Coughing dragged Maggie upright.
Smoke. Fire. Pain.
The circle of her senses widened. Grunts and curses. Movement. A moan.
J.D.
She opened her eyes.
Scott had J.D. on the window seat. Grunting against the dead weight, he was trying to position J.D. at the open window so all it would take would be a good shove to tumble him out, down the steeply pitched roof, into the rock-strewn creek bed.
“No!”
Maggie launched herself at Scott. Trying for his eyes.
He yelped, but his elbow connected with her cheekbone. Maggie stumbled, caught herself. But her ankle folded under her. No chance of catching or protecting herself, she went down, the side of her head slammed against the floor.
She wouldn’t pass out again. She couldn’t.
She reached her knees, holding her breath against the swirling smoke.
Scott had J.D. in the open window. He pushed. Pushed again.
“God dammit!” Scott screamed.
J.D. held the frame with one hand. He was alert enough and strong enough to do that. Thank God.
Scott pried at J.D.’s fingers.
Maggie surged to her feet, lurching, reaching out.
J.D. disappeared from the frame.
No! No!
A dual cry rose. Her horror, Scott’s triumph. But no sound from J.D.
She pulled herself onto the window seat, leaning out the second open frame while Scott did the same beside her, trying to see. There was nothing. But she heard. Creaking wood. Grunts. A soft swish, a sharper rip.
Then a thud.
Solid male tumbling to wooden floor, wasn’t it?
Or was it the cracking and shattering of something in the house below them from the fire?
But how could he have — She didn’t care how, just please, please, let it be.
“You’re like them — all of them. Leave me for some shit who fucks you. I’ll show you like I showed them. You bitch! You godamn bitch!”
Scott lunged to push her out the window after J.D. She feinted one way. He fell for it. She scrambled off the window seat and toward the door.
One step from the windows and the thick, dark smoke stung her eyes. She covered her mouth and nose with one hand, crouched and plunged deeper in. A patch of flames brought some illumination. The bed, she realized. She’d gone too far to the left. She had to get around it to reach the door. She scuttled to the right, her eyes streaming. Coughing wracked her.
And then, out of the hot swirls, a hand grasped her wrist.
She couldn’t break the hold. She couldn’t breathe.
He swung her around like children playing Crack the Whip. She had no strength left to save herself from crashing into the window seat.
He was on her immediately, shoving her legs out the window. She grabbed for anything. Her fingers scraped across raw wood gouged by J.D. She held on, scrabbling for a foothold on the slanted roof. Scott jammed the heels of his hands against her, driving splinters deeper. She clung.
“You’re just like her. Trying to throw me away. No more!”
He loomed above. Standing on the window seat. In the flash before his foot stomped on her fingers, she released one hand, dangling now.
His foot landed on the frame where her other hand had been, barely missing her one-handed. She caught his ankle and yanked. Momentum already carrying him forward, he pitched out the window, landing on the roof beside her. She heard his hands tearing at the shingles, trying to catch hold, anything to fight the gravity pulling him.
Maggie reached up to grasp the frame with both hands, the motion swinging her feet to one side.
Oh, God! Scott had caught her left foot.
His weight pulled her like the rack. Arms, shoulders, torso, left leg, all screamed with the burning stretch.
“You, too, Maggie. You, too.”
The harsh whisper came from the dark closing over her. She had no voice to beg for her life.
She felt the yank on her foot, knew he was no longer trying to save himself. He wanted only to kill her. To kill her as he had Pan and Laurel. She would be a victim, like the women in her photographs. No longer there to fight for them.
Like Aunt Vivian.
She saw her face. Heard her.
Maggie.
It would be okay. Aunt Vivian would fold her in her arms, and it would be okay. She wouldn’t fight any more. She could let go…
No… No, Maggie. Live. Not for me. Live for yourself. Fight, Maggie. Fight. And live.
A sob sucked air into her lungs. She kicked out with her right foot. Once. Twice. And again.
She caught him the third time. His head, she thought. He screamed. The unbearable drag on her leg disappeared, and he screamed again. The descending crash of branches swallowed the scream. But not its echoes.
Finally, she heard only her own wheezing pants, and the voracious crackle of fire.
She was beyond pain. Beyond struggle. Beyond letting go. She would stay here. Right here. Until… Until.
Smoke billowed out of the windows. She coughed. Turned her face to the side.
The harsh pebbles of the shingles pressed into her cheek. She closed her eyes and concentrated on a pain she could fathom.
“Maggie.”
Was that the last thing in her mind before she died? J.D. saying her name? Shouldn’t her entire life flash before her eyes? Or was it a mercy to not get her entire life? To have simply his voice?
She looked up, but smoke filled the window above her.
Then she felt a strong hold across the back of her waist. From here, out on the roof.
“J.D.?” He was real. “You’re here.”
“Yeah.” He was doing something. Lying on his stomach next to her, but not sliding.
“You didn’t fall off the roof.”
“Caught the gutter. Swung into the porch.” He was tying a rope. That’s what he was doing. Tying a rope around her waist. Connecting it to himself.
“Scott fell off. Down—”
“I know. I tried to get back before— But you’re not going to fall. We’re getting off together.”
“Okay.”
“Good.” He tugged at the rope. “Draw your legs up to the side, like a frog. Good. Use the side of your feet. Press against the shingles. That’s right. Now, let go of the window.”
Her fingers wouldn’t open.
“Maggie, I’ve got you.” His arm crossed over her back. “You can let go.”
Sooty tears slid into her mouth. “I’m trying.”
He shifted, reached over her, and pried her fingers open. Fire licked at the vertical window frame.
“Here we go,” J.D. said. Calm, unhurried.
They edged their way across the roof like peculiar crabs. No, frogs. He’d said frog.
She focused on his voice. And the inch in front of her.
Voices came from below. Voices shouting about their safety. About the fire. She listened to only one voice. The one closest to her.
They reached the edge, it was easier to breathe here. Slightly. Though with each breath that benefit lessened, as the smoke followed.
J.D. checked the rope.
“The ground’s not solid enough where the roof’s lower. We have to drop to the ground from up here. I’m going over the edge first, Maggie.” He brought his face close to hers. Looked into her eyes. “When I tell you, lower yourself down. Wait for my word, then let go and I’ll be there.”
He stroked her hair once. Looked as if he might say more. Instead, he left. And she was alone.
“I won’t be able to hold here long.”
Who was she telling? J.D.? Herself? Vivian? Jamie and Ally? Bel and Landis? Nancy?
A little longer, Maggie, they all said.
A little longer.
She’d do that. She owed it to all of them.
A little longer.
“Maggie.” His strong voice came from below. She released the breath she hadn’t known she held. He hadn’t disappeared into the abyss. He’d reached ground. “Slide over the edge now.”
Her muscles shook as she slid one leg then the other over the edge of the eave, each move accompanied by the scrape of the shingles. She didn’t have the strength to lower herself slowly, her weight jerked her down.
“Okay, Maggie. Let go.”
She couldn’t. She hung, her hold weakening, the stretch in her shuddering arms becoming more impossible each second. But she couldn’t let go.
“I’ll get you.”
She closed her eyes. And she saw his face. Seeing the blood. Seeing the pain. Seeing the loner. The survivor. The innocent man.
“Trust me, Maggie. Trust me.”
She looked down, between her arms and to the side. Saw a slice of his face.
“Shut up.” She gulped in air. “And get me on the damn ground.”
He grinned, altering the path of the blood running down his cheek. Stretched his arms higher, narrowing the gap she would fall but unable to close it.
“C’mon, then.”