Читать книгу Sacrifice - Brigid Kemmerer - Страница 11

CHAPTER 4

At first, Hannah didn’t understand what was happening. The sound wasn’t loud; more like a slow roll of thunder. The vibration of the ground under her knees felt more like a large vehicle starting up than anything else.

But then it grew stronger, until she had to put a hand on the ground to keep her balance. Someone somewhere was shouting. It took her a moment to make out the word.

Earthquake.

Irish didn’t stop the chest compressions, but she could see he was struggling to maintain his balance too.

A loud crackling echoed from her left, and she snapped her head up.

“The sidewalk!” said Oscar. He’d dropped to a knee, and now had a hand on the ground.

He was right—the sidewalk was splitting, slow cracks crawling along the pavement.

Firefighters were shouting, both live and from the radio on her shoulder. The team that had rushed into the house a minute ago came flying through the door, stumbling on the steps.

She’d thought nothing could overpower the cacophony of the trucks and radios and discordant fire alarms, but the new sounds brought on by this earthquake were deafening. Metal shrieked from everywhere, and Hannah could swear she saw the porch supports at the front of the house start to buckle. From the street, more shouts, more splitting pavement. Metal on metal as fire trucks began to slide and collide with each other.

“What the hell is going on?” said Oscar. He must have lost the needle; Michael’s hand was bleeding.

Wind ripped between the houses, sudden and cold, pulling smoke and debris from across the court. More shouts from the hose teams as water blew back, away from the flames, showering the rescue team with ice-cold droplets. Fire was in the air now, bits of flaming ash flying wildly.

One of the porch supports groaned, then cracked fully. The roof over the porch sagged.

“We need to move,” said Irish.

But they couldn’t. The ground bucked again, and Hannah watched the grass split and separate. The gap spread in a line from Michael’s body all the way to the road. She swore and shifted to the other side of his body, beside Irish.

It gave her a better view of the destruction around her. At the house next door, wood cracked and split. The house swayed for an eternal moment, as if buffeted by the wind.

And then it collapsed.

Flames and smoke billowed from the destruction, and the hose team fought to stay on their feet, aiming water at the structure, trying to keep the fire from spreading. Water sprayed wildly in the wind.

Then the ground rumbled again, and the sidewalk around the hydrant fractured. Water shot from the ground in a massive fountain. The fire hoses lost pressure and died.

Another rumble. The grass cracked and split again, stretching off into the darkness. The front yard seemed to be shifting in pieces, rolling like the sea. The house behind them creaked and threatened to collapse like the first. The fire trucks on the road bounced and shifted. People were yelling now, fear in their voices. Her radio was going crazy as people called orders and updates. She couldn’t make sense of any of it.

Another house across the court collapsed. Firefighters ran to escape the flying debris.

More wind blasted her cheeks, bringing smoke and ash.

And then, out of nowhere, one of Michael’s brothers skidded to his knees beside her.

One of the twins. She had no idea which. His clothes were filthy too, his skin darkened with soot.

She put a hand on his arm to push him back. “Gabriel—”

“Nick,” he corrected her. He grabbed Irish’s arm. “Stop.”

Irish didn’t stop—though his efforts lacked the fervor of his initial attempts to save Michael’s life. Hannah could read it in his expression. It had been at least three minutes.

The ground rumbled and shifted again. Irish swore and fought to keep his balance. “Kid, you need to get out of here before that house falls.”

“It’s his brother,” Hannah said. Her voice broke. “Nick—Nick, I need—”

“Stop. Both of you stop.” Nick’s voice was rushed and panicked. He grabbed Irish’s arm again and almost shoved. “I said stop.”

Irish stopped. Time seemed to hold still, the earth shifting below them, the wind slamming into them.

“Just stop,” Nick said again, his voice more steady. Wind whipped at their clothes and made Hannah shiver. The house behind them gave another loud creak. “Wait.”

She stopped. Held her breath.

For an instant, she thought maybe Nick knew something they didn’t, that all Michael needed was his brother’s presence and he’d sit up and ask what was going on.

Michael didn’t move.

Stupid, she told herself. She knew the limits of the human body as well as anyone else. Her eyes wanted to fill, but she could hold it together for his little brother.

