Wildfire Griffin (Fire & Rescue Shifters: Wildfire Crew #1)(3)

Cut, dig, scrape. Everything else fell away. No thoughts in her head, no sense of self. In all the world, there was just the shovel, the axe, and the ever-growing fireline. Cut, dig, scrape. Dig, cut—

An agonized scream split the air.

Edith very nearly thrust her shovel through her own foot. Her hyperfocus shredded like tissue paper. The whole world came roaring back, flooding into her eyes and ears and nose. Flickering light and hissing crackle and bitter smoke blurred into a sensory tsunami that swept away breath and sense. The terrified shriek voiced her own confusion and panic so perfectly that for a dizzying moment she thought that she was the source of the sound.

Black spots danced in front of her eyes. Edith sucked in a great, gasping breath. The screams continued on, growing higher pitched and more desperate.

She grabbed onto that panicked cry like clutching a lifeline, focusing on it through the swirling chaos. Someone was in trouble. Someone needed help.

“I’m coming!” she shouted as loudly as she could. “Hold on!”

Casting the shovel aside, she plunged into the forest. Immediately billows of smoke surrounded her, thrusting bitter fingers down her throat. Coughing, she pulled her shirt up over her mouth as best she could as she ran.

Orange light glowed balefully through the thick, choking clouds. Flames ran like water between the tree trunks, gobbling up the underbrush. Most of the flames were only knee-high, but here and there patches leapt higher, the fire greedily feasting on old, dry fallen branches.

Edith shied away as a sudden gust of wind fanned the fire, making it roar up higher. A tangle of brambles went up like a firework, spattering her with sparks. The scream came again, very close now.

“Where are you?” Straining to see through the stinging smoke, Edith caught a glimpse of movement through the flames. “Follow my voice, I’ll get you to safety!”

Another swirling flurry of wind swept through the tree trunks. For a moment, the smoke parted like curtains drawing back.

Not a person—a snowshoe hare, trapped in a closing ring of fire. It dashed in tight, spinning dashes, all the while shrieking that thin, panicked cry. Edith had never heard an animal make such a human sound.

She couldn’t let the poor bunny burn. Holding her breath, she leaped as high as she could over the hissing flames. Heat scorched her ankles, but she landed safely on the other side.

The hare froze, staring at her. Fire reflected in its wide, black eyes.

There wasn’t time to be gentle. Fast as a snake, Edith grabbed the animal. She wasn’t sure whether it recognized she was trying to help, or was just paralyzed by terror, but in any event it hung limp in her arms, as docile as if it was stuffed. The hummingbird-fast thrum of its heart beat against her own chest.

Wind whipped smoke into her eyes. The fire roared as if angry to have been cheated of its prey. She plunged through them, hunched over the hare to shield it from the fierce heat. Then she was running, faster than she ever had in her life, back toward the safety of her tower.

The fire pursued her. The wind howled, abruptly storm-gale strong, fanning the wildfire’s wrath. Flames snapped at Edith’s heels like a pack of hunting dogs.

She broke from the forest barely ahead of the rising inferno. Still clutching the hare, she hurdled her fireline. It seemed a ludicrous defense now, no more protection than a line drawn in the dirt by a kid with a stick. The fire roared toward it like the tide sweeping down on a sandcastle—

And stopped.

Shaking, sweat-stained, Edith watched the fire like a hawk, every muscle tense. Though the flames spread like—well, like wildfire—through the dry scrubby grass on the far side of her line, the narrow trench held it from going any further. The wind tried to whip the flames onward, but the embers fell futilely onto the bare earth. No matter how the fire strained, it couldn’t reach her.

Just as she started to breath easier, a hammer-blow of wind hit her. Caught off-guard, she staggered, disoriented by the sudden screaming gale. Vicious, swirling gusts clawed at her from every direction, nearly tearing the hare from her grasp. It was as if she’d been caught in the downwash from a helicopter.

Edith squinted upward through the smoke—but there was nothing there. Yet though her eyes searched the sky futilely, her every other sense screamed at her that something was hovering over her.

Something vast.

Something angry.

An ancient, instinctive terror gripped her. The wind was full of the sound of monstrous wings. She broke and ran, scurrying like a mouse before a hawk.

She raced up the stairs to her tower so fast her feet barely touched the wooden treads. And then she was inside, dropping the hare in her haste to slam the door shut behind her, sliding the bolts home.

Wind howled around the tower, rattling the windows. Some storm-tossed piece of debris struck one of the wide glass panes with enough force to leave a star-shaped crack. Heart in her mouth, she tore around the room, fastening all the interior storm shutters.

Her hands beat against her thighs with agitation. She clenched her fists, trying to get a grip on herself. It was just her hypersensitivity that made the wind sound like vast claws scraping at the shingled roof. Just her atypical brain wiring, generating invisible monsters out of the storm of sensory overload. There wasn’t really anything out there, trying to get in—

A blinding flash of white light made her shriek, dropping to the floor and covering her head with her hands. The wooden support pillars groaned as the sturdy platform lurched sickeningly.