by Jackson Ford
I start to back away. His arrogance vanishes, replaced by a wide-eyed fear. “Help me. Teagan, please!”
He clutches at the rebar, his hands slick with blood. Behind him the fire licks at the street. All the houses on the other side are burning, the flames leaning in our direction. The sight of it almost paralyses me, puts me right back in the burning house in Wyoming, Adam screeching with laughter.
I’m shaking my head, but I don’t know if I’m saying I won’t or I can’t.
“Please.” It’s almost a whine. It’s the sound of an injured animal realising that it might not get out of this one.
If I pull him off the rebar, he’ll bleed to death. I won’t be able to keep him alive. And even if I can, the two of us won’t be fast enough to outpace the fire.
If I run, he’ll burn to death. Or suffocate on the smoke.
I wrap my arms around his midsection, the rebar digging into my left side, his blood soaking my clothes. “Hold on,” I rasp through gritted teeth, and pull.
His howl of agony nearly blows my head off.
I can’t do it. I just don’t have the strength. Carlos is big, and I’m trying to pull him off a steel bar. A bent steel bar.
I let go, get behind him, squashing myself between him and what’s left of the wall. I tell him I’m sorry, not sure if I’m saying it in my head or out loud, and push.
His scream is even louder this time. But he’s too heavy, and I am too exhausted, and the rebar is buried too deep.
When I stop pushing, he sags, arms hanging, making these horrible grunting noises. I move to the front, resting my hands on my knees, trying to think. Waves of heat bake against my face.
“Come on,” I say. It’s almost a prayer.
And it isn’t answered.
He’s done horrible things. He’s lied to me—no, not just me, the whole team. It’s because of him that Tanner’s men have Reggie. It’s because of him that Paul is probably facing the whole of MS-13 by himself. It’s because of him that I just murdered someone.
But I can’t leave him like this. I can’t. If he’s lucky, he’ll suffocate first. If he’s not, he’ll—
—burn.
I squeeze in behind him again, put my back against his, push as hard as I can. Ignore his screams. And he’s not moving. Not even a little bit. And still I keep pushing. It takes me a few seconds to realise what I’m really waiting for: I want him to tell me to run. To save myself.
He doesn’t. He’s still begging me to help him, almost panting now. He’s not going to let me go.
Not even when he’s gone. You’ll remember this for the rest of your life.
I push harder. I use everything I have. I block out his screams and his panting and his pleading and try to slide him off the rebar. Then I try pulling at the rebar itself, try to yank it out of the wall. It’s buried too deep, way too deep.
Either he dies, or we both die.
“I’m sorry, cabrón,” I tell him, barely able to get the words out.
“Teagan… no, Teagan!”
The fire sets my mind alight, sparking the old fear, burning through every fibre of my being.
I turn and run.
And with every step, with every burned breath in my lungs, I hear him screaming my name.
FIFTY-THREE
Teagan
Hell has nothing to do with fire.
It’s not about physical pain. It’s not about smoke that scorches your lungs or ash gritting your eyes.
It’s the lies other people tell you
And the lies you tell yourself.
FIFTY-FOUR
Teagan
I should be sprinting. But all I can do is stumble, zigzagging in an almost drunken lurch down the street.
I take long wobbly strides across the baking tarmac, pausing every now and then to cough, so loud and so intense that it’s as if both my lungs are trying to explode out of my mouth. The coughing leaves me bent like an old woman, hands on my knees, almost retching. The muscles in my midsection actually sting with the effort.
And with each cough, with each stride, I see Carlos.
“Come on.” I reach up, wiping my face, still tacky with dried tears. “Get it together.”
I don’t know what happened to push the fire so far into the city, but this is bad. I can’t believe how intense the heat is: like I’m standing over a gas range with all eight burners on full blast. I can’t get away from it.
A car goes up with a whoomp. The fire engulfs it, shattered window glass tinkling onto the tarmac. And the trees… every single one is ablaze, beacons against the smoke-stained sky. Embers flicker through the air like deadly butterflies. One lands on my neck, making me yelp.
