“Happy you guys could make it. Come on in. Beer’s in the kitchen.”
Emily stands in the far corner talking to other people. Sam looks her way, then asks Mark where the bathroom is. He points the way.
“Be right back,” Sam says to me.
Most of the guys are standing around the island in the middle of the kitchen. They look at me when Sarah and I enter. I look at each of them in turn, and then grab a bottle of water from the ice bucket. Mark hands Sarah a beer and opens it for her. The way he looks at her makes me realize yet again just how little I trust him. And I realize now just how bizarre this whole situation is. Me, being in his house now, with Sarah, his ex-girlfriend. I’m happy that Sam is with me.
I reach down and play with the dogs until Sam comes out of the bathroom. By then Sarah has made her way to the corner of the living room and is talking to Emily. Sam tenses beside me when he realizes that there is nothing else for us to do but walk up to them and say hello. He takes a deep breath. In the kitchen two of the guys have lit a corner of the newspaper on fire for no other reason than to watch it burn.
“Make sure you compliment Emily,” I say to Sam as we approach. He nods.
“There you guys are,” Sarah says. “I thought you had left me all by my lonesome.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I say. “Hi, Emily. How are you?”
“I’m good,” she says, then to Sam, “I like your hair.”
Sam just looks at her. I nudge him. He smiles.
“Thank you,” he says. “You look very nice.”
Sarah gives me a knowing look. I shrug and kiss her on the cheek. The music has grown even louder. Sam talks to Emily, somewhat nervously, but she laughs and after a while he eases a little.
“So are you okay?” Sarah asks me.
“Of course. I’m with the prettiest girl at the party. How could things be better?”
“Oh shush,” she says, and pokes me in the stomach.
The four of us dance for an hour or so. The football players keep drinking. Somebody shows up with a bottle of vodka and not long after that one of them—I don’t know which—throws up in the bathroom so that the smell of vomit wafts throughout the whole downstairs. Another one passes out on the living-room sofa and some of the others draw with marker on his face. People keep filtering in and out of the doorway leading to the basement. I have no idea what is going on down there. I haven’t seen Sarah for the past ten minutes. I leave Sam and walk through the living room and the kitchen, then walk up the stairs. White, thick carpet, walls lined with art and family portraits. Some of the bedroom doors are open. Some are closed. I don’t see Sarah. I walk back downstairs. Sam is standing sullenly by himself in the corner. I walk over to him.
“Why the long face?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“Don’t make me lift you in the air and turn you upside down like the guy in Athens.”
I smile, Sam doesn’t.
“I just got cornered by Alex Davis,” he says.
Alex Davis is another of Mark James’s brood, a wide receiver for the team. He’s a junior, tall and thin. I’ve never talked to him before, and likewise know little else about him.
“What do you mean by ‘cornered’?”
“We just talked. He saw that I’ve been talking to Emily. I guess they dated over the summer.”
“So what. Why does that bother you?”
He shrugs. “It just sucks, and it bothers me, okay?”
“Sam, do you know how long Sarah and Mark dated?”
“For a long time.”
“Two years,” I say.
“Does it bother you?” he asks.
“Not in the least. Who cares about her past? Besides, look at Alex,” I say, and nod to him standing in the kitchen. He is slumped against the kitchen counter, his eyes aflutter, a thin layer of sweat glistening on his forehead. “Do you really think she misses being with that?”
Sam looks at him, shrugs.
“You’re a good dude, Sam Goode. Don’t get down on yourself.”
“I’m not down on myself.”
“Well then, don’t worry about Emily’s past. We don’t have to be defined by the things we did or didn’t do in our past. Some people allow themselves to be controlled by regret. Maybe it’s a regret, maybe it’s not. It’s merely something that happened. Get over it.”
Sam sighs. He’s still wrestling with it.
“Go on. She likes you. There’s nothing to be scared of,” I say.
“I am, though.”
“Best way to deal with fear is to confront it. Just walk up to her and kiss her. I bet you she kisses you back.”
