Sacrifice

  The roads were deserted at this hour. Rain speckled the windshield, and he clicked on the wipers as he turned onto Ritchie Highway. Beside him, Hunter had his fingers buried in Casper’s fur. His forehead was against the window.

  At the first stoplight, Michael glanced in the rearview mirror and took stock of his brothers again. Nick looked weary, his eyes half open. Gabriel looked pissed, his jaw set, his eyes glaring straight ahead. Chris was looking out at the darkness, the streetlights reflecting off the bare spots on his cheeks where the rain had washed the soot away.

  “Thanks for stopping the fires,” Michael said. “The rainstorm was smart thinking.”

  Chris didn’t look away from the window. “It wasn’t just me.”

  “I know. I’m thanking you all.”

  Gabriel’s eyes locked on his. “Maybe you could thank us by telling us what the fuck is going on.”

  Michael kept his foot on the brake. “What?”

  “What do you mean, what? We looked for you, asshole. You weren’t in that house when the fire started. You weren’t in the woods. You weren’t anywhere.” His voice gained volume. “We found Hunter and Chris, but you weren’t—we couldn’t—”

  “Easy,” said Nick. “Take it easy.”

  “Fuck easy, Nick! Until that earthquake started, we didn’t even know if he was—”

  “Wait.” Michael slammed the gearshift back into park and turned in his seat. Gabriel looked primed for a fight, like he was ready for his oldest brother to take a swing at him. He looked like he’d welcome the opportunity.

  But Michael looked at Chris. “You didn’t tell them?”

  “Tell us what?” said Nick.

  “We couldn’t tell them,” said Hunter. His voice was tired. “By the time they found us, we were surrounded by paramedics, and then the earthquakes started—it was all too fast.”

  “Tell us what?” Gabriel demanded.

  “I thought someone was in the woods,” said Michael. “It woke me up.”

  “Me too,” said Hunter.

  “What did you guys think?” said Michael. “That I snuck out?”

  “We didn’t know what to think,” said Nick. “The fire started fast.”

  “I almost couldn’t stop it,” said Gabriel. “I had to keep it to the front of the house. I was worried about it getting into the garage.”

  So Gabriel had stopped it. “You probably saved the business.”

  “I was more worried about all that shit blowing up. Whoever did this had a plan.” Another pause. “And power. A lot of power.”

  “Do you think it was Calla?” said Michael. “I haven’t heard from her in a week. She’s been pissed that I won’t help her start a war.”

  “This would be a good way to start one with us,” said Gabriel, his tone dark. “But I have no idea. I didn’t see anyone.”

  “Who was in the woods?” said Nick.

  No one said anything for a long moment, but the confusion and fury in the car redirected toward Chris.

  He didn’t look away from the window. “Sometimes I go for a walk, okay?” he snapped. “It’s not like anyone is sleeping lately.”

  “But you ran,” said Hunter.

  Now Chris whipped his head around. “I didn’t know it was you! You would have run, too!” Then his gaze darkened. “Or maybe you would have shot someone. Who knows?”

  “You’re lucky I’m not shooting you right now.”

  “You’re lucky I didn’t drown you—”

  “Hey!” said Michael. He knew most of this was misdirected fear and uncertainty. That didn’t mean he wanted to listen to it. “Knock it—”

  A horn blared from behind them, and they all jumped. Another car had stopped behind them, and Michael realized they’d been sitting here for a while, just blocking the intersection.

  He turned around in his seat and put the car back into gear. He ran a hand through his short hair, feeling dirt and burned particles dislodge. Once they made the turn onto Ritchie Highway, he glanced in the rearview mirror again. Aggression hung so thick in the air that he wanted to open the windows to clear the cab.

  “Have you been sneaking out every night?” he said.

  Chris didn’t say anything.

  “Chris!”

  “He’s scared,” said Hunter.

  “Fuck you,” said Chris. “If you want to sit around waiting for an attack, fine. I can’t do it anymore.”

  They came to a traffic light, and Michael rotated in his seat to face his youngest brother. “Are you out of your mind? What the hell were you thinking, Chris? We could have—those fires—”

  Chris wouldn’t look at him. “You think I don’t know?”

  Gabriel hit him on the back of the head. “And you thought that was a good idea?”

  “I stayed near the water. And who the hell are you to talk about good ideas?”

  “You know what, Chris? You can—”

  “All right, stop!” The light changed and Michael turned back to face the road. He knew better than to let them ramp Chris up. Nick was always reasonable. Gabriel would fight, but he was direct about it—and once he was done, he was done.

  Chris would stew in his own thoughts for hours. In retrospect, Michael wondered if he should have been watching for this, for Chris to isolate himself.

  He was too tired for all this analysis. And his brothers were too keyed up. He needed a distraction.

  He looked at the brightly lit storefronts along the highway. McDonald’s had a huge OPEN 24 HOURS sign out front.

  “Text Adam,” he said. “Tell him we’re bringing breakfast. What do you guys want?”

  Hannah stood under the stream of hot water in the firehouse locker room and put her forehead against the shower wall.

  Even odds said she could fall asleep right here. Or put her fist through the wall.