I’m going to die here. I’m going to burn.
I don’t know how much smoke a human being can suck in before there’s permanent damage, but I have a horrible suspicion I’m a long way past that point. My head feels like it’s drifting three feet behind my body. And I don’t even want to talk about my throat.
The street ahead of me ends in a T-junction. The fire races across it left to right, the flames growing from tiny flickers to six-foot-tall monsters in seconds. As if sensing me, a tongue of it begins to curl in my direction.
I panic. Blind, flat-out, scorching panic. It clamps me to the spot, locks my feet to the tarmac.
A gap. Between two houses off to my left: a tiny black passage between the walls. The houses are on fire, but the flames haven’t got to ground level yet. I force myself to move, sprinting—if you can call what I’m doing a sprint—with my lungs burning and Nic’s hoodie held tight across my face.
There’s a low wooden fence between me and the passage. I hurdle it, rocketing between the houses, the fire cooking the skin on my hands. Then I’m out into an alley at the rear of the two houses, looking left and right and left again.
The fire catches me.
My right leg burns, the flames sneaking up the fabric of my jeans. The pain is incredible: bright, sharp, vivid. I don’t think. I just throw myself forward, rolling on the dry, crunching ground, unable to even scream.
The flames vanishes as I roll, leaving the pain behind, gnawing at my leg. A great wave of heat rolls across my back, and I look over my shoulder to see flames ten feet high coming towards me. The houses spit and crackle as they collapse.
I have never been this scared. Never. It’s going to eat me alive.
I spin in a circle, trying to find an exit, find nothing. Everywhere I look, there’s only fire. I moan, paralysed. Rooted to the spot. It’s because you left Carlos. This is your punishment. What happened to him is about to happen to you.
I drop to my knees. The air is fractionally fresher here than it is at head level, but it’s not like it helps me escape the fire. But it’s all I can think to do.
If I inhale enough smoke, I’ll just suffocate. Maybe it won’t even hurt after a while. I’ll never see Nic again. Or Reggie, or Annie, or Paul. I’ll never own a restaurant, never cook again, never listen to music…
The sound of the fire changes, the roar deepening. Like it knows what I’m thinking.
And then I’m drenched.
It happens so suddenly that I think I’m dreaming. Or dead. I’m immediately soaked to the skin by a giant, hissing cloud of water. The fire retreats, the flames shrinking, the ashen ground turning to slick, gooey mud. For the first time smoke isn’t curling its way into my throat and lungs.
I lift my hand to my face, turning it, trying to understand what I’m seeing. It’s covered in water droplets. Rivulets run down my face, drip off my chin.
The fire is still roaring. Except it’s not the fire. A giant shape passes through the air far above my head, still disgorging water from its enormous belly.
I’m still stuck in a world of monsters and living fire, and my mind isn’t exactly in tip-top condition right now. So for a second all I can think is water dragon.
But it’s not. It’s a plane. A goddamn firefighting plane. It came right over Burbank.
Another coughing fit. An even worse one this time. I’m shivering. How is that even possible when a second ago I was scorching? My skin is covered in gritty ash and grime.
And as I lift my head, wiping my mouth, I see something beautiful.
Lights.
Very far away. But lights. Twinkling, glimmering through the puffs of smoke.
Los Angeles. Showing me the way home.
I don’t say anything. I can’t. I just make myself move, resuming my drunken stumble-lurch, heading for the lights of the city.
I don’t know how long I walk for. The streets are blank, smoking spaces. There’s more fire, but in the distance this time, racing up another section of the hillside. The plane comes back, roaring overhead. This time I don’t even have the energy to lift a hand to it.
I lose track of the lights. There are big palls of smoke drifting across the sky. I keep marching. More than once I fall over. More than once I feel like just lying there. Never moving again. Closing my eyes and letting everything go. Instead, I haul myself to both knees, then one knee, then my feet. And I keep going.
At some point the sound changes.
