Montana Falls (Red Diamonds #5)

Chapter Twenty Seven

T he heat from the fire was suffocating, and the air was thick with smoke. Every breath burned my lungs, and every step sent a jolt of pain shooting up my arm. My palms were seared with burns, and my wrist hung limp and swollen at my side, throbbing with a relentlessness I couldn’t even pretend to block out.

“Price?!” I roared, as flames licked at the walls of the Montana mansion, sealing most of the people inside to their fate.

Screams echoed through the hallways—voices I recognized, voices that fueled my panic. My heart raced, my mind spinning as I moved through the wreckage, trying to find everyone but getting nowhere fast.

I screamed each of their names. Over and over and over again. Desperate to find the people I cared for most and make sure I hadn’t lost anyone else.

I stumbled over debris, the floor beneath me unstable, and each time I braced myself, my hands flared with fresh agony. My palms felt like they were being split open every time I touched something. Sweat poured down my face, mixing with the ash and smoke that clung to my skin, making it harder to see, harder to breathe. But none of that mattered. All that mattered was finding them.

Finding them and getting Sapphire for whatever else she had planned next.

“Lincoln!” I called out, my voice hoarse. “Price!”

I half-sprinted, half-stumbled through the wreckage, dodging flames as best as I could. Curtains caught fire, couches and flowers too. The acrid stench of burning made me splutter and despite knowing I was inhaling too much smoke – that I was in real danger of dying, I didn’t care. I just kept going, pushing my way through the piles of the already dead, sparing them only a glance to see if they were someone I knew, eventually finding that when I stumbled into what had once been the kitchen.

The first thing I saw when I glanced down at the nearest wall was his leg. Or what was left of it, covered in burns and chunks gouged out of his dark flesh from shrapnel that he’d been unlucky enough to stand near.

“Misha…” His dark eyes were wide and glassy, his lips parted with pain. I could see the utter terror and confusion staring back at me as I dropped to my knees, doing my best to stem the blood with a tourniquet made from my belt yanked free from my waist.

“Darius.” I coughed as I tightened the belt. “Stay with me now. I’ve got you.”

He grabbed my hand, squeezing harder than I thought he’d be able to.

“Go.” He ordered. “Get Sapphire – you can’t… can’t let her go.” He almost slurred. “She’s gone…”

“What do you mean?” I made sure my tourniquet was done right, not wanting to cause more damage, before I checked him over for more urgent wounds, and tried to figure out if I had the strength to carry him with my injured arm.

He squeezed my arm tighter, forcing me to listen. “With Cassie.” He panted. “Sapphire is… with her… outside…”

Before I could answer, I heard Price’s voice behind me, weak but insistent as he yelled. “Misha!”

I turned, my breath catching as I saw him stumbling toward me, limping slightly, but determined. My heart lurched at the sight of him—disheveled, dirty, but alive . Without a second thought, I jumped to my feet and closed the distance between us, pulling him into a kiss, the world momentarily fading. His lips were warm and familiar, grounding me in the chaos. When we broke apart, our foreheads rested together for a second, both of us breathing hard.

“I thought I lost you,” I whispered, my voice trembling as hard as my hands.

“Nah, I’m invincible.” He kissed me again before pulling back, spotting Darius, too. “Fuck, dude. Let’s get us out of here, yeah?” He bent down, ignoring the cuts on his arms to gently grab hold of Darius, hoisting him up.

“Misha…” Darius said again, half-heartedly waving towards a ruined piece of wall, where some large glass windows had once been. “Go…”

I had half a dozen questions and a million different ideas. But there was no time. My mind was racing, spinning with too many thoughts. I needed to find my brother; Kody and Logan too. I had to make sure they were safe.

Sapphire was supposed to have been safe, hidden away, but the explosion… Darius said Cassie had her.

That they were outside.

I grabbed Price’s arm. “I need to find Sapphire,” I said, my voice urgent.

He looked at me, his eyes full of fear and love. “Why? What happened?”

“Darius said she’s just gone outside with Cassie.” I replied, fear heightening.

“Okay. Let’s go.” He tightened his grip on Darius. “Follow behind me and be careful.”

We took off, moving through the wreckage of the mansion with relative ease; at least it felt easier now than it had on my own, but that was more down to Price’s presence than the danger lessening.

The building was still on fire, and we were all still in it.

At least we were for another few minutes, before voices got louder and the smoke thinned out, and we blessedly found ourselves at an exit.

“Mish!” My brother roared my name, and before I could blink, he was on me, half dragging me through a gap in the wall – that had been the front door earlier on – and onto the driveway, patting me over and hugging me tight enough I was sure he’d broke a rib.

He pulled back, staring at me, his face covered in ash. “Are you okay?”

“My wrist hurts. I think it’s broken.” I waved my limp arm. “And I burned my hands when I pushed some wood off myself. But other than that, I’m fine. Are you?”

He nodded and pointed behind him, to where a good dozen people were in various stages of distress, as firefighters readied themselves to head inside, and paramedics dealt with the injured.

“Kody’s fine apart from some minor burns, and Logan’s broke his legs – some beam thing fell on him and we had to drag it off.” He swallowed hard. “Yeva still hasn’t come out, but Kiril and two Russian dudes that just joined the gang went back in to look for her before the firefighters came.”

