“Okay.” Joel turned back into the cabin.
Hope ignored the flush of heat hitting her cheeks and grabbed him. “Joel, no.”
“Fine.” He stepped outside with a hand on her lower back and pulled the door shut behind them. “Anything happening out here?”
“Shuffling over there.” Cam pointed at a shadowed spot to the far left of the cabins. “When I went to check it out I met a raccoon family.”
Joel blew out a long ragged breath. “They know anything about the shooter?”
“If so, they’re not talking.” Cam yawned.
Joel shook his head as he grabbed Cam’s flashlight. “Go to bed, you lightweight.”
Hope took two steps off the porch and glanced around, looking for anything that might have changed from the nights before the retreat went haywire. Same logs and campfire area.
The front porch lights of each cabin remained off as Joel ordered. Turning them on would cast the world just a few feet out in total darkness, and that was too risky. So, they went with limited lighting and depended on their vision to adjust.
The night was still and the rain had slowed to a drizzle, so she lowered her hood. She could hear the dripping of water off the leaves. The soft ping of raindrops hitting the ground usually comforted her. Tonight it had an odd shiver shaking down her spine.
Something wasn’t right. She’d spent so much of her life outside and could pick up on the strangeness of a moment. Her father joked she was one with nature, whatever that meant. Really, she had mentally catalogued the sights and sounds...and smells.
She turned around and the men stood right behind her. In her haze she hadn’t heard them move.
Joel frowned. “What’s going on?”
The scent. That was it. “Do you smell that?”
“I smell rain,” Cam said.
Joel leaned past her in the direction of the cabin Cam was temporarily using and where Perry recuperated. “No, she’s right.”
Memories of her father’s powerboat from when she was a little girl. The sharp scent she smelled every time she filled the tank of her car. “It’s gasoline. Fire.”
Joel was already running, with Cam right behind. They were shouting orders but she couldn’t pick up the words as they got lost in the forest in front of them. They ran toward Perry’s cabin.
Joel hit the door first. He reached for the knob and drew his hand back fast. Bending down, he rammed into the wood with his shoulder and it slammed open, bouncing against the inside wall.
He disappeared. Never hesitated. Never called for help. He just slipped in, stuck on hero mode like always.
Through the doorway she could see the orange flames licking up the inside back wall, and her heart shredded. Heat punched her in the face as smoke curled out of the opening and into the dark sky.
She tried to get her legs to move, but a sharp scream cut through her consciousness. It took another second to realize it came from her. Then Cam was in front of her with his hands on her shoulders.
He gave her a small shake. “We need water.”
She grabbed fists full of his shirt and pulled. “Joel.” His name ripped out of her.
“I’ll get him, but I need water.”
The comment refused to register in her brain. Every cell screamed at her to rush in that door and hunt Joel down. “What?”
Cam put a hand on her cheek. “Hope, listen to me. We need to put this out before it spreads. It could take out all the cabins and us with it.”
The cloud of confusion hovering around her cleared. Sparks caught on the breeze and drifted up into the sky in bright flashes of light. “There’s a hose in the kitchen cabin. It’s hooked to a well, but—”
“Go bang on Charlie’s door. Wake him and everyone else up. We need all bodies on this.”
A load roar had her looking past Cam into the cabin. She could make out a figure moving around. Her fingers tightened on Cam’s shirt. “Get Joel out of there.”
“I promise.” He turned her toward Charlie’s cabin. “Go.”
Time blurred as she raced to the far cabin. Every step took forever, as if her legs weighed a thousand pounds each, and she yelled as she ran. By the time she hit the steps, the door opened and Charlie stood there in a white tank and shorts.
She ran right to him. “Fire!”
His eyes widened. “What?”
“We need everyone.”
She didn’t stay around to explain. She took off again. Her feet slid in the mud and she skidded across a patch of slick grass. Her balance faltered and her arms waved.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw a shadow looming near the doorway of the burning cabin. With her concentration gone, she slipped and fell, catching her weight on one arm before hitting the ground on her butt.