Nick put a hand on his brother’s neck. “Michael,” he said softly, his words somehow carrying over the wind. “Mike. Wake up.”

Irish looked at her over Nick’s head. He shook his head.

“Nick,” she said, putting a hand over his. “Nick, the smoke—it works fast. His lungs may be too badly damaged—”

Nick sucked in a deep breath and pressed his mouth over his brother’s before she could even finish that thought.

Michael’s chest rose from the pressure and fell when Nick drew back.

And then rose again.

“He’s breathing!” Hannah grabbed his wrist and felt for a pulse. Irish reached for his neck.

Michael’s eyes opened. He squeezed them shut and blinked a few times. His arm jerked out of her hand.

“Take it easy, man,” said Irish. “We’re just—”

Michael shoved him away and fought to get off the ground. Irish and Oscar tried to hold him there.

“Let me go. Let me go.” His voice was like crushed stone, rough and painful to her ears. He sounded disoriented and afraid. “Someone was in the house. My brothers—” His voice broke. “I need to get my brothers. I need to get them before they’re found.”

“Hey. Mike.” Nick put a hand on his shoulder and got in his brother’s face. “We’re okay. Look at me. We’re okay.”

Michael went still. The rumbling earth slowed and went still. “Nick. Hannah.”

“Yeah. It’s okay. We’re okay.”

“Gabriel?”

“Everyone is okay.”

For the longest instant, Michael just stared at them, the wind blowing fiercely between them. His eyes shifted past his brother, to the destruction of the houses on the court, to the fire hydrant spraying water high into the air. Fires still burned everywhere, and emergency lights flickered off everything.

He glanced at his own house, barely standing.

Then his face crumpled and he threw his arms around his little brother’s neck. “Not okay, Nick. It’s not okay.”

Nick let him hold on. “You’ll make it okay, Michael. Just breathe.”

And just then, thunder cracked overhead. The sky opened up, and rain poured down, putting out every last lick of flame.

Michael sat on a stretcher inside one of the ambulances, but he had no intention of letting them take him to the hospital. Thanks to the downpour, his clothes were soaking wet again and he was freezing. Someone had offered him a wool blanket, but he’d refused.

His brothers had taken them, though. They were sitting in the back of another ambulance, waiting.

He needed to get them and leave.

He had no idea where to go.

The rain had stopped the blazing fires around the court, but it still rattled against the roof of the ambulance. Michael could see cracked pavement from here, lines of fractured asphalt weaving between the rescue vehicles left on the court. Rain wouldn’t do much to repair this kind of damage. He’d caught a glimpse of one collapsed home and didn’t have the guts to look at the others.

His whole life, this was what his parents had been worried about. This was what the Guides were worried about.

He’d never caused this much destruction. He’d never lost control to this extent.

Then again, he’d never been so close to death, either. Looking at the damage, he didn’t want to consider how bad it must have been for his powers to take over without his knowledge.

He didn’t want to see the destruction. He might not have started the fires, but his earthquake had completed the disaster. He didn’t want to see them bagging bodies and towing disabled trucks. He didn’t want to hear crying from the few survivors, and he sure as hell didn’t want to see who’d survived—because it would make him think of those who hadn’t.

Maybe someone could close the back door of the ambulance.

Hannah sat on the little bench in front of him, trying to shine a light in his eyes.

He brushed her hand away. “Hannah. I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

He couldn’t meet her eyes. “Yeah, what do I sound like?”

“Like you have gravel instead of lungs. Look at me.”

He didn’t want to look at her. He wanted to snap and tell her to get the hell away from him before he hurt her, too.

But then her hand caught his chin, and just like every other time she touched him, he couldn’t move. He’d gone so long without a gentle touch that even now, after six weeks, some small part of him still couldn’t believe that she wanted to touch him.

Her tiny flashlight clicked back on. “Let me check your eyes.”

Her voice was gentle, encouraging, but it carried a note of command. A mother’s voice.

He looked at her. Blue eyes, their brightness dimmed a bit from exhaustion. Blond hair cut just above her shoulders, gone flat and tucked behind her ears. She’d lost her coat somewhere along the line and sat there in a T-shirt, worn red suspenders, and reflective pants. Soot smudges were everywhere. He wanted to pull her into his lap and not let go, to reassure himself that there was something in his life that couldn’t disappear between one heartbeat and the next.