The roar of the fire dwindles. I look up to see more houses: dark and silent this time, their driveways abandoned, their doors locked shut. Standing sentinel in the smoke.
I keep walking. I don’t know what else to do.
I don’t even bother trying to work out where I am or where I should go. It doesn’t matter. Not right now. All that matters is that I keep walking.
And then, years later, cars.
This is LA. There are always cars.
I’m on a bigger road now, one that’s a little wider. There’s the highway, and beyond it the city itself, glimmering in the dark.
There’s an intersection ahead of me, bordered by yellow crossing lines on all four sides. To my right a vacant lot, blocked off by fencing covered with green mesh fabric. It reminds me of the lot I drove past on my way back home from the Edmonds job, decades ago. And a two-storey apartment block, dark balconies looking out onto the street.
Intersection first. Then maybe find a gas station. Somewhere with a phone. I have no idea who I’ll call—it’s not like I could dial 911—but I’ll figure that out later. For now…
For now. For now I can’t go another step. My body just won’t let me. I try, and just collapse. The best I can do is stay up on all fours.
The sound of a car. Not from the highway. Approaching the intersection. I don’t know how I’m going to hail it when I can’t even get on my feet, let alone say anything, but it turns out I don’t have to. Whoever it is sees me, and it screeches to a halt.
Very slowly I lift my head.
The car is a huge black SUV. Tyres as big as I am. And in the back seat…
Reggie.
I stare back at her, sure I’m dreaming this. No, I know I’m dreaming this because sitting alongside her, leaning forward to look out the window, are Paul and Annie. Their eyes are huge, their mouths moving behind the glass. All three of them look like shit. Paul has a giant shiner, and Annie’s got blood crusted on her top lip.
Not that I care right now. They’re here. It’s not a dream. It’s not the afterlife. I didn’t get eaten by the fire. They are here, in front of me, and they’re real. I know it.
Moving with exaggerated care, I get up onto my knees. It’s then that the thought occurs: If they’re all in the back seat, who’s driving?
The front of the car is turned slightly away from me, the driver on the opposite side of the car. As if in answer to my question, there’s the clunk of a door. A figure comes around the side, but a drift of smoke obscures who it is.
Nic. He found the others, he kept them safe, and he’s here for me. Here to take me somewhere with water, and cool sheets, and sleep. Blissful, dark, dreamless sleep.
But it’s not Nic who steps out of the smoke.
It’s Burr.
His hand is heavily bandaged, his bulbous nose covered in tape. He’s grinning.
There’s an object in his hand. A gun. No, not a gun. A taser.
I raise my eyes to his.
“You have got to be fucking kidding m—”
He fires.
FIFTY-FIVE
Teagan
LAX.
I know it’s LAX because I saw a giant sign on the front of the hangar as we drove in. It read, LAX HANGAR 18. Also, there was a giant cargo plane parked inside. That kind of gave it away.
I wanted to tell someone that there used to be a pretty good rap group called Hangar 18, but I couldn’t because I couldn’t speak. After Burr tasered me, his crew wasted no time in doping me up to the gills. No Reggie to save me this time—no cute little diversion. Just whammo: needle in the neck, thank you very much and goodnight.
I am really fucking high right now.
They’ve got me tied to a gurney or stretcher or something, one with heavy leather straps. Even if I had full control of my PK, I couldn’t move them. And I really don’t have full control of my PK. I’m still conscious, but I can’t move. Can’t speak. Can barely think. The world is coated in a soft dandelion haze, all the rough edges blurred and fuzzy. Which is just fine by me. Fuzzy is good.
All the same, there’s a lot of noise. Mechanical sounds: clanking metal, hissing hydraulics from the plane, loud thumps of heavy objects. And voices. Everybody is shouting, and none of them seems to be speaking a recognisable language. I wish they would be quiet so I could sleep. I tried to ask them, but I can’t move my lips. It’s a miracle I’m still breathing.