Sam looks at me and nods, then goes to the basement, where Emily is hanging out. The two dogs come wrestling into the living room. Tongues dangling. Tails wagging. Dozer drops his chest to the ground and waits for Abby to come near enough and then he jumps at her and she jumps away. I watch them until they disappear up the stairs, playing tug-of-war with a rubber toy. It’s a quarter till midnight. A couple is making out on the couch across the room. The football players are still drinking in the kitchen. I’m starting to get sleepy. I still can’t find Sarah.
Just then one of the football players comes rushing up the basement stairs, a crazed, frantic look in his eyes. He rushes to the kitchen sink, turns on the water as high as it will go, and begins throwing open the kitchen-cupboard doors.
“There’s a fire downstairs!” he says to the guys nearby.
They begin filling pots and pans with water, and one by one they rush down the stairs.
Emily and Sam come up the stairs. Sam looks shaken.
“What’s wrong?” I say.
“The house is on fire!”
“How bad?”
“Is any fire good? And I think we started it. We, uh, knocked a candle into a curtain.”
Sam and Emily both look disheveled and have clearly been making out. I make a mental note to congratulate Sam later.
“Have you seen Sarah?” I ask Emily.
She shakes her head.
More guys rush up the stairs, Mark James with them. There is fear in his eyes. For the first time I smell smoke. I look at Sam.
“Go outside,” I say.
He nods and takes Emily’s hand and they leave together. Some of the others follow, but some stay where they are, watching with drunken curiosity. A few people stand around stupidly patting the football players on the back as they rush up and down the basement stairs, cheering them on as though it’s all a joke.
I go to the kitchen and grab the largest thing left, a medium-sized metal pot. I fill it with water and then go downstairs. Everybody has evacuated aside from us battling the blaze, which is far bigger than I expected. Half the basement is consumed in flames. Dousing it with the little water I have left is completely futile. I don’t try, and instead drop the pot and dash back up. Mark comes flying down. I stop him in the middle of the stairway. His eyes are swimming in booze but through it I can see that he is terrified, that he is desperate.
“Forget about it,” I say. “It’s too big. We have to get everyone out.”
He looks down the stairs at the fire. He knows that what I’ve said is true. The tough-guy front is gone. There is no more pretending.
“Mark!” I yell.
He nods and drops the pot and we go back up together.
“Everybody out! Now!” I yell when I get to the top of the stairs.
Some of the drunker ones don’t move. Some of them laugh. One person says, “Where’s the marshmallows?” Mark slaps him across the face.
“Get out!” he screams.
I rip the cordless phone from the wall and shove it into Mark’s hand.
“Dial 911,” I yell over the loud voices and the music that still blares from somewhere like a sound track to the erupting pandemonium. The floor is getting warm. Smoke begins to billow up from beneath us. Only then do people take it seriously. I start pushing them towards the door.
I dart past Mar
k as he begins dialing and rush through the house. I take the stairs three at a time and kick through the open doors. One couple is making out on a bed. I yell at them both to get out. Sarah’s nowhere to be found. I sprint back down the stairs and through the door into the dark, cold night. People are standing around, watching. Some of them I can tell are excited by the prospect of the house burning down. Some laugh. I can feel myself begin to panic. Where is Sarah? Sam stands at the back of the crowd, which must total a hundred people. I run to him.
“Have you seen Sarah?” I ask.
“No,” he says.
I look back at the house. People are still coming out. The basement windows glow red, flames licking against the panes of glass. One of them is open. Black smoke pours out of it and floats high in the air. I weave through the crowd. Just then an explosion rattles the house. All the basement windows shatter. Some of the people cheer. The flames have reached the first floor, and they’re moving fast. Mark James stands at the front of the crowd, unable to divert his gaze away from it. His face is illuminated by the orange glow. There are tears in his eyes, a look of despair, the same look that I saw in the eyes of the Loric on the day of the invasion. What an odd thing it must be to watch everything you’ve ever known be destroyed. The fire spreads with hostility, with disregard. All Mark can do is watch. Flames are beginning to rise up past the first-floor windows. We can feel the heat on our faces from where we stand.