Then the light was in his eyes and he couldn’t see anything.

“You really need a trip to the hospital,” she said quietly.

“My eyes are fine.” He did sound like he had gravel for lungs. He cleared his throat. It hurt. He wasn’t sure whether to blame that on the near-drowning or the smoke inhalation. Probably both.

“I’m not worried about your eyes.” She lowered the flashlight and clicked it off. “You need a chest X-ray.”

No, he didn’t. He might not be all the way healed, but Nick’s power over air had done its work. What he needed was to get out of here.

What he wanted was to hold Hannah’s hand against his face and not let go. What he wanted was to tell her everything.

And yet, he didn’t.

“I’m not going to the hospital.” He wanted to fidget, but there was nothing to fidget with. He dug his fingers into the edge of the stretcher mattress.

“I don’t know how you’re sitting up talking to me. Are you aware we were calling for someone to put a tube down your throat so you could breathe?”

Michael didn’t look at her. The panic of the moment he’d woken was still too fresh. He wondered if he would’ve been able to stop the earthquake if he’d woken up strapped to a gurney with plastic tubing shoved into his lungs.

Hannah finally sat back, letting her hands fall to her lap. “They’ll make you sign something, if you refuse treatment.”

Was that supposed to be intimidating? “Fine. I’ll sign whatever so I can get out of here.”

She frowned, and Michael kept his eyes on the rack beside her head, regretting the sharpness of his tone. His fingers were lined with soot and dirt. It felt as if his swim in the creek had happened hours ago. Days, even.

She didn’t move. He didn’t either.

Silence fell between them, punctuated by shouted orders from outside along with bursts of static-laced information from her radio. He didn’t know the codes or the lingo, but then he heard, “I’ve got three possible DOAs in house two. Request assistance. Over.”

Michael rubbed his hands over his face. He didn’t know which one was house two, but he knew all his neighbors. Would it be the Stapleys, the young couple who’d only lived here a year, the ones with a new baby? Or maybe the Mellisarios. They had three kids. Sarah, John, and little Andrew. Michael remembered them coming to the house for Halloween—

His chest tightened, and he worried he was going to lose it again, like he had in the front yard. He tried twice to make his voice work. “Can you—are you allowed to turn that off?”

She turned a dial on the radio. It didn’t go silent, but almost. “Your house is the only one that wasn’t actively burning. How did you stop it?”

He swallowed. He’d never be able to sit here and lie to her for long, but at least this answer was easy. “I don’t know.”

“Do you remember what happened?”

He remembered going through the back door. He remembered crawling through smoke and darkness. He remembered breaking glass and splintering wood.

He shook his head.

“We found you in the kitchen,” said Hannah. “Do you remember getting there?”

“Someone broke in while I was looking.” Michael looked at her. “I think they did something . . .” He tried to force his brain to work, but his moments in the house were unclear, his thoughts as fragile and fleeting as wisps of smoke. “Did you find anyone else in there?”

“No.” She paused. “You might have heard me and Irish. We broke in to search the house. We smashed out the windows to let smoke out, then came through the door.”

Could that have been it? Could he have mistaken their rescue for an attack?

Michael drew back and rubbed at his face again. Sweat and dirt made his eyes sting.

Hannah spoke again, her voice quiet. “If you won’t go to the hospital, would you at least let me call a paramedic to listen to your lungs? I don’t want—”

“Hannah. No.” He started to shift off the stretcher.

She caught his arm. “Me, then. God, at the very least, let me get a pulse-ox to make sure you’re actually getting some oxygen.”

He sighed and eased back onto the thin mattress. He wondered if she realized how easily she could get him to follow orders, just by letting him feel her skin against his.

Hannah flipped on a machine behind her, then snapped a plastic clip onto his right index finger. She pulled a stethoscope out of a tiny cabinet, then shifted to sit beside him on the stretcher.

It put her thigh against his, and even though he wore soaked jeans and she wore bunker pants, he imagined he could feel her warmth.

“Just breathe normally.” She plugged the earpieces into her ears.

He nodded. It took everything he had not to lean into her.

Then her hand slid under the back of his shirt, and she might as well have hit him with a live wire.

