Wildefire by Karsten Knight Read Free Book Online

could have ended outside the forest in some massive global catastrophe, and the students would never know it until they departed for summer break.
    Darren Puget’s shiny silver pickup crested the hill coming out of the garage, and the instant he hit the access road, he nixed the lights, threw the truck into neutral, and cut the engine, seemingly all in one single motion.
    The car coasted ever so slowly to a stop in front of the two girls. He leaned out the window with a huge grin spread across his face, wearing the reflective aviator sunglasses he never seemed to go without, with zero regard for time of day or weather.
    He pushed the aviators down to the tip of his nose and winked at Ash. “You ladies ready to push?”
    “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Ash unwrapped her pashmina, revealing the little dress underneath. “Unless you’re wearing a miniskirt in there, which wouldn’t shock me in the least, you better let me take the wheel.”
    Darren tossed his chin-length hair back with an insulted humph . “You know, I get a call from Jackie saying that one of our good friends is in need of escape, so I drag myself out of bed the night before an exam and put my ass on the line to sneak her off campus for some 49

    debauchery . . . and you have the gall to tell me to push my own truck?”
    Ash crossed her arms and tapped her foot.
    “Don’t give me that look, princess.” Darren wagged a finger at her. “And let’s be honest here. Between the three of us, you are the only varsity athlete, and by a landslide the most muscular. So ditch the heels, stretch those born-to-play-tennis legs of yours, and get behind the damn truck.” When Ash made no initial move to do as he said, he added, “Truck’s not going to push itself.”
    “You’re a real catch. You know that, Darren?” Ash stripped off her high heels and fired them through Darren’s open window; he barely put up his hands in time to block his face. She padded over to the bumper in her bare feet. “First round’s on you.”
    “First round’s on Daddy Puget of Puget World Holdings,” Jackie corrected her, and took up her spot on the left taillight.
    Fortunately, the dirt access road declined steadily from the garage all the way to the edge of the forest, but getting the truck moving was still going to require some serious man power. Ash nodded to Jackie, and with a deep breath she set her feet into the dirt, and they began to push.
    At first the truck rolled forward only at a trickle’s pace along the back side of the girls’ dormitory. Given the distance they had to push the steel beast before they reached the front gate, it seemed like it was going to be 50

    an impossible feat to get the truck off campus. After what felt like an interminable stretch, they approached the edge of the residence hall, and the road curved around to meet the main quad. Inside the cab Darren gradually turned the wheel, steering them around the corner and past the rolling front green of Blackwood Academy.
    The quadrangle was made up of five buildings.
    The girls’ and boys’ dormitories marked the southeast and southwest corners, respectively, with the Mercer Academic Building placed between them like a disapproving chaperone. Mercer was built facing north so that on a sunny day its magnificent bell tower would cast a long shadow across the quad, the cross at its tip serving as the needle to the sundial markers placed around the green. On the far side of the lawn, to the east, was the campus dining hall and fitness facility, while the access road led past the last fixture of the quad—the twenty-bedroom faculty lodge.
    This faculty lodge was the reason that Ash and Jackie were pushing the truck along the dirt road—a truck that, mind you, had a perfectly tuned motor and was so fresh off the assembly line that Ash could practically smell Detroit on it.
    Ash pictured Bobby Jones hog-tied and lying in the middle of the road, his mouth gagged and his face pressed down into