Nothing Left to Burn

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How ’bout you, Sheppard?”

  Kevin grinned. “Absolutely.”

  “Good man. Okay,” Dad said with a clap of his hands. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. When Max gets back with the ropes, I want everybody to grab one and tie your favorite knot. Got that? Just tie the knot you think is best. Then I want you to tell me why.”

  Bear groaned.

  “Problem, Acosta?”

  Bear shook his head, but I could see the sweat already beading at his hairline. Max returned, threw some rope coils on the table at the front of the room, and took his seat next to Gage. The ropes were assorted types and thicknesses. I recognized one as natural fiber and one as synthetic. Okay. I could do this.

  I was ready.

  “Pop quiz time.” Dad grinned at Bear, waiting for him to groan again. “According to the NFPA 1983, which of these ropes cannot be used for life safety?”

  Amanda’s eyes shot straight to the first coil on the left. Manila rope. The text I’d read that afternoon popped into my head.

  “Anybody?” Dad prodded.

  I took a look around the room, and based on the tightly clenched jaws, glares, and sweat openly dripping down Bear’s neck, I concluded nobody liked my father’s methods of training the junior squad. I took a deep breath and stood up, shifted two rope coils to the front of the table. “These should not be used for life-saving.”

  “Why not?”

  “That one’s manila. And this one’s cotton. Natural fibers shouldn’t be used for life-saving.”

  Dad’s eye twitched, but he said nothing. I took my seat and waited for the next test, but my father sighed and pulled out a chair. He grabbed a synthetic rope, unwrapped a few feet, and started talking. “I know you guys hate knots. You’d much rather put on the gear and grab some hoses. But believe me, knot tying is probably the most important skill you can learn in fire service.” He bent the rope and started tying. “When I was a cadet, I nearly killed somebody with a crappy figure eight on a bight, like this one.” He held up the rope and then waved a hand at the guys. “Drag your chairs around me. Take a look.” He tossed his finished knot on the table. “How much do you guys think a Halligan tool weighs?”

  What? The ones I’d practiced with were about thirty inches long with a heavy metal claw, blade, and fork on the ends so firefighters could use them to pry open doors, pull down ceilings, and punch through walls or windows. What the hell that had to do with knots, I wasn’t sure.

  “About ten pounds,” Amanda said.

  Dad nodded, leaned forward, and nudged his rope. “Back when I was a cadet, I was ordered to hoist some tools up to a second floor. The fire took out the stairs. So I tied this knot around a Halligan.” He waved his hand over the rope on the table. “Guess what happened?”

  Oh.

  “It unraveled,” Gage said.

  “Damn near split my lieutenant’s head open.” Dad nodded, the smirk that was almost permanently etched on his lips now gone. “Do you see my mistake?”

  Since when did Dad admit to making a mistake? I joined the rest of the squad and looked closer at the rope on the table, but Amanda found it first. “You reversed the direction. As soon as it was loaded with weight, the knot failed.”

  “And how many times do you think I tied this knot wrong after that?”

  “Zero,” I said before I could bite my tongue. I knew my father would have made this knot his personal mission after that incident.

  “Zero.” He nodded at me. He slid the rope to me. “How should this knot be tied?”

  I swallowed once, but I took the rope, untied it, and started reshaping the knot properly, bending the first bight and then the second. I wrapped one over the other, passed it from front to back, tightened it, and tied a safety knot at the end. Dad took the knot and offered it to Max.

  “Tobay, would you stand under an ax or a saw tied with this knot?”

  Max slid a glance my way, then examined my work. “Yeah, I would.”

  “Gage?”

  Gage took the rope, tugged on both ends, and shrugged without ever once looking at me. “Sure.”

  The knot was passed around the class until everyone had a chance to dress it, set it, and agree to stand under a tool suspended by it.

  “That’s how you learn knots, juniors. When your brothers and sisters are willing to stand under or be suspended by your rope work, you pass.” He stood up and started passing out the rest of the ropes. “Get started. Tie your favorite. Make it worthy of the brother or sister sitting next to you.”