“Sorry.” She winced and pulled the stethoscope away. “Cold hands?”

As if that were the problem. He shook his head quickly. “No. It’s fine.”

She put the metal and plastic back against his skin, her fingers warm where she touched him. Michael breathed and wished his worries could condense to the space inside this ambulance, just for a moment.

She moved the stethoscope for a few heartbeats, then again. Her other hand rested on his bicep, gentle and reassuring. Michael shut his eyes and tried to hold still.

“You okay?”

Her voice was very close. He opened his eyes and looked at her. “No.”

“You stopped breathing.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He swallowed and took a deep breath.

“If I’m making you uncomfortable—”

“Never.” He looked at her. “Never, Hannah.”

She studied him, her eyes full of uncertainty. “I thought you—I thought—” She broke off and looked away. He watched her throat jerk as she swallowed. “I thought I was going to have to give your brothers some very bad news.”

The words—the wavering emotion in her voice—hit him hard. He’d spent so many years worrying about everyone else that it was a shock to hear someone express worry over him.

He realigned everything she’d said to him since the moment he’d woken up, and everything he’d said to her.

Fine. I’ll sign whatever so I can get out of here.

He put his hands over the place where her fingers rested on his arm. He wanted to do more than that, to collapse on her shoulder, to curl up and clutch her against him, but if he fell apart now, he’d never get it together.

He ducked his head and kept his voice low. “How do my lungs sound, Doctor?”

After a breath, she rested her forehead against the side of his face. She smelled like soot and ash and sweat, but under that was something warm and sweet, like sugar cookies. When she blinked, her lashes fluttered against his cheek. “I’m not a doctor.”

“Paramedic.”

“Not yet. You know I still have another year of—”

He couldn’t take it. Michael wrapped his arms around her and crushed her against his chest. His breathing was shaky, and he didn’t trust his voice, but he held her, and she let him.

No, she held him back.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’ll be okay.”

“It’s not,” he said, his voice thick. “Not even a little bit.”

Despite everything his family had gone through, they’d always had a home. He’d made sure of it. The shelves were never overflowing with food, and there’d been a year when he’d turned off cable and made the guys share one cell phone, but they’d had a roof over their heads and beds to sleep in. Always somewhere to come back to.

And now they had . . . what? The truck? The car? Considering the earthquake, he wasn’t sure they even had that much.

Then one of the demolished homes on the cul-de-sac caught his eye. They had a lot more than some of these families.

All this destruction. How much had been his fault? If these homes hadn’t collapsed, would the radio be reporting rescues instead of dead bodies?

His breath shook again. He wanted to ask how many people had been killed, and whether Hannah knew names yet.

At the same time, he was afraid to ask.

“When you two are done, I have a few questions.”

At the sound of the dry voice, Hannah pulled back quickly, and Michael let her go. He recognized the man standing behind the ambulance, and he wondered if it was a good thing or a bad thing that the county fire marshal had shown up.

“Dad!” Hannah said, for all the world sounding like a teenager caught with a boy in her room. “What are you doing here?”

“Working.” He paused, then raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you?”

Michael knew he wasn’t imagining the disapproval in the man’s tone. Hannah and her father had a tense relationship. If Hannah’s mother weren’t in the picture, they probably wouldn’t speak at all. Jack Faulkner was never rude to Michael—but he wasn’t exactly patting him on the back and inviting him over to watch the game, either. The fire marshal had arrested Gabriel and charged him with arson six weeks ago. Once the real arsonist was behind bars, Jack had been civil to Michael. Not quite friendly, but not cold.

Suspicious? Michael had no idea. Hannah said her father treated everyone like a potential criminal—including her.

But to his surprise, when Jack turned steely grey eyes his way, there was compassion there. “How are you doing, Mike? You okay?”

The question, the casual concern, threw him off. Michael’s own parents had always been warm, their home always open to others—to their detriment—and Hannah’s father was the opposite of that. They’d sat across a table for dinner on Hannah’s birthday and talked business and sports. Easy topics, nothing personal.

That night felt like a year ago.

But maybe this was the real Jack Faulkner. Maybe a crisis brought out the dad in him, breaking down the awkward barriers.

Michael nodded and had to clear his throat. “I’m all right.”

“What about your brothers? Are they holding up?”

