Chasing Fire

the other way.” Dobie leaned back against the tire. “Wish I had a beer.”
    “Once this little interlude’s over,” Gull told him, “the first round’s on me.”
    “I was thinking about going to the lounge, kicking back with some screen and a beer. Just stepped outside for a minute, and bam! bam! ”
    “So you ran out, in the open, instead of back in?” Rowan demanded.
    “I wasn’t sure if either of you were hit or not, the way you both went down.”
    Rowan leaned over Gull, kissed Dobie on the mouth. “Thanks.”
    “I’m not kissing you. He’s gone,” Gull added. “He took off after the third shot.”
    “I expect so,” Dobie agreed. “It’s full dusk now. He can’t see squat, unless he’s got infrared.”
    “Let’s go.” Rowan pushed up to her haunches. “If he wants to shoot us, he could circle around in the dark and get us while we’re sitting here.”
    “She’s got a point. Don’t run in a straight line. That’s what they say in the movies,” Gull pointed out. “Barracks?”
    “Barracks,” Dobie agreed.
    Before either man could react, Rowan sprang up, a runner off the blocks, and revved straight into a sprint.
    “Goddamn it.”
    Gull raced after her—could have caught her, passed her, they both knew. But he stayed at her back, zigging when she zigged, zagging when she zagged.
    “We’re coming in!” Rowan called out, then hit the door.
    “What the hell were you thinking?” Gull grabbed her, spun her around. “Taking off like that?”
    “I was thinking you weren’t going to be my human shield twice in one day. I appreciate the first, I’m not stupid.”
    “You don’t get to decide for me.”
    “Right back at you.”
    They shouted at each other while people shouted around them. Libby let out a piercing whistle. “Shut up! Shut the hell up. Everybody!” She shoved her hands through the hair dripping from the shower she’d leaped out of. “Gull, you’re bleeding on the floor. Somebody get a first-aid kit and clean him up. The cops are on their way. Okay, the cops are here,” she amended when the sirens sounded. “L.B. wants everybody inside until . . . until we know something.”
    “Come on, Gull.” Janis gave him a light pat on the butt. “I’ll be Nurse Betty.”
    “Is everybody accounted for?” Rowan asked.
    “Between here, the cookhouse and Operations, we’re all good.” Yangtree stepped forward, drew her in for a hug that nearly cracked her ribs. “I was watching TV. I thought it was a backfire. Then Trig came running through, said somebody was shooting, and you were out there.” He drew her back. “What the fuck, Ro?”
    “My thought exactly. Why would somebody shoot at us?”
    “People are batshit.” Dobie shrugged. “Maybe one of those government’s-our-enemy types. Y’all got those militia types out here.”
    “Three shots isn’t much of a statement.”
    “It would’ve been,” Trigger pointed out, “if one of them had hit you or Gull.”
    “Your father’s going to hear about this, Ro,” Yangtree commented. “You call him now before he does, tell him you’re okay.”
    “Yeah, you’re right.” She glanced down toward Gull’s quarters before she stepped into her own to make the call.
    Steaming, Gull endured the sting as Janis cleaned out cuts and scrapes. “What the hell’s wrong with her?”
    “Since the blood on her appeared to be mostly yours, not much. And I know you’re talking about how she thinks or acts, but you’ll have to be more specific.”
    “How can somebody trained to be a team player, who is a team player in ninety percent of her life, be the damn opposite the other ten?”
    “First, smoke jumpers work as a crew, but you know damn well we all have to think, act and react individually. But more to the point, with Rowan it’s defense mechanism, pride, an instinctive hesitation to trust.”
    “Defense against what?”
    “Against having her pride smacked and her trust betrayed. Personally, I think she’s dealt pretty well with being abandoned by her mother as an infant. But I don’t think anybody ever gets all the way over being abandoned. Okay, I’m going to need to use the tweezers to get some of this debris out. Feel free to curse me.”
    He said, “Fuck,” then gritted his teeth. “You trust every time you get in the door. The spotter, the pilot, yourself. Hell, you have to trust fate isn’t going to send a speeding bus your way every time you step out of your house. If you can’t take