“The tree is splitting, y’all. You need to get out of here.”
Drew leaned forward, grabbing the bars of the bike and looking up at the tree in front of him. His breaths were ragged, and he dropped his chin to his chest.
“I can’t fucking watch this,” he said roughly. “Helmet on, Ayda.”
Chancing a glance at Ronnie, he nodded as though saying he had it under control, and I pulled the helmet over my head, muting the crackle of flames. I’d barely wrapped my arms around Drew’s waist when he took off, spinning the back wheel out from behind us and heading back to the country road. We had an excuse to head back to The Hut now. None other than the Fire Chief himself had informed us to. No one could question that.
I was in two minds about this. Home sounded like a balm I needed more than anything else. Knowing the rest of the guyswere safe was a close second. I just wasn’t sure what we were going to find when we got there. Fire. Slater, Deeks, and Jedd in custody. Even the warehouse remnants we’d almost died among were burning again. We would get answers when we got back, but we had to get back there first. As I tightened my arms around Drew’s waist, I kept my eyes on the black smoke now rising ahead of us. One was Owen’s place—the other had to be The Hut.
The nearer we got to the center of town, the thicker the smoke became. Gray haze wrapped around everything and hung in the air like a thick fog, the curves in the road growing more faded the closer we got to the worst of the fires. Pete’s tree had been isolated in comparison to this, and now all three fires were joining forces and blocking the sky.
If Drew hadn’t known where he was going with his eyes closed, he would have missed the turns that led us home, but he hit every one of them with precision, barely slowing as we came to the turnoff for The Hut. I heard the dirt and gravel under the tires before the gates came into view. The air was heavy with the smell of burning wood and plastic. It was soul destroying, yet another feeling that seemed to be mirrored by Drew’s body language. Every muscle in his body tensed under my hands as he slowed to a stop next to the fire truck that was running noisily as the men slowly wound back in the hoses and packed up their equipment.
I could see The Hut standing strong where it had always been, safe and secure, still our home. Only there was now a hole in the landscape where the training room once stood. Jagged lines of twisted metal and fallen beams laid in a tired smoldering heap that was slowly beginning to dissipate.
I didn’t have time to think much more about that devastation because Drew became my sole focus.
His gaze was on The Hut. For all I knew that the rest of the land and buildings on it meant the world to Drew, The Hut washis home. The place where whiskey was spilled, bonds were made stronger, tears were shed in private, and his brothers’ love blossomed. Then his attention turned to the training room… or what was left of it.
And his shoulders relaxed.
All the tension that had kept him wound up tightly by Pete’s tree and on the ride back here seemed to bleed from him slowly until I saw the way he inhaled deeply, releasing it all in one big stream.
“Thank fuck,” he said, almost to himself.
His reaction to the mess in front of us confused me.
Pushing the helmet from my head, I swung my leg over the bike and stood on solid ground for the first time in what felt like hours. Sickness washed over me. My face and body hurt, and there was a spot on my cheek that felt raw as the helmet brushed against it.
“Drew?”
He locked eyes on mine, searching wildly, as though hoping I was real and not a figment of his imagination. I usually adored it when he looked at me that way, clinging to me like a dream he was scared to wake up from, but something about it in that very moment, with all the world ablaze around us, made me feel nervous.
“We need to find Kenny,” he said huskily.
Right on cue, Kenny came charging down the street, his hand pressed against his chest.
He was heading right for Drew when he glanced at me and slid to a stop. The horror and disgust on his face told me exactly what he saw. He didn’tseeme though—just what Owen had done to me. I had no doubt they’d been filled in on what happened and told what to expect, but I actually considered putting my helmet back on.
“I’m fine,” I told him. I could see him mouthing ‘son of a bitch’ and shaking his head in disbelief before he continuedtoward us, his eyes moving between Drew, me, and the firemen still milling about and packing the truck up. “What happened here?” I demanded.
“They moved us across the street. Everyone’s there, including Tate,” Kenny’s response was aimed at Drew, and I knew it was pointless to ask questions.
The king was back in his kingdom, and it was time to reclaim his throne.