The Tempest A.J. Scudiere (books to read in a lifetime .TXT) 📖

thumb as he pressed it, and he tugged on the door, it didn't move more than an inch.

“Damnation!” he yelled. Joule noticed again that this was a man who wouldn't fully swear even when fire was threatening to kill him. “I think they've barricaded this one, too.”

Joule was already right behind him and stepped in to yank at the handle. She was about to put her face to the crack she’d made, wondering if the Larkins had simply slid a board through the door handle to block it or something like that. If they had, maybe she could reach through and jimmy it out. But she felt the fire already eating at the other side of the door.

She sensed heat at her feet. Smoke curled in through the crack. And she only watched for a moment before she got smart enough to shove the door shut and let go of the handle that was already growing hot.

Behind her the horses screamed in a hellish choir and her heart kicked at the horrifying noise.

Were they surrounded by fire?

She turned back and saw three pairs of eyes looking at her, all wondering the same thing.

Her brain scrambled and her hand once again darted into her pocket, feeling for the kitten and grateful to find he was still there. If they couldn't get out through the doors, they'd have to get out through the walls. She decided to do what she did best: Get bossy.

“We know there's a fire there and here.” She pointed to the large double doors and then to the one right behind her. Even as she said it, she quickly stepped away. She wasn't sure how fire would act, not on a barn like this.

The barn construction was plain with exposed studs. Maybe it wouldn’t be too much work to get through it. She turned to Paul. “How thick are the walls?”

“It's exactly what you see. Just a barn.” He shrugged as if he didn’t know what else he might add. “The animals provide the heat. The structure just kind of holds it in.”

Right now the fire was providing the heat and the animals were providing terrified and terrifying noises. Sharp cracks indicated hooves kicking at the stalls. Joule didn’t like any of it, but she stayed focused.

She nodded. That was good. “We need to find a place where there's not a fire on the other side. Check for heat!”

The four of them dispersed in different directions, moving to opposite walls and placing their hands flat against the wood to check the temperature. They stomped out tiny embers as they saw them, fighting against time to slow the fire. Again and again, Joule saw them either jerk their hands back or shake their heads.

She found a few spots she couldn’t be sure about. Most felt warm to her.

“Here!” Jerry called out excitedly, pointing to a spot he still held one palm to, as if to prove it was cool enough.

“That side leads into the paddock,” Paul replied quickly, as he headed toward Jerry. But halfway across the space, he turned and changed directions. He darted into the small alcove near the front and hollered out, “Let me grab some tools! Maybe we can get through!”

Joule still loosely held the shotgun in her hand. “You got more shells for this thing?” she asked as she held it up.

Paul patted his pockets before nodding, but came toward them and handed out a crowbar, a pitchfork, and a shovel. Jerry and Brenda were now armed with farming implements. But as the three of them pulled in close behind her, Joule said, “Step back.”

Then she walked up as close to the wall as she dared and aimed, right around her own chest height. Closing her eyes, she pulled the trigger.

64

Cage raced his bike down the long, gravel drive, Dev right behind him. The jolts and jars of the uneven ground clacked his teeth together and jarred his spine as he tried to go even faster.

He was no fire expert, but he would say that the barn wasn't fully up in flames yet. It seemed to have several lines of fire around the outside. And from what he could see, he was pretty certain this wasn’t a fire that had occurred naturally or even by accident. It seemed clearly designed to kill the animals inside.

His immediate next thought—as he hit a rock and almost went flying over the handlebars before managing to right the bicycle again—was to wonder what else might be inside.

The cracking boom pulled him and Dev up short. They sprayed gravel as they skidded to a stop in a slick move that Cage would have been proud of at any moment other than this.

Someone was shooting.

“What the hell?” Dev asked, but Cage had no answers.

They were close enough to the barn that they were likely faster on foot now. So Cage swung one leg over the bike and jumped free, letting it clatter to the gravel. He was already several feet away before it hit the ground.

He'd covered half the distance to the barn with Dev right behind him as the second boom echoed through the night. He pulled up short, stepping back for a moment, as though the bullets or shot wouldn’t have already whizzed by him if they’d come his way.

But he still couldn’t see anything. Whatever was happening wasn't happening on the side of the barn facing the drive.

He gave the barn a wide berth as the flames licked at the wood. If the fire made it inside the barn, it would probably go up like a tinderbox. Weren't barns full of hay and other wonderfully flammable things?

But as he rounded the corner, he was certain his eyes were deceiving him. One of the walls appeared to bulge for a moment and then it went flat.

It was surely a trick of the moonlight, and he dismissed it as he heard a noise over his shoulder. He looked back to see Dev was close behind him. But