Into the Fire

by Patrick Hester

  He whispered, “You have to go,” and took hold of my shoulders and tried to twist me around.

  Being so close to him, my nose filled with his scent—the combination of earthy musk, motor oil, and sweat I’d come to identify as being Chase. My head swam. Rather than dwell on it and risk being overwhelmed by feelings I couldn’t afford to feel right now, I rammed the heel of my boot down hard onto the toe of his. That he didn’t yelp and hop around on one leg disappointed me.

  All I got? A wince.

  “Why, Chase? Why do I need to go, huh?” I hissed.

  Before he could answer, I heard another voice ask, “Samantha?”

  I knew the voice. Hearing it here and now froze me where I stood.

  Chase went pale. He’d been trying to protect me even after everything we’d been through—everything I’d said and done and he’d said and done.

  Blushing, I shifted to see past him.

  Not every hallway in this hospital looked the same after all. This one, for example, had cops lining the walls. Their eyes focused on a small Hispanic woman dressed all in black.

  Maria Mendoza, a heavyset woman with dark hair and eyes. She once cut the crusts off my cheese sandwich, a fact we laughed over when she invited me into her home not very long ago to celebrate my becoming a detective and being partnered with her husband, Jorge, for training. I remember her making tamales, trying to show me how, and telling me every woman needed to know how to make tamales. I’m terrible at cooking in general. Mine came out more like Cream of Wheat with a shredded-pork center.

  She laughed all night long, amused by both her husband and my lack of cooking skills.

  That night, she’d confided in me. They could never have children, had gone back and forth on the idea of adopting. Jorge’s job meant he trained a lot of cops, and she’d accepted each and every one of them into their home, building an extended family who made them no less proud than if they’d been flesh-and-blood relatives.

  “You, and all those like you, do him honor by taking what he has to teach you to heart,” she’d said.

  Now, here, all of the laughter had fled her. Her normally bright eyes had become dull and swollen from crying, her nose red, skin gaunt. Maria walked slowly up the hall, past the cops whose own eyes tracked her every movement. These were the men and women Jorge had touched in some way, many of whom he’d trained.

  Slightly shorter than me, she stopped close enough I could feel her breath on my chin.

  I had absolutely no idea what to say. I wanted to reach out to her, hug her, tell her how sorry I was, ask about Jorge. But that meant I hadn’t known. Hadn’t checked on him. What kind of horrible person would do that?

  This wall formed between us even though we stood inches apart.

  Words wouldn’t come.

  I opened my mouth anyway, and the slap spun me into the wall.

  “You killed him,” she said.

  My cheek burned. Hot tears dribbled from my eyes. I could feel the throbbing outline of her hand on my face.

  I turned to explain, to beg for forgiveness, and she slapped me into the wall again, harder than before.

  “It’s your fault,” she said. “He is dead because of you.”

  The wall had a line about waist high that ran the length of it. Below the line, white paint. Above it, some sort of speckled pattern. I focused on the pattern, unable to face her again. The sob bubbled up from my throat. Oh, God … what could I do?

  “That’s enough,” said a strong voice—a voice that belonged to a man I used to love.

  Or maybe I still loved him. Jury was still out. Pretty sure I didn’t deserve his protection, his loyalty. I’d rejected him. Hard.

  And Jorge had died as sure as if I’d killed him with my own hands. I didn’t deserve anyone’s protection.

  “It’s her right,” said another voice. No idea whose.

  A lot of grumbling agreement.

  I braced myself against the wall, legs losing their strength. The weight of it all on my shoulders, I could feel it bringing me down. Without the wall to hold me up, I’d collapse right there. These men and women could not see that—not me breaking down. They would never respect me again.

  “She’s leaving,” said Chase.

  “You siding with her?” someone else shouted, but Chase didn’t reply.

  His hands gripped my shoulders, and he turned me away, guiding me down the twisting corridors.

  Maria’s words floated around in my head. My fault. The tears kept coming. Jorge had died because of me.

  The sound of a door closing. Chase pulled me close, wrapped his arms around me, and stroked my hair.

  “Let it out,” he whispered.

  The tears wouldn’t stop, no matter how much I wanted them to.

  * * *

  After a few minutes, Chase rummaged around in the storage room he’d steered me into and found some boxes of tissues and a couple of industrial-sized buckets of cleaner. We used the latter for seats, a box of the former for my nose.

  He sat across from me, our knees almost touching. “Maria is hurting right now,” he said. “Just give her some time.” He gave me a smile, head tilted to the side.

  I know that smile. Every cop does. You give it to people when you don’t know what else to say. I used to think it was cute.

  “Time won’t help. Not this,” I said.

  My cheek still burned like a brand. From this day forward, everyone would see the handprint of Maria Mendoza on my face. Children would hear tales of the crazy woman with the face who fed good people to Werewolves.

  These thoughts made me cry some more. Chase split his time between sitting across from me and pacing three steps forward, three steps back, in the confined space. He just didn’t get it. Maria had everything right. This was my fault. Jorge died because of me, just as sure as if I’d killed him with my own hands. Maria would never forgive me, and I didn’t deserve forgiveness anyway. Not for this. Crying is what I deserved. Being slapped. Punishment.