“Where’s Sarah?” I ask him.
He doesn’t hear me. I shake him by the shoulder. He turns and looks at me with a blankness that suggests he still doesn’t believe what his own eyes are telling him.
“Where’s Sarah?” I ask again.
“I don’t know,” he says.
I start to weave through the crowd looking for her, getting more and more frantic. Everyone is watching the blaze. The vinyl siding has begun to bubble and melt. The curtains in the windows have all burned away. The front door stands open, smoke pouring out of the top of it like an upside-down waterfall. We can see all the way into the kitchen, which is an inferno. On the left side of the house the fire has reached the second floor. And that’s when we all hear it.
A long terrible scream. And dogs barking. My heart drops. Every person there strains to listen while hoping like hell we didn’t hear what we all know we did. And then it comes again. Unmistakable. It comes in a torrent and this time it doesn’t let up. Gasps filter throughout the crowd.
“Oh no,” Emily says. “Oh God no, please no.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
NOBODY SPEAKS. ALL EYES ARE WIDE-OPEN, staring up in shock. Sarah and the dogs must be somewhere in the back. I close my eyes and lower my head. All I can smell is the smoke. “Just remember what’s at stake,” Henri had warned. I know damn well what’s at stake, but still his voice echoes. My life, and now Sarah’s life. There is another scream. Terrified. Severe.
I feel Sam’s eyes on me. He has seen firsthand my resistance to fire. But he also knows how I am hunted. I glance around. Mark is on his knees, rocking himself back and forth. He wants it over with. He wants the dogs to stop barking. But they don’t stop, and he takes each bark as though being stabbed in the gut with a knife.
“Sam,” I say so that only he can hear, “I’m going in.” He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, fixes me with a stare.
“Go get her,” he says.
I hand him my phone and tell him to call Henri if for some reason I don’t make it out. He nods. I begin moving to the back of the crowd, weaving in and out of the mass of bodies. Nobody pays me any attention. When I finally reach the back I make a mad dash for the yard’s perimeter and then sprint to the rear of the house so that I can enter without being seen. The kitchen is completely submerged in flame. I watch it for a brief moment. I can hear Sarah and the dogs. They sound closer now. I take a deep breath and with that breath other things come. Anger. Determination. Hope and fear. I let them in, I feel them all. And then I lunge forward and sweep across the yard and burst into the house. I am swallowed by the inferno immediately, hearing nothing but the crackle and hum of the flames. My clothes catch fire. There is no end to the blaze. I move to the front of the house and half of the stairs have burned away. What is left is on fire, looking brittle, but there isn’t time to test them. I rush up but they collapse under my weight when I reach the halfway point. I tumble down with them, the fire rising as though someone has stoked the flames. Something pierces my back. I grit my teeth, still holding my breath. I stand from the rubble and listen to Sarah screaming. She’s screaming and she’s scared and she’s going to die, die a hideous miserable death if I don’t get to her. Time is short. I’ll have to jump to the second floor.
I jump and grab hold of the edge of the floor and pull myself up. The fire has spread to the other side of the house. She and the dogs are somewhere to my right. I leap down the hallway, checking rooms. The pictures on the walls have burned in their frames, nothing more than blackened silhouettes melted to the wall. Then my foot falls through the floor and my breath catches in surprise and I breathe in. Nothing but smoke and flame enter. I begin coughing. I cover my mouth with my arm but it does little to help. Smoke and fire are burning my lungs. I drop to a knee, coughing, gasping. Then a fury surges through me and I stand back up and I move on, hunched over, gritting my teeth, determined.
