bad,
”
I
cast a swift glance to the sky. O
kay
,
maybe it was worse than when I
’d left the house,
but it’s still
just ash. Perhaps he needed a little more persuasion. “I’ll pay you double what we agreed if you will take me home.
Now.”

He backs away from me and unbelievably begins to unpack the groceries I’d just finished placing
in the back of his car.

I grab his shoulder. H
e
wrenches away, gawks at me,
his eyes bulging from his head. “You
is
a
stupid tourist.
”
He jabs a finger in the di
rection of the front of the car
and I can hear the radio’s muffled whine through the thick
ened
silence.
“
T
hey say pyro starting to
come from the volcano, we
got to go straight to the boat
,” he
reiterates, tossing
his head adamantly, “
n
o more ride inland.”

As if on cue s
everal headlights of cars begin coming in,
one right after the other. W
hen they stop, frightened
,
c
rying people beg
in pouring from them, their arm
s filled with bags and other stuff. Several tourists begin screaming hysterical and dash towards the pier lying just yards away.

My heart crashes to my
feet. I cannot breathe.
I turn away to get a
hold of myself.

Daphne.
Aubrey. It’s all I can think
of
. Oh God, no
.
P
lease, please, no!

I shove my hands into the back pocket of
my
jeans,
one of her father’s that she’
s given me. I rip the small roll
of hundreds from my pocket.

“Here,” I thrust them at him, he begins
backing away, shaking his head. “D
ammit man, stop this bulls
hi
t. I just want to b
u
y your car. T
hat’s all. I need it now.”

He stare
s at m
e as though I’ve
started going crazy and will
reconsider
any moment. Out of patience
,
I stride to him and grabbing his skinny arm thrust the entire wad
of money into his shirt pocket. “T
ake it for the car,” I say harshly.

I head towards the car
not waiting for his acceptance. S
lamming the trunk closed I run around
to the side.

He hustles toward me. “H
ey ma
n, you don’t
got
to
go
back in
land.
Da
police will take care of them
,
they can get out.”

I throw him a look which has him stumbling backward even in the fast
diminishing light that remains. “D
on’t you dare tell me what I
should or should not
do.
”

H
e stops and
some of the fear drain
s
from his face
, replaced by a compassionate
look. “Y
ou got some woman waiting there?”

I spare him a sideways glance.
“Not some woman.
My wife and her family.
”

I take off and
jump into the front of the car.
G
rip
ping
the key
I
turn the igni
tion on and prepare to pull out. H
e cries out and I
stop and
look up in time to see a
nother
car that is swerving
swiftly out of the parking lot.
The man is winding up the
car
window as fast as he can
to avoid the ash but he is cautious and he turns and survey
s the parking lot through narrowed eyes.

Emmanuel!

I shake my head unable to believe it. How, when?

But he is gone before I can form any coherent reason for how he’s managed to find us amid the
se islands that are so numerous and was supposed to hide us
from him.

He takes off and I have no doubt where he’s headed. I pull out like a crazy man, and veer right into the path of
a
swiftly oncoming truck filled with dust coated people.

Honking the horn
like a madman
, I yell through my window
but the occupants of the truck
are terrified and weeping. They stare blankly at me and I sit in misery as they
u
nload their
meager
possessions from the truck. I watch mesmerized as the truck slowly maneuvers itself out of my way.

I close my eyes, praying to G
od, to anyone that will listen to keep Daphne safe. My father’s words tumble
over and over again in my mind t
hat
one day
my stubbornly selfish nature
would catch up to me and he is
right.

I have not wept since that day at the barn when he’d given me
a
solid right and told me to get t
he hell off his property. I
had
cried like a baby
on
the way to the motel that night.

And n
ot even
the last moments of
Liam’s
life
as
he’d bled out in my arms
had come close to
hurt
ing
this much. I twist in my seat unable to bear the agony that is coursing through me.

But the thought of Emmanuel putting his hands on Daphne, hurting her is more than I can keep inside.

A groan of d
espair wells up inside me and
as soon as the truck swerves
,
giving me just a few inches to work with, I tear out of the
grocery store
parking lot. T
he ti
res slip and slide
on the powdery
ash as I race towards the hill.

I stop the car on the side of the road
a few feet away from
the turn that leads to the house.
Getting out I glance around for a weapon. The ground is so inundated with ash everything looks like a grey carp
et. I feel around and encounter the
outlines of sm
all sticks and stones. Work
ing
my way
frantically
among the
rubble my fingers eventually latch onto something substantial.
A hefty piece of stick which is thick and heavy
.

F
or the
first
time sinc
e I’ve arrived in Montserrat I’
m grateful for th
e muffling influence of the ash,
as
I jog soundlessly towards the house.
I stop at the sight of his car.
Parked arrogantly in the front, no doubt he’d seen the benefit of the ash in hiding his arrival also.

He was always a cold blooded bastard,
d
etermined to instill the greatest
amount of fear
into the victims Pablo sent him to kill. I had avoided
him during my five year stint
as one of Pablo
Guarez’s
transporters in his worl
dwide drug empire.
Though
I have never
sold directly to a customer
, my expertise was
to make
sure that
the goods arrived
safely and undetected to
their intended destination.
Emmanuel’s job on the other hand was all hands on. It was to kill the greedy underlings who
tried to take some off the top or who crossed the boss in some
other way. Like
me.

Coldness star
ts
t
o spread inside me as I truly accept for the first time that Pablo will stop at nothing to see me dead for the murder of his son.

But Daphne doesn’t d
eserve to die and I would use the last of my living br
eath to make sure that it doesn’t
happen.

I glide soundlessly o
nto t
he porch
and try to peak through the glass
. They are coated with ash
,
masking my presence but also shielding the inside from me. I
press my ear to the glass for any sound.

Someone is talking …
chuckling actually, a man. Emmanuel
. Another voice joins him, its pleading, wh
iny.
Stacy.

But what about
Daphne, Aubrey, Elaine?
Why don’
t I hear them
?
Has
Daphne already charged Emmanuel
and is l
ying bleeding to death on the floor while Emmanuel
lightly threatens Stacy?