  Or cry.

  She saw a lot of terrible things in her line of work. Last night had been among the worst—and she hadn’t even been part of the recovery crew, pulling dead bodies out of collapsed homes. She hadn’t heard a total body count yet, and she wasn’t going out of her way to look for one.

  She’d seen a half-melted Elmo car on one of the driveways of a collapsed home—the same toy James had at home—and she’d almost lost it.

  Sometimes her brain would form a story around something like that. She’d imagine the little boy who played with that toy, and then imagine his home engulfed in flames. She’d imagine him inhaling the smoke, choking, maybe trying to scream for his mother—

  Stop. She would be crying against the wall of this shower if she didn’t knock it off. It wouldn’t do for the fire marshal’s daughter to be a blubbering mess, even in the privacy of the shower. If she started letting herself get worked up here, she’d never keep the few shreds of respect she’d managed to earn.

  Think of something else.

  So she thought of Michael. She thought of him in the back of the ambulance, the way he’d clutched at her.

  She’d never seen him like that.

  He hadn’t come to find her after her father was done with him, though. She’d finished dragging the fire hoses back onto the trucks with Irish, and then Chief had ordered them to pack up and head home. She’d sent Michael a text to tell him she was leaving, but then she’d noticed that his truck was gone.

  And then he didn’t respond to her text.

  Before tonight, she hadn’t been sure where things stood between them. Dragging him out of a fire and watching him in the midst of a tragedy hadn’t changed that. He’d grown distant enough that she’d started to think his feelings toward her had cooled—but tonight he’d gripped her hand while they were walking through his ruined home, showing no indication of letting go.

  Maybe he would have been like that with anyone who offered him a shoulder to cry on, but she didn’t think so.

  She remembered a few weeks ago, when Michael had been concerned that Nick, one of the twins, was hiding something. He was failing tests at school and getting in f
ights with his brothers. Michael had confided in Hannah, and they’d tried to figure it out. Based on her own experience, she’d been certain that Nick had gotten his girlfriend knocked up.

  She couldn’t have been more wrong: Nick wasn’t interested in girls at all. His girlfriend had just been a cover.

  The night Michael found out the truth, he’d sat on the back porch with Hannah and told her what happened.

  “Are you okay with it?” she’d asked.

  “Of course,” he’d said, not even needing to think about it. “If I’m not okay with it, he’s never going to be.”

  And he was like that with everything. Strong. Stoic. A rock for anyone who needed one.

  If she examined their relationship too closely, it looked a little strange. She’d given up hope that she’d ever be able to date someone, what with her pseudo-cop father and her five-year-old son. Guys her age—twenty-two—never wanted a ready-made family, and they didn’t understand why she couldn’t go clubbing ’til two in the morning or spend the night at their place. They didn’t understand that work and school and motherhood barely left her with five spare minutes in a row.

  But then she’d run into Michael Merrick. Only a year older than she was, with his own ready-made family. He worked as many hours as she did, and he hardly had time to scrape together for a girlfriend either. In a way, their relationship felt very high school. The closest they’d come to “spending the night together” was one morning when she’d gotten off work at 3 AM, and “early cup of coffee at his place” had turned into making out. She’d showered in his bathroom and borrowed one of his T-shirts—leading his brothers to get the wrong idea—but they’d never gone farther than that.

  Back in high school, they’d never run in the same circles. He’d played baseball and worked for his parents, while she’d rebelled against her father’s strict parenting. Michael had been a year older, too, and she’d dropped out halfway through her junior year. It wasn’t like they would have bumped into each other at the prom. Still, she remembered eighteen-year-old Michael so clearly. He’d walked through the hallways like he owned the place, every pore on his body radiating don’t mess with me.

  He carried himself like that now. When they’d first gone out—for a cup of coffee, nothing more—she’d been a bit wary, worried that when he learned about her profession, he’d act like he needed to “out-man” her. But there really wasn’t anything macho about him. No bravado, no chest-puffing, no sign of a domineering asshole.

  He’d been a gentleman. He’d bought her coffee and pulled out her chair—little niceties she wasn’t used to, because she sure didn’t expect that around the firehouse. But every time he talked to her, his voice had been rough and quiet, as if every word were a secret just for her. It had made her shiver in a good way.

  Tonight, he’d looked broken. She’d been afraid to touch him, as if one brush of skin would send him shattering into a million pieces. But then she had, and he’d clung to her as if he’d been afraid to let go. Some people might see it as weakness, but she didn’t. She knew how it felt to have life yank the rug out from under you. She knew what it meant to need someone to hold you, to share the weight of the world for a minute. For a second. She would have held him all night.

  And then her father had shown up to act like Detective Dickhead.

  As usual.

  A locker door slammed over on the guys’ side of the dorm. Hannah ignored it, insulated on the women’s side. She wasn’t the only woman in the department, but there were few enough that sometimes it felt like it.

  She should probably get going. She pushed the damp hair back from her face and slapped the faucet to kill the water.

  She could hear male voices more clearly now, but with the dorm area door closed, she couldn’t make out more than muffled tones, then laughter with an edge. Giving someone shit, from the sound of it.

