Chapter Sixteen

Aidan

LEO IS NOWHERE TO be found for the next couple of hours. Mercer and Colton are talking about the Harbour Point SEAL base and how the initiative to get guys to transfer there has been incentivized with a huge bonus. My only thought is I hope Leo doesn’t get it. Rarely are there SEALs who rock the boat as much as Leo. Sometimes bad seeds slip through the cracks and make it through BUD/s. Whoever sat on the panel and said yes to Leo should be fired.

Kendall and Magnolia left the fundraiser at the same time. Both were visibly upset—a fight surely brewing between them as they walked into the night. I check my watch several different times as time ticks slowly when I’m forced to be somewhere I don’t want to be. The Mayor comes over and thanks us for our attendance and we all pretend we’re having the best time and thank him for the invitation. We are his show ponies for the evening and we all know it. We’re left to recite rehearsed stories to a few people the Mayor is entertaining and at the stroke of ten, our commitment ends.

Tahoe and a few of the other married guys stay, dancing with their wives, happy to have a date night to themselves. The rest of us take off, melting into the crowd and skulking toward the exit. Mercer and Colton are heading to Bobby’s Bar and ask If I want to join them. I give them a solid maybe as it will depend on how my conversation with Magnolia goes, and head back to the base to pick up my truck. Polly is waiting out front at the guard shack in front of the compound. She’s unable to get further without a military badge or without having her name on the guest list.

“What’s up, Polly?”

“That’s all you had to say? You really just wanted to apologize to me tonight? Nothing more?” In the dim light of the streetlights, I can see that she’s upset. “I thought maybe we could have another night together. Or more.”

This is irritating. In the vein of not being a cocky asshole, I decide to give her the time of day, or in this case, night. “Come on,” I growl, showing the guard at the shack my ID and vouching for Polly. He smiles and waves me on.

“I really did miss you. As awful as you treated me, I know we had something special.”

Do it like Band-Aid. Rip it off fast, Aidan. “I’m in love with Magnolia. I really was apologizing because no one deserves to be cast off that way. I’m sorry if you were led to believe this was happening.” I motion between our bodies with one fluid gesture. “It’s not.”

She shakes her head sadly. “What does she have that I don’t? She has a kid. An ex-husband. More baggage than can be contained in the pit of an airplane. Help me understand.” Polly crosses her legs and suddenly it strikes me how much confidence she lacks. I was too concerned with sex and release to know her. To know any of them.

We’re outside so my cover is still on, but I raise it a bit so she can see my eyes. “It has nothing to do with you,” I explain. “You’re fine. You’re perfect. Just not for me. It has nothing to do with her baggage, and her parental status isn’t of any concern.” I lay my fist against my chest. “Trust me on this, Polly. You want a man to want you more than anything else in the world. To be indisputable, unfailingly his. You want to be imprinted on his heart and in his mind so severely that there’s no question. You are his person.” I sigh, emotionally exhausted. I wasn’t prepared for sadness. I thought she might smack me again and I’d tear out of the parking lot and head for Magnolia’s Steals. This is taking longer than I thought it would. A few other men filter through the gate and head toward the parking lot where we’re at. I wrap my arm around her shoulder and guide her back to the guard shack. As we walk, she asks, “And you feel that for Magnolia? Leo sent me here. Told me you’d be here. I just wanted to hear it for myself.” Why would he send her here?

Blowing out a frustrated breath, I reply, “Yes. One hundred percent yes. Even if I shouldn’t feel that way—have no right. She’s my person whether she wants to be or not. I’ll live with it. I’ll always love her in every way.”

“She’s crazy if she doesn’t work things out with you, Aidan Mixx. Certifiably insane,” Polly whispers. Turning out of my grasp she makes her way to the sidewalk on the other side of the road and waves before she disappears into the darkness. This dalliance with Polly has made me ten minutes late. Jogging back to my vehicle I strip out of my jacket, toss my cover onto the passenger seat and crank the engine.

The drive to the Town Center takes two minutes, but I know in one that something is very wrong. There is a tepid, thick smoke rising and people are bustling on the sidewalk pointing in the sky. In any other area of Bronze Bay, it would be someone burning their leaves, brush, or trash, but this smog is dark, and it is here, in the center of town. The smoke blows toward the ocean, and I pick up my pace going more than ten miles per hour over the limit. It must be a pretty bad car accident to produce this much hazy darkness.

It hits me all at once, the scent is wrong. My guard is up when I park in the public lot closest to the Town Center. I jog down the sidewalk trying to find the source of the fire. The haze thickens as I get closer and as I pass a café, I hear someone say, “It’s the antique store. The whole thing is up in smoke!” Instead of slowing my pace to ask questions, I break out into a full on sprint, dodging those passing by. I round the last corner and my stomach drops, and my bones turn to ice. Magnolia’s Steals is burning. There are sirens in the distance, people gawking, and heat. Inferno quality, motherfucking heat radiating from the building.