  Everybody reached for a rope and began bending and twisting. I felt a hand squeeze my shoulder. I glanced up, expecting to find Max or maybe Amanda, but it wasn’t either of them.

  It was Dad.

  Chapter 14

  Amanda

  I snuck a peek at Reece just as the lieutenant squeezed his shoulder. The look on Reece’s face made something deep inside me thaw and melt—and then sucked me in.

  “Bathroom break, Lieutenant.” I murmured and hurried out of the room. It hurt to breathe, and I had to leave the room before everybody saw me. Or saw through me.

  John nodded and turned back to supervise knots. Outside in the corridor, I bent over my knees, sucked in oxygen, and tried to rebuild my shields. The restrooms were down the hall. I ducked into the ladies’ room, locked myself in a stall, and cursed my freakin’ heart.

  Do not like this boy. Do not.

  I covered my face with my hands and squeezed my eyes shut, because my heart beat its reply in a steady rhythm. Too late. Too late. Too late.

  Happiness like a dozen birthdays, Christmas mornings, and puppies all squeezed into a single moment—that’s what I saw on Reece’s face, and it just about killed me. Not because I wasn’t happy for him. It’s why we were helping him, after all. But my heart wasn’t supposed to flutter and my stomach wasn’t supposed to flip over because of him.

  He wasn’t supposed to matter.

  How did this happen? How the hell did I let this happen?

  Even as the thoughts circled around inside my head, I knew the answer.

  It was because he made me feel like I mattered.

  Jeez, it was what, maybe seven years since I’d felt that way, and even then…it was just an illusion, another lie my mom told me, like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. If I really did matter so much, she never would have gone along with Dmitri’s stupid scheme.

  Mom used to have a great job, and I went to the after-school program at my school. After work, she’d pick me up and help me do my homework. We’d watch TV and read stories before I went to bed. And then, she met him. Dmitri. God, I hated him and the way he always smelled like cigarettes and too much cologne. He didn’t like me either, and suddenly, I had babysitters because Mom was out almost every night. On the weekends, Dmitri drove us all over the place, stopping here and there so he could sell whatever was in the trunk of the car. It was so boring, and at one stop, I got out of the car to go with them inside this enormous store that had a carousel horse in the window. I thought it was a toy store. Dmitri yelled at me, and Mom just did whatever he said. I went back to the car and cried in my seat for the rest of the day.

  They never noticed. All they talked about was how much money they were getting.

  One night when I was asleep, I suddenly heard her crying,“He loves me!” She kept screaming, “He wouldn’t do that to me.” I ran out of my room and found a bunch of cops in our house, handcuffs around my mother’s wrists.

  “Christ, she’s got a kid,” one of them said. And she’d suddenly stopped crying and shouting and stared at me like she’d forgotten I lived there. I still don’t know what they had been up to. Only that whatever it was, the police had found a lot of it stashed in our house, Dmitri claiming he had no knowledge of my mother’s activities.

  I opened the stall an
d stared at myself in the mirror over the sink, wishing like hell for some kind of Teflon coating I could wear around Reece. He got what he wanted—a dad who respected him, maybe was even a little proud of him. How long would it take before he figured out he didn’t need me anymore?

  Nobody could know. Not even Reece. Especially not Reece. If the Becketts found out I was interested in a boy, they’d kick me out.

  I bent over the sink and splashed some water over my face. When I reached for the towel machine, I jerked.

  I wasn’t alone.

  “Gage, I know what—”

  “You okay?” He stepped closer and took me by the shoulders. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

  I wish. A ghost would be a lot less scary than a group home.

  I stared into Gage’s eyes and tried to find my best poker face. “I’m fine.”

  His eyes rolled heavenward, and he laughed once. “You think I don’t see the way you watch him or the way he watches you? You think I don’t notice the way your pulse beats, right here, whenever you’re close to him?” He ran his thumb along my neck, just under my ear, and I cursed myself. If Gage could see it, could Mr. Beckett? “I thought you had a no-boys rule.”

  “I do,” I cut him off.