Someone turns the gurney or stretcher or whatever it is. The movement tilts my head to one side, so I’m looking right out the front of the hangar. The sun is up. Morning sunlight, a shaft of it piercing my vision and drilling directly down into my brain. Blinking is an impossibility. Mercifully whoever has the gurney keeps turning, and the sunlight vanishes.
They wheel me underneath the plane, its giant, distended belly appearing overhead. Annie is yelling. I can’t see her yet, and it takes me a few seconds to recognise her voice, but I’m helped along by the fact that she is going absolutely nuclear. Believe me, I’ve seen Annie Cruz angry enough times to recognise the tone.
“I will fucking end you,” she’s saying. “Hey—don’t walk away from me. Do you hear what I’m saying? You put her on that plane, I will knock your fucking teeth out, bro.”
The gurney passes below a face: concerned, battered, familiar. Paul. A giant bruise turning one side of his face into a raccoon. Then he’s gone. A snatch of Reggie’s voice flickers across the hangar, wheezing and angry: “… didn’t do any of this, just like I told Moira Tanner, and if you…”
Gone. And for the first time a little slimy ball of worry begins to form deep in my gut. Should I be worried? I dunno. It’s hard to be stressed out when I’m this comfortable.
All the same…
They leave me parked for the longest time, right next to a giant ramp that leads into the back of the plane. There is no one around—or at least no one that I can see. I can’t exactly turn my head to check.
The ball of worry hasn’t gone away. It’s got bigger. But I can’t remember what happened. Dimly, I’m aware that it’s very hard to breathe. My throat is on fire, and my entire body aches.
Movement. Noise. And then Annie, turning my head to face her, talking fast and frantic. “We’ll get you out, OK? We can’t stop them putting you on the plane, but we’ll figure this out. Promise. Just—”
Gone. Annie is snatched away by a hand with a ring finger wrapped in thick bandages.
At some point they wheel me up the ramp and into the plane. There’s a lot of bumping, more bright lights lancing into my eyes. And when they bring me to a stop, locking the gurney’s wheels with a clunk, Burr finally shows himself. His face is a horror show, his nose swoll
en and bruised.
“Hey, freak show,” he says quietly.
Drugged I may be, but it’s all coming back. Jake. Carlos. Burbank. The fires. Nic. Nic! Annie was there—how did she get away from Nando Aguilar? MS-13? Paul was there too, and Reggie. But no Nic. Or was he? I don’t know, can’t be sure. What am I doing in the plane?
“Shhh.” Burr actually strokes my forehead. He’s grinning down at me, but behind the grin is naked contempt. And why not? He beat me. I was supposed to be a super-soldier, and look who came out on top. Good old Burr. Old school beats new school. This must be one of the greatest moments of his pathetic little life.
“You’re done, freak show,” he says conversationally. His voice is slightly nasal. “You’re going back to Waco. Maybe they’ll let me come visit you, if they decide to keep you alive.”
Jake is dead. The thought arrives like a thunderbolt. If Jake is dead, then so are my chances of proving there was another psychokinetic. Even his body is probably ash by now, along with Carlos. Tanner is going to let the government have me. They’re going to lock me away, cut me open, do what they’ve been wanting to do for years.
“You know, you should thank your friend Marino,” Burr says. It takes me a few seconds to realise he means Paul. “He was the one who told us where to find you.”
His face darkens. “Course, we had to beat it out of him. The cripple wouldn’t tell us, your pal Annie Cruz neither, but I always said navy boys were a bunch of pussies. Smart, though. When he went after Cruz, he called up every government contact he had in that old-ass phone of his. We got wind of it, came right to him. You know what he said? Said you were holed up in a house in West Hollywood. That you’d made a deal with the Salvadorans.”
Paul. You genius.
Burr’s grin gets wider. “We had to search the house twice before we figured out what happened. I wanted to let the MS-13 boys we left alive have dear old Annie, but the cap said you were the priority. And like I told you, navy boys are pussies. Couple of minutes alone with me, and Marino told us everything.”