Michael nodded. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. Sweat and grit. Sand, soot, whatever. He’d kill for a shower. A hot one. “More or less.”

“You have somewhere to go?”

For an instant, the question didn’t make sense. Why would he go anywhere?

Then reality knocked on his skull. The fire marshal was asking if he had a place to stay.

It hadn’t even occurred to him yet, but now that he had to consider it, Michael had no idea where to take his brothers. Insurance would come into play at some point, but it wasn’t like he could call up his agent and money would appear in the checking account tomorrow. They could ride on credit cards for a while, but feeding and housing five people on Visa’s dime would only last so long.

But what was he supposed to say? He knew from experience that he couldn’t admit uncertainty in front of anyone official. He held back any emotion and wished his voice didn’t sound as if he were speaking through ground stone. “I have to make a few calls. I’ll work it out.”

Hannah slipped her hand under his and laced their fingers together. The motion felt comforting—but somehow defiant, too.

Michael couldn’t tell if Marshal Faulkner noticed. Rain was collecting on the shoulders of the man’s jacket. “It might just be smoke damage. There are a few local companies who can help with that. You’ll have to get an engineer out to check the foundation after that earthquake.”

Or Michael could just walk a loop around the house and feel it out for himself.

As if the insurance company would take his word for it.

Marshal Faulkner turned and looked past the ambulance, his eyes on something in the distance. “A lot of damage here. You guys are lucky.”

Lucky. Yeah, right. Michael hadn’t felt lucky since . . . ever.

The fire marshal stepped closer. “How did you put the fires out so quickly?”

Michael opened his mouth to respond, but Hannah squeezed his hand, hard. “Don’t answer that.”

Michael blinked. She’d asked him pretty much the same thing. “I—I . . . what?”

Her tone was even. “He’s not being nice. He’s trying to interrogate you.”

The fire marshal barely spared her a glance. His attitude didn’t change; it was still official, reassuring. “Hannah, why don’t you let me speak with Michael privately?”

“Why, so you can try to trap him with questions?”

“No, so I can spare him a trip in a squad car and his brothers a night with DFS.”

Michael straightened. DFS was the Department of Family Services.

“What does that mean?” He suddenly wanted out of this ambulance, as if social workers had secreted his brothers away already. Tension held him rigid, and the only thing keeping him sitting here was the knowledge that acting like a panicked freak would do more harm than good.

“It means if I take you in for questioning, I’m responsible for making sure your brothers are taken care of.”

“We just dragged him out of his house, unconscious,” Hannah said. “Why don’t you find someone else to question?”

“There is no one else right now, Hannah.”

The words hung there in space for a moment, and Michael flinched, realizing what that meant.

The fire marshal continued, “I had one of your brothers under arrest a month ago. Should I have kept him that way?”

“My brother didn’t do this.”

“Then help me prove it. Answer my questions. Take a walk through your house with me.”

Michael hesitated. The night had been too long, the events too quick to string together. He needed an hour to sit down and think.

Marshal Faulkner took a step closer. “A rookie cop could put two and two together on this one, Mike. Your brother was a prime arson suspect a month ago—and while he ended up with a rock-solid alibi during interrogation, you didn’t. Your house is the only one still standing. They’re talking about bringing in bomb dogs to see if that earthquake was really a natural occurrence. I’m not trying to rough you up here, but I need something that doesn’t look so damning or I’m going to have to drag you in on principle.”

Michael looked away. Didn’t an officer need a warrant to search the house? Should he be calling a lawyer? Could he even get one at three in the morning?

When his parents died, they sure hadn’t left a manual.

Chapter Three: When You’re Suspected of Criminal Wrongdoing.

Wind sliced into the ambulance, biting through his damp clothes. He shivered.

A terrible, dark part of his brain wanted to start shouting. Yes. I’m guilty. I should have stopped this. Instead, I made it worse.

He swallowed, and his throat was so tight that it hurt.

The fire marshal hadn’t looked away. “If you want me to get a warrant, fine, I’ll get one. But if you’re not doing anything wrong, then what’s the big deal?”

Michael rubbed at his temples. Maybe if they went in the house, he could choke down half a bottle of aspirin. Or a whole bottle of whiskey. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s get this over with.”