  Men. She sighed and reached for her towel.

  Her phone was on the counter, and the screen lit with a message. Hannah pushed the button, hoping for a return text from Michael.

  Her mother.

  I have lunch packed for James. Need me to take him to school?

  Hannah smiled. While her father treated her as if she’d never live up to his expectations, her mother made up for that lack of warmth tenfold. Hannah looked at the time and texted back.

  I should be home in time.

  A new message almost immediately.

  I don’t want you to have to rush. You work so hard.

  Maybe it was the timing of the message, or the emotion of the preceding twelve hours, but Hannah could swear she felt tears rushing to her eyes again.

  Maybe her mom could sense it, because another message appeared almost immediately.

  Don’t worry about rushing. If I don’t see you in the next 20, I’ll take him. I’ll put a note in his lunchbox from mommy.

  Hannah smiled. Her mom always thought of details like that. She’d probably draw a picture and sign it from “mommy,” full of Xs and Os.

  Hannah made a mental note to empty the dishwasher or vacuum the living room or something, just to let the woman know her efforts weren’t ignored. She put the phone on the counter and used the towel to scrub vigorously at her body. If she rushed, she could make it home in time to see James.

  The phone lit again, and Hannah grabbed it from the counter. It wasn’t like her mother to keep a text conversation going. The woman needed emoticons explained, for god’s sake.

  But it wasn’t her mother. It was Michael Merrick.

  Sorry I couldn’t look for you. Are you OK?

  Hannah stared at the message for a while. Too long—she realized she was still standing here naked and freezing.

  Yeah. You?

  He didn’t respond for the longest time, and finally she had to get dressed or deal with hypothermia. She put the phone back on the counter and reached for her clothes.

  Another locker slammed from the other side of the wall, then more male laughter. Hannah pulled on a long-sleeved tee and wished her hair were long enough for a ponytail. She didn’t have time to dry it—not if she wanted to get home in time to be a responsible mommy.

  She slung her bag over her shoulder and flung the door open.

  It left her staring straight into the men’s locker room. The door was propped open, steam in the air.

  Irish was standing at a sink, wearing jeans and nothing else, shaving his face with slow, even strokes.

  Hannah was standing there with her mouth hanging open. She quickly shut it and looked away before he could notice.

  They’d been next to each other all night—at one point performing joint CPR on a woman they’d found in the basement of the fourth house—so it shouldn’t have felt so intimate.

  But it did.

  A faucet turned on, and she heard something tap against the sink. “You crashing here, Blondie?”

  “Going home.” She had to clear her throat. Were her cheeks on fire? It felt like her cheeks were on fire. Had that been a tattoo on his shoulder?

  Don’t look. Do not look.

  God, she’d just been thinking of Michael falling apart in the ambulance, and now she was gawking at another firefighter. Someone she had to work with.

  “You need something?”

  Now she was standing here like a stalker. She forced herself to look at him. He was just shaving, for goodness sake. It wasn’t like she was watching him in the shower.

  If her brain would stop supplying images, it would totally be okay.

  “Aren’t you going home?” she said.

  “A bed’s a bed,” he said. “I’m back on at noon.” He looked over. “How’s your boyfriend?”

  Her boyfriend. Michael Merrick. Right.

  “I don’t know. I texted him, but he hasn’t responded yet.”

  “I didn’t know he had a history with arson in this town.”

  “He doesn’t. Not really.”

  “I walked through that house, Blondie. That fire wouldn’t have stopped
unless someone put it out.”

  A low whistle sounded from behind him. “Look at Blondie getting an eyeful. Your daddy know you’re into the dark boys?”

  Hannah jerked back, sure her cheeks were flaming—though now she couldn’t decide if she was more furious or embarrassed.

  Irish didn’t stop shaving. “Jealous, Stockton?”

  Joe Stockton, one of the older guys who’d sit in the kitchen and shoot the bull all night, snorted from behind her. “Yeah, that’ll be the day. Me, jealous of a n—”

  “Hey!” She whirled, ready to get in his face. Furious—definitely furious.

  He just laughed and moved away into the men’s dorm area.

  “Ignore them,” said Irish, his voice low and close.

  She turned and he was right there, close enough to touch. She could smell the menthol of his shaving cream, and for an instant it reminded her of her father, from when she was a little girl.

  She swallowed some of her fury. “He was about to call you—” She faltered. “He was about to say—”

  “You think I don’t know?”

  “You don’t care?”

  “Of course I care. But they’re just looking to start trouble. I care about my job more.”

  They. She thought of the slamming lockers and male laughter she’d heard earlier. “Who else? You should report them.”

  He snorted and turned away, returning to the sink to let the water out. “You’re funny. You going to report Stockton for what he just said to you?”

  She thought about that for a second and wasn’t sure what to say. Of course she wasn’t going to report him. The best she could hope for was an eye roll and a promise from the chief that he’d talk to the guys.

  And then the next time would be worse.

  “It’s not the first time, Blondie. Won’t be the last.”

  All of a sudden, her firehouse nickname sounded belittling.