Up in Flames (Rosemary Beach 13)

“Yeah,” Captain said on the other end of the line.

“I’ve got Franco bleeding out at my feet on Nan’s front doorsteps. Let Cope know,” I said, then disconnected the call and slipped my phone back into my pocket. Looking back down at Franco, I smiled. “Cope’s the man who will eventually kill you. I’m just the welcoming committee. He’s a crazy-ass son of a bitch. Can’t say I like him much, but I like him more than I like your sorry ass.”

Franco moved, lightly moaning, and I made a tsking sound.

“Unless you want me to shoot your other knee, I’d hold the fuck still. After that, I’m blowing your balls off, and that’s where I should have started, you sick fuck. Messing with kids.”

“He didn’t answer,” Nan said, standing at the door with her phone in her hand, looking terrified and as pale as a ghost.

“It’s OK, I called. You go inside and drink some juice or something. This will be over soon enough.”

“I called Rush.” She sounded as if she regretted it already. Like a child telling on herself.

Shit. Rush didn’t need to be in on this. “Fine. I’ll handle him when he gets here. Go inside away from this, and stay safe. You’ll have to answer questions when Cope gets here. The surveillance and all, remember?”

She frowned at me, still looking confused and terrified. “What surveillance?” she asked.

Sighing, I lifted my gaze from Franco again, and this time, I frowned at her. “The note I wrote to you and put on your counter explaining everything before I left town. Warning you about the cameras and Gannon and shit.”

She continued to frown. “Huh?”

Franco moved, and I finally got to shoot him in the balls. His scream made me laugh. “Guess you won’t try to move again,” I quipped, highly amused.

Nan

Too much didn’t make sense. But I’d pinched myself about five times, trying to wake up, and I finally accepted that I was completely awake. Major had just shot Franco several times on my front porch. Major knew Gannon, but he called him Cope. And there was surveillance somewhere here? I was so confused.

I was also about to get sick again. Running to the nearest toilet, I regretted having called Rush. He didn’t need to be mixed up in this. This was my mistake, not his, and Major had a gun. As had Franco, until Major shot it out of his hand. Hitting my already bruised knees, I winced and then held my hair as I began dry-heaving into the toilet.

“Nan!” Rush’s voice rang through the house, and I waited another second to be sure the heaving was done, before flushing the toilet and standing up.

I didn’t have the energy to respond to him yet. Splashing cold water onto my clammy skin, I inhaled deeply, then turned to walk out of the powder room to see my brother searching for me with a frantic look on his face.

“Nan,” he said, pulling me into his arms tightly. “Its OK. I’m here. Major is here, and obviously, he’s crazy as a fucking loon and taking care of things.” He buried his nose in my head. “This nightmare is almost over. Just go up to your room, and stay there. Don’t leave until I come get you. OK?”

I wasn’t about to let Rush walk outside, where there were crazy men and guns. “No. You stay with me.”

“You’ll be safe. Just stay in your room. Major assured me backup is on its way.”

“I don’t want you out there near that,” I told him honestly. “Blaire and the kids. They need you safe. Stay with me.”

He paused, and for a moment, I knew that he was thinking about what I’d said. I was being honest. I needed him, yes, but they needed him more.

“OK, let me go tell Major where I’ll be. You get upstairs.”

I was good with that. “Hurry.”

“I will.”

My room seemed like a different place from what it had been only one hour ago. It was no longer a safe place. Nothing felt safe anymore. I doubted it ever would. Standing amid the familiarity of my things, I started to feel hungry again. How was I hungry at a time like this? Wasn’t I sick?

No stomach virus I’d had ever had was like this. Sick one moment, hungry the next. Not to mention that I had just witnessed a man being shot more than once and bleeding on my front steps. Could this be a dream? Did the pinching thing not really work? I mean, who had actually pinched themselves in a dream and woken up? If you’re dreaming, then you aren’t technically pinching yourself, so that doesn’t make sense. And if you’re supposed to feel the pinch, then you can make up in your dream that you feel the pain, right?

Sitting on the edge of my bed, I decided I had snapped. There was a man outside who was a drug lord, shot and bleeding all over my porch. Major was holding him at gunpoint and telling me to call Gannon, like they were the best of buds. This had to be a dream. My stomach growled as if it were starving for food. Did your stomach growl in dreams? Did my stomach not know that I was sick and I’d just seen a man shot?

Another loud growl. I touched my stomach to shut it up, and it was at that moment, as I sat there with a loud, angry stomach, that it dawned on me. This nightmare had just taken a turn. One that wasn’t a nightmare but more of a light at the end. Something to make my life worth living. Something that would keep me sane and give me love, as I in return gave love.

Placing a hand on my stomach, I had no doubt. My period should have come more than two weeks ago. It hadn’t. I’d been so wrapped in my pain and sorrow that I hadn’t noticed.

I was pregnant. That was, if I was actually awake.