  “You’re doing it right now; I can tell,” he said.

  “Doing what?”

  “Building it all up in your head—how it’s all your fault. I swear to God, it’s like if you aren’t feeling shitty about yourself and full of guilt, you don’t feel normal. Why did you even come here? You had to know there’d be pissed-off cops everywhere. You had to know Maria would be at his bedside.”

  My hackles rose. Chase could be decent—hell, he could be the kind of guy a girl falls head over heels for. I know. Didn’t take long, though, for Dickhead Chase to rear his ugly little head. That’s when shit hit the fan, when the fights started.

  Only I didn’t want to fight with him right now. Not again. Especially not when he’s being so goddamned insightful all of a sudden.

  I took a moment to be the adult here and told him the truth. “I’m not here for Jorge, Chase. I came because—” a sob threatened to break through, and I had to take a deep breath. “My dad, Chase. He’s here. Right now. I got lost on the way to his room. What happened with Maria … was an accident. I didn’t know Jorge had died.” I grabbed another tissue. Then three more, just in case. Being an adult was hard.

  “Oh.” He didn’t say anything for a while, and I silently thanked him for it.

  My insides gnawed at me. Talking wouldn’t help; talking wouldn’t ease my guilt. I deserved to be slapped. She should’ve hit me harder. I could still feel her palm against my skin, but she should’ve hit me harder.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

  Feeling like shit all the time is not normal. I know that. He didn’t have to point it out. He thinks he knows what I’m thinking and how I’m feeling? Since when? And—

  Deep breath. Don’t fall into the old patterns and traps.

  Part of me wanted to hate him. Maybe that part did hate him, but the larger part still remembered the good times. Before the incidents. Honestly, he had as much right to hate me as I had to hate him, yet here he stood, trying to comfort me. Hell, he’d
been trying to talk to me for a week while I’d been doing my best to ignore him. I just didn’t want to talk about what had happened between us, and he did. When I didn’t say anything, he took it as being okay for him to talk.

  “Jorge trained me,” he said.

  Opening with a kick to the gut. Nice.

  “Did you know?” he asked. “Sort of his thing, what he was really good at and enjoyed doing. Feeling us out, learning what made us tick, honing us, making us better at the job. He could size up a newbie in an instant, and he only ever picked the ones he knew were worth his time. He picked his partners, Sam. No one gets to pick their partners, but Jorge did, and when he felt you were ready, he turned you loose on the world and started over with someone else. Whatever happened, whatever you are thinking that’s tearing you up inside—and I know you, Sam; I know it’s what you’re doing right now—it isn’t true. Jorge wouldn’t be conned by you; he wouldn’t give in on a whim—not to you, not to anyone. He wouldn’t let anyone push him around, especially not a rookie. He went into the apartment with his eyes wide open. This is not your fault. You’re a good cop.”

  That just made me cry some more.

  Chase sighed.

  If he thought his little speech would somehow perk me up or motivate me? Not today. Today, the world had gone to shit. Chase could say what he wanted about Jorge, but I knew what I’d done, how I’d pushed. Jorge had said no multiple times before saying yes just once. And once had been all it took to kill him.

  “What room is your dad in?” Chase asked, voice soft, gentle.

  That hit me wrong. I wanted him to not be gentle so I could justify being angry with him. Angry is always easier. Even I couldn’t hold on to anger forever, so I thought about the moment when I’d known we were done and fixed it in my brain. But it slipped away, leaving me with no excuse to really be mad at him right now. Dammit.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “The nurse … it was all confusing.” I wiped at my drippy nose.

  “Give me a minute,” he said, then disappeared out the door.

  The part of me that didn’t want to hate him felt a little empty without him in the room. Had to admit, his presence gave more comfort than I expected. Everything got jumbled and confused in my head. I wanted to be mad at him for what he’d done, needed to be mad. Yet I really only had anger for myself. With everything else going on right now, here I sat in a closet feeling sorry for myself? Crying?

  “God dammit!” I shouted.

  Pain spiked between my eyes.

  The box of tissues burst into flames.

  Blue flames.

  I dropped it with a squeak.

  The storage room had what any storage room should have—shelves. On those shelves rested a lot of boxes. Cardboard boxes.

  Suddenly, I imagined myself having to explain to Mayfair and the whole world how I’d managed to burn down a hospital.

  I found an empty bucket and turned it over on top of the fire.

  The door opened behind me, and I jumped.

  “Come on,” Chase said. “I’ve got the info on your dad’s room.”

  I scowled at him.

  “What? What did I do?”

  Two steps, and I poked him in the chest. “You know what you did.”

  He backed up. “I really don’t.”

  Could I smell smoke coming up from the bucket? Maybe.

  “You don’t control my life,” I said.

  “What the hell does that mean?” he asked.

  I don’t know! It just popped into my stupid brain. “Never mind,” I said, crossing my arms.

  “You are six bags of crazy. You know that, right?” he asked.

  I turned my back on him to eye the bucket. No smoke appeared to be coming out from the edges. Maybe I’d snuffed it out?

  “I need a minute,” I said. “Alone.”