Luckily, the rest of our group wasn’t here. With Beau being… occupied, Raya had taken the reins in organising the funeral. She’d insisted all the kids stay at home, and Widow and Delilah were still too weak, and they needed Kellan to look after them. Darius had only come to offer me support if I needed it, and even that had been far too risky.

But that meant there was only one more person inside and unaccounted for from my core group.

One person left who hadn’t made it out.

“What about Rika?” I asked. “Is she okay?”

“I don’t know,” Linc’s voice broke, “she’s still in there, too. She went with Yeva like five minutes before the bombs went off and she never came back. Kody didn’t want to leave, but we couldn’t breathe, and Logan needed us…”

I sucked in a sharp breath, turning and seeking out Kody as his yelling got louder, his curses turned violent, and the firefighters did their best to hold him back, refusing to let him back inside the building that he desperately fought to return to.

“Get your fucking hands off me!” He shoved the biggest guy holding him back, his snarl lethal. “I’m not leaving her in there! Let me go!”

I opened my mouth to tell Lincoln that as much as I wanted to help Kody find his cousin; I had to go. But Price came back to us, having ditched Darius in the paramedic’s capable hands.

“I’m glad you’re all decently okay, but we have to go. Saph needs our help.” He said.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” My brother snarled. “Where is she?”

“Darius said he saw Cassie leading her through the woods not long ago – we need to go after her, now.”

“I’ll deal with Kody.” Lincoln wiped his hand over his face. “You guys go – call me when you get there and… and find her. I’ll follow with Kody once he chills the fuck out and listens to me.” He narrowed his eyes a little. “And tell the princess I’m going to beat her ass and punish her for at least a year if she’s got herself hurt.”

“You’ll have to get in line.” Price growled as he pulled his phone out at my murmured request and handed it over to me. “And make it a decade, not just a year.”

I opened up the tracking software I’d already installed on all our devices, instantly searching for the most important ones I needed, but then my brother swore and said my name, distracting me for a second.

I turned my head toward him. “Yeah?”

“Be… be careful.” He stared at me, a strange look on his face. “I’ll be right behind you, okay? Don’t do anything stupid until I get there and just… just be safe. Cassie is… she’s… just be safe.”

“Okay.” I promised. “I’ll behave.” I turned back to Price when my brother walked away to stop Kody from trying to fight a firefighter so he could go and rescue his cousin. “Let’s hope Sapphire kept that crown on. I put a tracker in it for her.”

Price blinked. “A tracker? Jesus, you really are a genius, aren’t you?”

“I wanted it so I can track her, and we’d know if she was gone; there’s another one in her shoes too, and in one of the rings she always wears. But…” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I don’t know if Cassie will take them off her. I don’t know if they will work. But I figured it was better than nothing.”

Within moments, the screen lit up with Sapphire’s location, a blinking dot on the map leading her away from us.

My trackers were live and all of them were working.

Our girl wasn’t going to be lost again. Not now. Not ever.

“She’s heading south,” I said, my pulse quickening. “We need to find a car or something – we can catch her faster through the main road, not the woods.”

Without another word, we sprinted toward the driveway, where Lincoln’s car was parked. I reached for the driver’s side door, but the pain in my hands was unbearable as I grabbed it, and I flinched, unable to grip the handle properly.

“I can’t drive.” I muttered through gritted teeth, my frustration boiling over. “We’re going to have to wait for-”

“I’ll drive,” Price said firmly. “Get in the passenger seat.”

I turned to him in surprise. Sure, he knew how to drive in the paper sense. He knew what pedal did what and that he had to steer away from other things. But he’d never sat behind the wheel.

Never once even hinted at being able to do it.

“Are you sure?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “You don’t need to do that. I can fight through the pain or something and-”

He nodded, his eyes filled with determination as he yanked open the passenger door, then hurried to the driver’s side as he cut me off again. “I’ll do it. For her – I’d do it for you too if I had to.”

I swallowed hard, my chest tight with emotions that I had no time to say out loud as we got into the car, and as soon as Price turned the key, the engine roared to life. He hesitated for just a second before flooring the gas, sending the car speeding down the driveway and onto the road with only the slightest of groans from the car protesting his janky movements.

The tires screeched as we took the turns too fast; the landscape blurring past us. My heart raced, not just from the speed, but from everything .

We were far too close to trees. Fences. Other cars. Our speed was reckless and dangerous and I did not feel safe with it like I did with Lincoln. I was almost gripping the edge of my seat with one hand and holding on for dear life, sure we were going to crash before we got to where we needed to go.

“You okay?” I asked, glancing at Price as we sped through the streets, and I kept dishing out directions from the tracker and he kept driving over sidewalks, gardens, and whatever the fuck else he needed to.

His hands gripped the wheel tightly, his knuckles white. “I’m fine. Just… keep talking to me. Keep me focused.”

I nodded, doing my best to keep him grounded as we raced towards our girl and the city rushed past us. With every mile, I could feel the tension building inside me and I didn’t know how I would cope when it finally exploded.

I didn’t know what I would do.