And then I find them in the last room on the left. Sarah is screaming, “HELP!” The dogs are whining and crying. The door is closed and I kick it open, send it flying off its hinges. All three of them are huddled as tightly against one another as far into the corner as they can get. Sarah sees me and yells my name and starts to stand. I motion to her to stay where she is, and as I step into the room, a huge flaming support beam falls between us. I raise my hand and send it upwards, crashing through what remains of the roof. Sarah seems confused by what she’s just seen. I leap towards her, covering twenty feet in a single bound, moving straight through the flames without them affecting me at all. The dogs are at her feet. I push the bulldog into her arms and pick up the retriever. With my other arm I help her stand.
“You came,” she says.
“No one, and nothing, will ever hurt you as long as I’m alive,” I say back to her.
Another huge beam falls and takes out part of the floor, landing in the kitchen below us. We need to get out the back of the house so no one sees me, or sees what I think I’m going to need to do. I hold Sarah tight against my side and the dog against my chest. We take two steps, then leap over the flaming chasm created by the fallen beam. As we start to move down the hall, a huge explosion below takes out most of it. The hallway is gone; where it used to be are a wall and a window, quickly being consumed by flames. Our only chance is through the window. Sarah is screaming again, clutching my arm, and I can feel the dog’s claws digging into my chest. I lift my hand towards the window, stare at it, and focus—and it blows out of its frame, leaving us the opening we need. I look at Sarah, pulling her securely against my side.
“Hold on tight,” I say.
I take three steps and dive forward. The flames swallow us whole but we fly through the air like a bullet, heading straight towards the opening. I’m worried we’re not going to make it. We barely clear it, and I feel the edge of the shattered frame scrape against my arms and the tops of my legs. I hold Sarah and the dog as best as I can, and twist my body so that I’ll land on my back and everyone else will be on top of me. We hit the ground with a thud. Dozer goes rolling. Abby yelps. I hear the breath go out of Sarah. We’re about thirty feet behind the house. I feel a cut on the top of my head from the broken glass of the window. Dozer is the first one up. He seems fine. Abby is a little slower. She limps on her front paw, but I don’t think it is anything serious. I lie on my back and hold Sarah. She is starting to cry. I can smell her singed hair. Blood drips down the side of my face and gathers in my ear.
I sit in the grass to catch my breath. Sarah is in my arms. The bottoms of my shoes have melted. My shirt has completely bu
rned away, and so have most of my jeans. Small cuts traverse the length of both arms. But I am not burned at all. Dozer walks over and licks my hand. I pet him.
“You’re a good boy,” I say between Sarah’s sobs. “Go on. Get your sister and go back up front.”
There are sirens in the distance that should be here within the next minute or two. The woods are about a hundred yards from the back of the house. Both dogs sit watching me. I nod to the front of the house and they get up as if they understand and both begin walking that way. Sarah is still in my arms. I turn her so she is cradled in them and I stand and head to the woods, carrying her as she cries on my shoulder. Just as I enter them I hear the whole crowd erupt in cheers. Dozer and Abby must have been seen.
The woods are dense. The full moon still shines but there is little light coming from it. I turn my hands on so we can see. I start to shiver. Panic sweeps through me. How will I explain this to Henri? I’m wearing what now look like singed cutoffs. My head is bleeding. So is my back, along with various cuts on my arms and legs. My lungs feel as though they are on fire with every breath I take. And Sarah is in my arms. She now must know what I can do, what I am capable of, or at least some of it. I’m going to have to explain everything to her. I’ll have to tell Henri she knows. I already have too many strikes against me. He’ll say someone will slip at some point. He’ll insist we leave. There’s no way around it.
I set Sarah down. She’s stopped crying. She looks at me, confused, scared, bewildered. I know I need to get some clothes and get back to the party so that people aren’t suspicious. I need to get Sarah back so people don’t think she’s dead.
“You’re okay to walk?” I say.
“I think so.”
“Follow me.”
“Where are we going?”
“I need to get some clothes. Hopefully, one of the football players has a change of clothes for after practice.”
We start walking through the woods. I’m going to circle around and look inside people’s cars for something to wear.
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