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I climb into the cab and move automatically through checks I can do in my sleep. Fuel. Hydraulics. Rear linkage. I make sure the cultivator sits true. Then I’m back on the ground, checking the lower links with my own hands.
A lynch pin is loose.
I shove it home and clip it into place, smearing blood on the fixings, but the throb in my side and my shredded hands is so far from my mind I’m almost numb.
Only fear remains. And the single-minded focus I need to carve enough bare ground to stop this fire swallowing every home in its path.
Smoke fills the yard, heavier than ever. Every gust of wind carries more heat than the last and the world has shrunk in every direction.
Fresh earth doesn’t burn.
I reach for the cab door. Hands catch me so hard I’m almost spun off my feet.
A stronger grip than Dav’s.
I wrench around, ready to fight whoever’s in my way—
Oscar.
His face is streaked with soot. Hair loose and wild. Chest rising and falling so fast it looks painful. His cinnamon gaze darts behind me to the tractor, then finds the blood seeping through my clothes, and his eyes widen with something like horror.
“No.” He digs his fingers into my arms. “We need to go.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“I need to cut the firebreaks.”
“Poet, you are hurt.”
“I’m fine.” I rip my arms free of his grasp and wipe my bloody hands on my jeans. “Go back into town and wait for me there.”
“Come with me.”
“No.”
Oscar flinches as though the word physically hurts him, and the pain in his face, the fear, lances somewhere deep inside me. But beyond us, flames leap high above the hedgerows, fuelled by the wind, and we’re running out of time.
I repeat myself. “I need to cut the firebreaks. It’s what farmers do.”
“Then let them do it.” Oscar thrusts a hand at the neighbouring farm, his expression fierce. “You know this is their fault.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Po, please,” Oscar begs. “Let the firefighters do their job.”
I can’t hear the desperation in Oscar’s voice. But I see it in his face and let it reel me back into his arms.
He drops his forehead to mine for one impossible second. “Please don’t go.”
“I have to.”
“I only just found you.”
I close my eyes, just for a heartbeat. Tell him. “I love you.”
Oscar shudders.
