Sacrifice

They all did.

Michael had no idea why it was important, but his worries eased just a notch knowing he could reach them if he had to.

And where would they be going?

He wove between the remaining fire trucks sitting in the cul-de-sac. He hadn’t seen Hannah since she’d walked out of his house, and he hadn’t been able to look for her. Her father had actually walked him and his brothers to the door of the truck.

“Tell Adam thanks, but we’ll go to a hotel.”

“And then what?” said Nick. “Sleep in these clothes? Live on fast food?”

“You think the five of us are going to fit in a one-bedroom apartment for long?”

“You think the Holiday Inn is going to let us check in looking like this? With a dog? At least at Adam’s we can wash our clothes and get something to eat.”

“Nick—” Michael sighed. Those were all good points, and he was too tired to argue. “Fine. Whatever.” He reached out and spun the dial to turn the heat higher. He couldn’t stop shivering.

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 f**k is going on.”

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

“What do you mean, what? We looked for you, ass**le. 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 fights 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 ass**le.