Page 94 of The Devil's Scars
Thanks to Ice taking her down her from behind, Zoe was on her knees in the parking lot, watching as Scars raced straight into the parlor, watching the way that the flames were licking at his body as he plunged in and through them. She gasped as the front of the building collapsed, driving Silver, Rebel, and Cowboy back, their arms shielding their faces from the roar of fire.
Zoe needed to get up now, needed to figure out a way to get into the parlor, needed to get to her perfect, innocent daughter.
She couldn’t do any of that, though, because she had approximately two thousand pounds of pure muscle standing between her and what used to be a front door. The guys were watching her fixedly, then shooting tiny glances over their shoulders at the blaze, then snapping their hard eyes back to her. Clearly, after her mad dash to follow Scars, which had been thwarted by Ice cooly and silently performing his NFL-worthy tackle, no doubt perfected by his years of Enforcing, Wolf had told them to make sure that she stayed put.
She staggered to her feet anyway, felt her knees go out under her. Before she could fall on her face, Wolf was there, his hands under her elbows. Despite the futility of moving him, she shoved against his body anyway, knowing that even if by some miracle she managed to take him out, she had eight more Road Devils to get through.
Hopeless.
“Let me go!” she cried out, determined to fight somehow, in any goddamn way that she could. “I need to get Keira!”
“No fuckin’ way.” Those gray eyes were the color of the coldest, deadest winter in history. “You’re stayin’ right here, Zee.”
“But…” She struggled in his grip, didn’t gain so much as an inch. “Scars –”
“Has made his decision,” Wolf said calmly. “He’s goin’ after that baby, and if he can’t get her out, nobody can. You saw the ceiling go down, you saw how Silver and Rebel and Cowboy couldn’t get within ten feet of the fire. Scars is the guy in the mouth of the devil, and he’s fightin’ that bastard right now. You get me, baby girl? He’s it, he’s the only one who has a chance. Nothin’ any of us can do except stand here and wait and hope.”
“No.” Zoe shook her head, hating every single goddamn thing about that scenario. “We have to do something, Wolf! Somebody has to do something!”
“We’re doin’ it.”
“You’re – what?” she faltered. “What are you doing?”
“We’re keeping’ you from fire-walkin’.” Wolf tightened his grip on her as she twisted and pulled. “We’re keepin’ you from dyin’, Zee, because no way we’re lettin’ you go in there.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, then hauled back and kicked him in the shin… hard. He growled and let up minutely – she’d scored a direct hit, even with chunky platform sandals – and she got free. For two seconds. Then Wolf grabbed her again, shook her until her teeth rattled.
“Hey, Wolf,” Jinx protested, watching this with alarm. “Take it easy, Prez…”
“Like hell I’m takin’ it easy!” Wolf thundered, and to a man they backed up. “You think I’m gonna let her kill herself?” He turned his ferocious glare back to her, showing no mercy or pity at all. “You listen to me, Zoe, and you listen good. You stay put, and if you can’t or won’t do that, then I got no problem sending you over to Satan’s to wait. I don’t give a flyin’ fuck if it takes five guys to drag you over there kickin’ and screamin’, you will go. If you want to stay here, then you will behave yourself. Am I bein’ clear enough about how things are gonna go?”
“Wolf…” she whispered, and suddenly, tears were streaming down her cheeks. “That’s my baby girl in there, my sweet little flower, and she needs me…I promised to take care of her, no matter what, and I left her in there, left her sleeping… and Scars is in there all alone… and he’s… I love him. Don’t you understand? I can’t just stand here… I can’t.”
His face softened. “I do understand, Zee. I promise you that I do. But you’re forgettin’ somethin’.”
“What?”
Wolf wiped her tears away with his thumb. “That Scars is a man who has survived fire once already in his life. He’s the only man I know who’s walked through the literal flames of goddamn hell, and come through the other side with anyone still alive.”
She stared up at him, and she realized that he was right.
“Don’t bet against Scars Innis, not ever,” Wolf said quietly. “Deep breaths, baby girl… you hold on to me, and you hold on. You keep the faith. And don’t you count Scars out –don’t you fuckin’ dare.”
**
Scars knew that he had to keep moving – even the briefest of pauses could be the end of him – because this was all about time now. Not minutes, either… seconds.
The whole ceiling could go at any second.
The tattooing chemicals and cleaning stuff that he saw scattered around could explode at any second.
The fire could move behind him, trapping him inside, at any second.
Keira could succumb to smoke any second (he refused to believe that she already had… that was not an option today).
He grabbed a shirt off the floor, dashed across the room to the water cooler next to the reception area, dumped the whole bottle on the shirt. He held it to his mouth, took a breath, and ran to Zoe’s office – or where her office used to be.
God, the heat. The acrid, awful taste in his lungs, black and thick, even through the soaked material. And the smell… Jesus, he’d forgotten what fire smelled like, because whenever he thought about that deadly winter night, all he remembered was the smell of his own skin burning.