  “Then what the hell are you doing out on the ledge?”

  “Clinging to it with every bit of strength I have.” I shoved past him, but he stopped me with a hand on my arm.

  “Don’t let go, Man.”

  I returned to the conference room and tried my hardest not to look at Reece, because Gage was right, and we both knew it. I could not let go.

  “Man, you okay?” Lieutenant Logan asked, and I nodded once. I sat back in my seat and watched John lead the squad through class the way Neil used to do it—hell, maybe even better than the way Neil used to do it. Bowlines, figure eights, clove hitches, handcuffs, butterflies—he covered them all and in depth. Bear’s pen was a blur across his notebook, and even Gage was nodding and listening closely. John’s hands worked the ropes, patted backs, and illustrated his stories. I’d never seen him so…so present in the moment like this. I wondered if he had any clue it was because of Reece. I smothered a laugh. We might turn John Logan into a hell of a teacher.

  “Okay, everybody untie those knots, get those ropes back into storage—”

  The tones sounded, and we froze in place.

  “Engine 21, Truck 3, Rescue 17, residential fire, 44 Hyacinth Road.”

  “Return the ropes to storage. Read the next unit. Good job, everybody,” Lieutenant Logan called out as he ran to the corridor.

  All of us followed and watched the volunteers in the station don turnouts and hop onto trucks before the roll-up doors were fully raised. After the bells faded, nobody wanted to leave, but technically, class was over for the week. Ty and Kevin started organizing the crews’ stuff—shoes, hats, jackets—into neat piles. Bear and Max headed for the kitchen.

  That left me on the apparatus floor with a dazed Reece. “That’s your second response.” I nudged him with a shoulder. “Still cool?”

  He turned wide eyes to me. “Um, yeah.” Then he flashed this wide grin, and I fell a little harder. “It—will it always be that cool?”

  “Yeah,” I said back with a grin. “It never gets old.”

  We stood on the side of the empty apparatus floor, staring at each other with goofy grins on our faces, and suddenly, everything stopped. There was nothing but Reece and me, no panic attacks in restrooms, no stupid rules to follow, no squad—all that existed was us and the heat that pulled us in. Reece stared down at me and slowly brought up a hand. He could have touched me, could have kissed me, could have gotten me in the world’s worst trouble, and at that moment, I would have walked through fire to let him.

  But he dropped his hand and took a step back. “Amanda. You know I’m not him.”

  Matt.

  It was like someone just turned one of the hoses on me.

  I took a step back this time, relieved that I could. Whatever that was, I didn’t want to risk fanning it into life again. It would kill me, I was sure. “I know. I know who you are. And I know who he was. I’m not the blue ribbon in whatever competition you still have going with him.”

  A storm of emotion swam in Reece’s eyes, I looked away and thrust my hands in the pockets of my pants. “We should probably—”

  “Hey! We’re going to the diner! You two in?” Gage shouted from the door.

  Reece nodded. “Yeah. Sure.” He took off in that direction without a second glance at me.

  I watched him go, shivering from the cold.

  ***

  We sat around a high-top table in the diner in town, sharing an order of loaded nachos and sipping drinks—Coke for everyone except Reece. He had lemonade. Reece stuck his finger in his mouth and then winced. “Rope burns.”

  I laughed once and looked down at my own calloused hands. I never noticed the rough skin or the broken nails before. I wondered if boys might like to hold hands with someone whose hands were soft, like a real girl’s or something.

  Maybe.

  What the hell did I know about girl stuff?

  And then I remembered it didn’t matter. No boys for me. Not until I was out of the foster care system.

  I hid my hands under the table and stared out the window, trying to find something to say that wasn’t about rope burns or knot tying or hose advancing. Reece looked really uncomfortable, like he was hoping a small kitchen fire would start and save him from having to talk to anybody.

  Bear slurped the bottom of his glass. “So that was intense today. Hard to believe your old man ever made a mistake, you know?”

  Reece shrugged, shifted. His face clouded up for a minute, but he didn’t say anything. He suddenly lifted his head and asked, “Who turns seventeen first?”