Surely they aren’t in there. Waiting for me. This has been burning for at least fifteen minutes. Hopefully they weren’t even here. My gaze darts to the window display and the shawl that matched Kendall’s dress is draped over a stool directly behind the scene displayed. They were there. Are still in there. I break back into a sprint and head for the back door. It’s unlocked, so I wedge myself in the door and try to focus my gaze in the gray, swirling air. Someone screams, an ear piercing, agonizing wail, from upstairs. “Help!” The word is clear as day and my stomach lurches as the worst case scenario flits to awareness.

Pushing my emotions aside, I click into work mode. I tear off my button up shirt and hold it over my face as I make my way to where the stairs were from memory. The fire is on the second floor of the building, and it’s infiltrated the left half of the downstairs area. I turn the corner and I see the door to the back room open. Magnolia is lying on the floor illuminated by red light, hair floating around her like a halo, eyes closed. I run to her, kneeling beside her, I pull her into my arms.

Magnolia blinks her eyes a few times, and they flutter open. “Fuck,” I hiss. “I’m getting you out of here.” Two things happen next. A supporting beam falls to the side, trapping Magnolia on the floor, her leg pinned at the ankle, and Kendall ruthlessly screams out for help from upstairs.

“Aidan,” Magnolia croaks. “Please save her.”

This is the nightmare. The one where I get to choose how I die. Slowly. Or quickly. I choose, no one else gets this honor. Like one of those video games where you get to pick your own adventure. Save the woman I love. Or kill the woman I love by letting her daughter suffocate in flames. I don’t think my mother taught me much over the years, but recently I’ve discovered what it means to love a child. I’m pulling on the offending beam trapping her, burning my palms, listening to Magnolia choke on her pleas when I make the most selfless decision I’ve ever made in my life. I walk away from Magnolia Sager. I leave her near lifeless body on the floor of a burning building and I pound the creaky stairs to find Kendall. Her screams died off and I’m anticipating the worst when I kick in the door to the spare bedroom where I first made love to Magnolia. I can’t see through the smoke up here. It’s cascading around me like a carnival ride of death. I cough and wheeze. I huff, and I get light headed.

“Help,” Kendall croaks from somewhere close. My knees hit the end of the bed and I feel around for her and catch hold of an ankle and yank her toward me. Everything is hot. Too hot. My skin is crawling. I heave Kendall over my shoulder and cut the same path I came from except the floor gives way and my leg falls through the feeble, burning hardwood.

Kendall stays on my shoulder, but the added weight sinks me farther. I can’t breathe. She’s not talking, and I doubt she’s conscious by the limp weight on my shoulders. With a determination that comes from a place I’ve never tapped, I pull myself up and out of the floor. There is blood. There is a broken bone in my foot, too. I can feel the bite of pain and the wetness. The roof next to us collapses and it rains down fire on our exposed skin.

Haphazardly, I wobble forward, because I know our time is limited. We’re going to die here. All of us. The stairs aren’t safe if the roof is caving in, and support beams are falling. Flames lick up from every angle, but I make it down using the handrail and balance I didn’t know I possessed. I blow out the front door and collapse into a heap on the sidewalk. Just Kendall and me.

Funny time for my lungs to give out now that they finally have an oxygen source. The last thing I remember is someone putting an oxygen mask on my face and the fuzzy sight of Kendall being loaded into an ambulance. I’d tell someone to go get Magnolia, that I need to go back in, but my vocal cords don’t work, and my brain can’t form words.

No one knows she’s in there burning alive.

Burning for love.

_______________

I come to in the hospital, with two men staring down at me—speaking words that echo before settling on the correct syllables. Nothing makes sense. Couldn’t tell you if minutes have passed, hours, or days, only that my chest hurts and anytime I breathe, a pain slices my throat like a machete. I’m repeating one word on autopilot. “Magnolia” Or at least, that’s what I’m trying to say and I’m not sure they can decipher with the mask on my face. I make a move to take off the mask, but they hold my arms down.

My muscles, those bastards I work so hard for, fail me when it matters most. The nurse’s grip feels like a vise grip. I kick, trying to find purchase to sit up, but a new pain slides up my body beginning on the left leg. A coolness spreads up my arm stemming from my elbow. Blackness overtakes my senses. In a half dream, half reality state, I envision another alternative to the disaster. When I run into the fiery house, I’m able to save them both because I didn’t stop to talk to Polly, wasn’t a good guy. I tossed her a cocky one-liner about one-night stands and I leave her in the dust. When I get to the antique store, I have time to tell Magnolia how much I love her, and rescuing them both takes mere seconds. Heat doesn’t exist in my dream scenario, neither does smoke that suffocates. It’s just us and the simplicity of knowing we’re all safe and will remain so for the rest of time. The knowledge of the lies I’m telling myself begins to prick the dream, like pinholes letting in light where it shouldn’t be. More and more of the truths seep in. Horrible, life-altering truths I’m not sure how I’ll live with. My body jerks and I’m back in my dim reality, unable to accept the truth.

I have no gear. No fancy, cutting-edge armor to protect me in this mission. My brothers aren’t standing by or covering my six. It’s hard to make sense of what has happened when the loneliness haunts me so pervasively.

Magnolia is gone and I’m the one who failed to save her.