Torch (Take It Off #1)(5)
Author: Cambria Hebert

“Yeah, just following up.”

I nodded. “As you can see, I’m going to be fine.”

“You told the doctor someone tried to kill you.”

“Well, I didn’t tie myself to the chair and light my house on fire.”

His fists clenched at his sides, like my words made him angry. The muscles in the side of his jaw ticked—a movement I found very distracting.

“Who would try to kill you?” he asked after a few moments.

“That’s exactly what we would like to know as well,” said a new voice as someone swept into the room.

It was two cops. One female, one male. I had no doubt in my mind that whenever they interrogated someone, the blonde played the good cop and the short, stalky man played the bad cop. “Katie Parks?” the man asked, looking at me.

“Yes.”

“We’re here to discuss the events from four nights ago.”

“That’s my cue to leave,” the fireman said from my side.

I would much rather talk to him than the police.

“And you are?” the female police officer said, pulling out her pad and pen like she was going to write it down. I knew she wasn’t going to. She just wanted to know his name. I really couldn’t blame her.

“Holt. Holt Arkain”

His name sizzled me like a bolt of lightning straight to the heart. I’d never heard that name before, but it fit him so well. Strong yet rugged… casual yet unique.

“You’re the guy who pulled her from the fire,” the male cop said.

Holt nodded.

“You know the victim?”

“Uh, no. I was just…” He glanced at me. “Following up to make sure she was okay.”

Something about the way he said it made me think he was here for more than that. But it must have been the pain meds because the officers nodded and then he was walking out the door… I would probably never see him again.

“Holt?” I said, liking the way his name seemed to slip right into my vocabulary.

He stopped his retreat and looked over his shoulder at me. “Yes?”

“Thank you. For saving my life.”

There it was, that cocky grin again. “My pleasure.”

And then he was gone. I couldn’t help but notice how the “good cop” suddenly looked like the bad one. Perhaps she’d been hoping for his phone number.

I felt a little gleeful knowing she wasn’t going to get it.

Of course, I likely would never see him again either.

All trace of glee went away. In fact, I wave of weariness washed over me. The officer cleared his throat and looked at me expectantly. I didn’t know what I could tell them. I didn’t know anything.

The only thing I knew for sure was that someone wanted me dead.

3

As it turned out, I learned a lot more from the police officers than they learned from me. They stayed in my room for almost an hour, asking me question after question. Do you have any enemies? Did you see the arsonist who set fire to your home? Why didn’t you wake up when they dragged you from your bed and tied you to a chair? Who could want to kill you?

On and on the questions went.

I didn’t have an answer for any of them. The honest truth was I had no enemies (that I knew of), I couldn’t see the person with the match, and I also really wanted to know why I didn’t wake up while being tied to chair. The most logical thing I could come up with was that this was some random act of violence carried out by some seriously unbalanced psycho.

After listening to me repeat my answers over and over, I think the police were coming around to my way of thinking as well. It could have been a burglary gone wrong. It could have been a stupid prank that got out of hand. It could have been a million and one things—all of which made me extremely exhausted to think about.

When the nurse finally ordered them out of my room I was practically in tears. I hated crying. It was a useless waste of energy. Energy that could be better spent doing something that would actually help my situation.

And the situation was pretty grim.

My home was completely destroyed.

According to the police, there was nothing left to salvage.

I did have insurance that would likely cover the home and everything inside, but that really didn’t make me feel any better. Everything I owned was gone. The life I built for myself, the life I wanted so badly, was now reduced to a pile of blackened ash.

You’ll just start over, I told myself in an effort to lift my spirits. It didn’t work. Starting over was something I hated. I had done it so often in the past few years that doing it again made me want to scream bloody murder.

Bloody murder. Okay, that was a bad choice of words.

The idea of starting over again made me want to punch a whole bunch of people in the face.

Yeah, that was better.

If I focused on the anger inside me, I wouldn’t have room to think about how utterly devastating it felt to lose everything. I really thought I finally found my place in the world. It hadn’t been a large place, but it was mine and that meant more to me than anything.

But with the single strike of a match, everything I ever wanted was consumed by flames.

I drifted off into a fitful sleep, the memory of the fire taunting my subconscious. Just when the memories threatened to choke me, a man with icy-blue eyes appeared and like a bucket of water, his mere presence doused me—extinguishing the worst of my fear.

As the night wore on, pain began to throb. It felt like my skin was on fire all over again—it burned and tingled. I wanted to rip at the bandages and just scrape off the tender, damaged skin until there was nothing left of my wrists but bone. The skin on my hands screamed at me, feeling tight and puckered. All I could do was lie there and wonder how long the pain was going to last. When would I know some relief?

When the sun rose, I decided I wasn’t going to even pretend to sleep anymore and I pushed the button for the nurse.

“The pain,” I told her when she appeared, “it’s worse than yesterday.”

She nodded empathetically. “That’s because the doctor has lowered the dose of pain medication you’re on—you were on a much higher dose when you arrived.”

“So the pain isn’t going to go away?”

She frowned. “You will be feeling some pain. Burns are very painful. But it’s about time for your regular dose, so I can give you that. Once it kicks in, I’m going to have to change your bandages.”

I bit back a groan. She was only doing her job; I wasn’t going to make her feel bad for it.