  “Uh, me.” Max raised a finger. “My birthday’s coming up soon.”

  Birthdays. The thought sent tears to sting the back of my eyes. When it was just Mom and me, she used to make a big deal out of my birthdays. She’d invite my friends over for cupcakes and old-fashioned games, and at the moment of my birth—six o’clock in the morning—she’d wake me up with a softly sung version of “Happy Birthday,” one last cupcake she’d saved just for me, glowing with a single candle, and we’d eat it together, getting crumbs all over my bed.

  “You gonna stick?” Ty asked, scooping up more nachos, and I shoved the memories back into their corner.

  “Hell yeah, I’m gonna stick. I didn’t work my ass off all these years just to quit when it gets good. Logan knows what I mean, right?”

  Reece shifted again, his eyes darting to Max. “What?”

  Max smirked. “Come on. I saw your face when those bells rang. You can’t wait to be on the truck. Neither can I.”

  “Rig boner,” Kevin announced.

  Reece’s eyes almost fell out of his skull. “Rig boner?”

  Gage slapped the back of Kevin’s head. “Jesus, dude. A little class?”

  Kevin just grinned and bopped on his stool. “Like you guys never heard that before.”

  “Um, yeah.” I scratched at my neck, which was suddenly blazing. “It’s something the guys say all the time.”

  Reece’s dark eyes locked on mine, soft and sweet, and then he flashed a grin. “That’s good. I’m glad there’s a name for what I felt.”

  “Dude.” Bear put a hand on his shoulder. “Everybody feels it.”

  “So what about you, Logan? You gonna stick when you turn seventeen?” Max asked.

  The smile froze. “Yeah. Of course.”

  Gage frowned and caught my eye. I shrugged. Yeah, that was weird. Yeah, I agreed; something was up. No, I didn’t know what.

  Max picked up on it too. “Yeah? You don’t sound so sure.”

  “I’m sure, I’m sure.” Reece waved his hands in protest
.

  “That’s good, because everybody at this table is working hard for you.” Max dropped his fork with a loud clang. “I’d hate that to be for nothing.”

  Reece hung his head. When he lifted it again, the smile was back. “You guys, all that you did for me, even when I know you hate me—”

  “We don’t hate you, Logan.” Bear flung a balled-up napkin at his face.

  Reece’s smile faded a bit. “It’s okay. A lot of people do. Kind of used to it now.”

  With a loud smack, I dropped both hands on the table. “Okay. Enough. Why don’t you tell us what happened with your brother and why your dad is so pissed at you?”

  Reece’s face went white. Gage shook his head at me, and I squirmed. “Forget it. You don’t have to tell us.”

  “No.” He gulped. “You should know. You guys have been great. Really.” He took a deep breath and blew it out. His voice shook. “My dad taught Matt how to drive. But not me. I asked over and over again, and he never would. So I asked—” He broke off and shut his eyes for a second. “I asked Matt to teach me. He took me out almost every day.” He smiled, remembering his brother. When he spoke again, his voice sounded strangled, and I knew he was trying hard not to cry. “He was so cool. You guys knew him. He was…my best friend.”

  He paused and then laughed. “Everything was cool. Until it snowed.”

  His smile disappeared. Gage leaned forward, but Reece wouldn’t look any of us in the eye.

  “Matt said everybody needs to know how to drive in the snow. He took me to a parking lot, over by the mall. They hadn’t gotten around to plowing one of the fields yet. A few cars were out there, turning 360s. Matt told me what to do. For an hour, we had a blast, drifting and skidding around in that snow. I was doing great—Matt said so. I practiced and practiced, and each time the car went into a skid, I was able to recover it.”

  Suddenly, he shoved his chair back, curled over his knees, and rocked back and forth. “Except for the last one.”

  “What happened?” Bear asked, and Reece shook his head.

  “I wish I knew. I swear, it was the same skid I’d done a few dozen times that day. Only this one, I couldn’t recover. I hit a light pole. It fell and…God! It…it crushed the top of the car.” He started to breathe hard, rubbing his chest.