  “You just had like five minutes alone,” he said. “I thought—”

  “Please don’t think,” I shot at him. “You’re too pretty to think.”

  “Son of a—”

  The door closed. I spared a glance over my shoulder to make sure he was on the other side before carefully lifting the bucket.

  Where the tissue box had been sat a pile of gray ashes.

  Kicking it with the toe of my shoe produced no new blue flames.

  Taking a breath, I almost relaxed.

  The door burst open again and Chase stalked in, eyes dark and face flushed.

  “You get I’m trying to help you?” he asked. With a wave of his arm, he continued, “When all the people out there want to lynch you, here I am. Trying to help.”

  “Maybe I don’t need your help,” I said.

  “Maybe you don’t get a choice,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Through my own clenched teeth, I said, “I can manage on my own.”

  “Because you’re doing so well so far,” he said.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “I know you got transferred,” he said. “Know they want to fire you. They still want to fire you, Sam. Now is not the time to turn your back on the people who care about you.”

  “Oh,” I scoffed. “You care about me?”

  His face went still. “You know I do, God dammit. If you would just—”

  “No,” I said. “We are not having this conversation right now.”

  “Fine,” he said.

  “Fine,” I agreed.

  He pointed a finger at my nose. “But we are going to have it, Sam. And soon. Hear me?”

  “How do I get to Pop’s room?” I asked.

  For a long moment, I thought he would argue some more. Call me names. Whatever. He didn’t do any of those things. His shoulders may have slumped a little.

  “I’ll take you there,” he said.

  “I don’t need you to go with me,” I said, giving him my best resolve face.

  “Don’t pull that shit with me,” he said with a smirk. “I know your resolve face, and it’s not going to work. I’m going with you.”

  Dammit.

  “Don’t say anything to Pop about Jorge,” I ordered.

  “Yes, Sam,” he replied before opening the door.

  “In fact,” I said, following him out, “don’t mention Jorge to any of my family.”

  “Of course not, Sam,” he said, pulling me in his wake.

  “If you could not speak at all to them,” I said, “that would be fine.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said.

  Did he have a little limp in his walk?

  Shouldn’t smile, yet I did.

  Chase led me through the hospital with the practiced ease of someone who knew their way well.

  A little voice inside my head told me to focus on my family, and not on Chase or Jorge. My family had to take precedence. Mourning Jorge could wait, and so could the conversation Chase wanted to have. My cheek still burned, but my head had cleared. The fire thing freaked me out. I could deal with that later, too.

  “How far?” I asked Chase when we got off an elevator on the sixth floor.

  “Here,” he replied. “Room 604, intensive care unit. Waiting room is through these doors. You have to be buzzed in to see your dad.”

  I nodded. He waited. “Uh, you can go now—”

  He touched my cheek, the one Maria had slapped.

  I flinched, but he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me close. Gently, he raised my chin until his brown eyes and long lashes filled my vision. I used to think staring into those eyes for the rest of my life would be a good thing, but then, when he asked, all I wanted to do was run for my life. He caressed the spot Maria had slapped.

  I swallowed hard, legs suddenly unsure.

  “If you need me, I’ll be right here,” he said.

  “You don’t have—”

  “I know I don’t have to,” he said, rolling his eyes. “But I’m staying. Go find your mom.” He let his hand drop.

  I could still feel his touch on my cheek, nearly canceling out Maria’s slap. Almost. Damn
the man.

  “Thank you,” I said, and meant it.

  With a deep breath, I walked into the waiting room.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  I found Simon seated with his feet up on the chair opposite him, DS in his hands and eyes fixed upon the little screen. I could tell he wasn’t really paying attention to whatever game he played. He wore a dark hoodie with the strings pulled tight to shadow his face. The waiting room had seating for thirty people, with televisions in the corners and a fish tank dividing the room in half. I walked right up to Simon and sat down in the chair beside him. When he didn’t acknowledge my presence, I bumped my knee against his.

  “Where’s Mom?” I asked.

  “In with Dad,” he replied. He’d put a fresh coat of black on his fingernails. Oy, this kid.

  “Why aren’t you in there too?”

  He shrugged.

  “How’re you doing?”

  He shrugged.

  “You need anything before I check on them?”

  Again, he shrugged.

  I wanted to smack him. Really, this is the language of the sullen teenager, so I let it go as someone who once practiced it with the touch of a true savant. Someday, someone would become a billionaire overnight by inventing a translator for those who have forgotten this most difficult language.

  I got up and took five steps forward.

  “I could eat,” he said.

  He speaks! It’s a miracle!

  Altering my course, I went to the door and grabbed Chase by the shoulder. If he wanted to be helpful, I could make use of him after all.

  “Do me a favor?” I asked, trying not to wince as I said the word favor.

  “Sure,” he replied.

  “Simon could use something to eat.”

  “Oh? Well, so could I,” he said. “What do you say, Simon? Up for a little cafeteria food? I hear they have Jell-O. Three kinds.” He held three fingers up.

  In answer, Simon practically ran out of the room. “Watch him?” I asked. “He’s being weird. Well, more weird than normal. I’m worried about him.”