“Here we go,” Barron said as he slid into his seat on one of the fire choppers beside Cade. “My guess is cigarette. Got five on it. You?”

Cade shook his head and grinned. “I’m not betting with you after that last time. How the hell’d you know it was a kerosene lamp anyway?”

Barron shrugged. “Saw it on Facebook before we got there.”

“Bastard,” Cade said with a chuckle.

Dominguez and Fields each stuck to their sides of the fire rescue chopper, looking down at the terrain below.

“Ain’t seen the fire yet, maybe we’ve been called out for a false alarm,” Barron said.

He was the youngest on the repeller crew, just nineteen years old, and came from an all-boys military prep school where he swore up and down he hadn’t seen a girl for four straight years.

“Doubtful. I’ve worked as a hotshot for fifteen years, and this would be my first,” Fields muttered.

The helicopter pilot made his way north, and soon enough they could see the smoke and little bits of orange flame here and there in the trees.

They kept going north, almost ten minutes, and Cade’s concern level grew. Each minute north they went, the flames were more and more prominent.

“What the hell?” Cade said under his breath. He called to the helicopter pilot. “Hey, Sean, I thought the Captain said this was just a two alarm. This—hell, this is a full-blown wildfire.”

“I’ll call in to report that,” Sean said and clicked on the his radio. “Sean here, you hear me, Captain?”

It crackled, but there was nothing.

“Captain, you copy? This isn’t a two alarm, you copy?” Sean clicked it off. “Fuck, man, this piece of shit isn’t working.”

“It’s alright,” Cade said as he got ready to rappel out of the chopper. “We gotta go anyway. Just get back as soon as you can manage, and let everybody know. Where’s the other crew?”

Sean shrugged. Cade sighed and heaved the door open. The tiny chopper seemed to struggle to stay upright. Dominguez and Fields jumped out, their lines attached to the helicopter still.

“Well, let’s get it started. Guys, you know what to do. Barron, you’re with me.”

“How’d I get so lucky?”

Cade jumped, the feeling of freefall hitting him hard for a few seconds. Then his line caught, and he quickly began rappelling downward. In less than two minutes, he and Barron were on the ground.

The fire was everywhere.

Cade led the way into the thick of it, gear heavy on his back. He practiced his breathing without thought. It was built into him. The heat slapped at his face, and from his peripheral vision he could see Barron one step behind him. Twenty feet away, Dominguez and Fields forked off into the brush.

They needed to find someplace to start a firebreak, a big dirt trench that would essentially interrupt the fire, keep it from spreading. He surveyed the land.

This isn’t right, Cade thought. The fire’s too hot, it’s burning too fast.

He glanced back toward the chopper, but the air where it had been was vacant. His heart leapt into his chest as the ground began to writhe beneath him.

“Snakes! Snakes!” he thought he heard Barron yell. The com was acting weird, cutting in and out. It made it that much harder to communicate, stuck in the middle of nowhere.

But it wasn’t snakes at all, it was a nest of chestnut-colored rabbit kits with no doe in sight.

“Shit,” Cade said under his breath. The little balls of fur wriggled in fear, stuck in a nest they’d likely never been out of.

“Fucking hell,” Cade said. Everything in him told him to keep going, get that firebreak going before all hell broke loose.

What difference does two seconds make?

He leaned down and grasped the three kits in his gloves and tossed them behind him. On shaky, unfamiliar legs, they raced off away from the fire, freed from the fallen brambles that had pinned them down.

Cade didn’t want to see whatever look Barron might shoot him, so he immediately buckled down and started on the firebreak from his side.

But when he got to the point where he thought they’d meet, there was nothing there.

“Barron?” he called and looked up. He was alone, and the fire moved faster than it should have. “Barron!”

In the distance, forty feet away, he thought he saw three yellow figures through the smoke.

What the hell?

Cade grabbed the walkie talkie.

“Barron? You there? Dominguez, Fields?” Like Sean’s radio, his walkie talkie cackled, but nothing more. “Shit.”

Just like Barron to go running off like that. What, does he think he’s some kind of hero?

“Duke, you copy? Cade you copy? The fire’s moving fast—” Fields’ voice broke through the walkie talkie.

Cade looked around, but the smoke was so thick that he could barely see three feet in front of his face.

“1o-4,” Cade said, thankful. “Is Barron with you?”

“Cade? The fire’s moving your way fast. Cade?”

“10-4!” Cade yelled into the walkie talkie.

“Shit, man, I don’t think he can hear—” Fields said, then cut off abruptly.

Cade walked away from the trench, looking around desperately. The smoke shifted and Cade spotted three distinct figures in the gulch below.

What the hell are they all doing down there?

“Hey!” he started, but the fire boxed him in on two sides.

Forwards or backwards, he calculated. Either way, it was a fifty-fifty shot.

Cade leapt forward to make it out of the flames, but his heavy boot caught on the edge of the same pit that had entrapped the rabbits. As soon as he went down, he knew it was fractured.

He looked behind him, eyes wide. Somehow, the fire had missed him. It eagerly tore through the grass, brush, and debris behind him.

Cade tried to struggle to his feet, but he couldn’t stand on his ankle.

“Cade?” Barron’s voice crackled over the walkie talkie. The fear in it was evident. “If you can hear me, retreat. The fire is close, and the firebreak won’t stop it.”

Cade dragged himself out of the small pit towards the ledge. The high rocky ground was his only chance for cover. He figured it was also his only chance to see the gulch clearly.

“Cade!” Dominguez’s voice roared through the radio, all protocol lost. He could hear choking, desperate prayers sent skyward.

Fuck! he thought. They need me, right now.

“I’m coming,” Cade said into his radio.

He pulled himself forward, but even at the highest part of the ledge he couldn’t bring himself to tumble into the flames. The heat kept him at bay. Far below, he watched his crew huddle together.

They no longer tried to escape. Dominguez kept his finger on the walkie talkie, and sounds erupted from it like wild animals.

Cade tried to call for them, but the smoke filled his throat and burned his lungs.

“Dominguez, can you hear me? Dominguez, do you copy? Barron? Fields?” Cade barely had enough in him to get the words out.

I’m going to die. It wasn’t an entirely unwelcome thought.

Dominguez’s voice roared over the walkie talkie, intermittent and subdued. “… perdónanos nuestras deudas, asì como nosotros perdonamos á nuestros deudores…”

“No!” Cade cried, even as the smoke almost blinded him.

He watched as the flames circled the three men below like a playful lover. It licked at their feet, and none of them flinched. It should have been me.

“No,” Cade said again, even as the darkness hugged him close.

“Amen,” Dominguez’s voice rang through the walkie talkie.

Cade watched him drop the walkie talkie into the flames. As the fire trailed along Barron’s leg, the three men looked up at once, right into Cade’s eyes. Into the darkest, inkiest part of him.

Barron let out a keen like nothing Cade had ever heard before. It crashed into his soul and buried itself deep.

I’m sorry.

* * *

You’ve reached the end of Smolder, a Hot As Hell freebie. Want a sneak peek into Hot As Hell? Turn the page for the first chapter!