Sacrifice

by Brigid Kemmerer

  Yeah, because he’s the fire marshal, you idiot.

  “Did you see anyone?” said Tyler.

  “No.” Michael kept his eyes on the woods. “I didn’t.”

  And that bothered him, too. Everything had happened so fast that Michael was still trying to piece it together. Had a Guide affected the air, making it thin and difficult to breathe—or had Michael been panicked, leaving adrenaline to do the same thing? Tyler had started the fire on the forest floor, right? Had the Guide made trees fall? Or had Michael done that?

  His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. It hit him like a live wire. Michael jumped and swore.

  “What?” said Tyler.

  “I got another text.”

  Tyler’s voice dropped, though they were alone in the car. “From the guy in the woods?”

  “My hands are cuffed behind my back, Tyler. It could be from anyone.”

  But it wasn’t. He knew. This was bait. A trap. A taunt.

  He looked out the window at Jack Faulkner and wondered if he should tell him. The earlier text messages weren’t a secret—was there any reason to keep these hidden? He’d probably lose this phone too, but hell, he’d lose it anyway when he got to the police station and they booked him.

  Arrested. Michael swallowed. He kept thinking of his brothers, waiting for him to go in front of a judge so he could get them out of that group home. An arrest record would definitely throw a wrench in those plans.

  Especially if his new lodging was a jail cell.

  His phone vibrated again. Michael stared at the woods. Sweat collected between his shoulder blades despite the arctic chill in the air.

  “It’s gotta be him,” Michael said. “He’s fucking with me.”

  “Can you break the cuffs?” Tyler said. “Steel comes from the earth, right?”

  “I can try.” Michael flexed his wrists against the restraints. The edge bit into his skin, but he used a little power, feeling it out. He could barely get a read on the cuffs. “The more processed something is, the harder it is to manipulate.” He paused and looked at Tyler. “If I break out of here, there’s no coming back from that.”

  He’d be a criminal—and he’d have no chance of getting his brothers back.

  Tyler looked back at him. “Do you think we’re safe here?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Tyler glanced at the woods. “What about everyone else?”

  The radio in the front seat crackled to life again. A man’s voice, talking about the brush fire, giving orders to survey the scene.

  Then a woman’s voice responding, agreeing to check the woods.

  Michael froze. “That’s Hannah.”

  “Your girlfriend?”

  Michael didn’t even respond to him. He threw power into the cuffs, and though they flexed from the tension, they didn’t break. He kicked the door, trying to get the fire marshal’s attention.

  Marshal Faulkner looked over, but didn’t stop his conversation with the police officer.

  Michael kicked the door again, then slammed his shoulder into the window. “Stop her!” he called. “You have to stop her from going into the woods!”

  The man looked aggrieved. He opened the door. “What was that?”

  “Hannah,” said Michael. “She’s going in the woods. You need to stop her.”

  Jack’s expression tightened, but he didn’t move. “Why?”

  Michael gave another pull on the handcuffs. The steel gave a little, bending under the pressure. “Whoever started these fires is hiding in the woods. Stop her.”

  If anything, the fire marshal looked exasperated. “There are cops in those woods, Mike. They haven’t found—”

  “Damn it, listen to me.” Michael swung his legs out of the car. “You need to—”

  His feet hit the ground, and he stopped short. He could feel the potential for danger again, even from here. They were all in danger. Not just him and Tyler—everyone here, on the scene.

  Bring anyone who makes you feel comfortable.

  This guy didn’t have a problem killing cops and firefighters.

  “I need to what?” said Marshal Faulkner.

  “Stop her. Them. All of them. Whoever is in the woods. Right now.”

  “Mike. I’m telling you the police are already searching the woods, and there’s no one there.” His eyes narrowed. “What happened? You’ve been in the car for fifteen minutes. What else do you know?”

  “You know they’re not just after me,” Michael said, his voice low. He pulled at the cuffs again. The steel flexed a bit more, but not enough for him to slide his hands free. “You know they’ve threatened Hannah, too. You need to get her out of the woods.”

  Jack held his eyes for a moment longer, and then he reached into the front of the vehicle to grab his radio.

  Michael kept his feet on the ground. The earth practically trembled with possibility. If his brothers were here, he had no doubt they’d be able to sense more through the other elements.

  His phone vibrated in his pocket again.

  A gun fired somewhere behind the house. The fire marshal swore and dropped beside his open door. The radio went crazy with reports and requests for assistance.

  Shots fired.

  “Fire,” said Tyler. “He’s trapping them with fire, too.”

  “Hannah!” Michael flexed his wrists, throwing more strength into it. Almost—almost . .

  “This’ll hurt,” said Tyler. “Brace yourself, Merrick.”

  “What? What are—” Then Michael cried out. The handcuffs were burning, searing into his skin.

  Another gunshot fired behind the house.

  The cuffs snapped. Michael ignored the shouts behind him. He ran.

  CHAPTER 22

  As soon as he crossed the tree line, the woods turned into a war zone. The underbrush blazed with fire, creating a dense covering of smoke, hiding everyone from view. Random gunshots fired, and Michael pressed his back against a tree, getting low, trying to orient himself.

  Too many people crowded the woods now, and he couldn’t get a grasp on who was an ally and who remained an enemy.

  He knew Hannah was out here, though, and right this second, that’s all that mattered.

  His cell phone vibrated in his pocket again, and Michael jerked it free. Half a dozen messages were lit up on the preview screen.

  His eyes read them each in quick succession.

  Do you really think a jail cell will keep you safe? That’s funny, Michael.

  As if you’d even get to a jail cell.

  As if I’d let you leave this neighborhood.

  Your girlfriend is adorable how she plays fireman. Maybe I should introduce myself.

  Footsteps approached rapidly, sending panicked fury into the ground. Michael swore and looked up. Smoke had swirled closer to him. The fire was spreading.

  His power flared without warning, drawing defenses from the earth. Before he had time to mentally process his actions, Michael had fractured a rock in one hand, and he was spinning to meet this new threat.

  When a body appeared through the smoke, Michael didn’t hesitate. He threw a punch with his hand wrapped around stone. He connected and his quarry cried out. Michael hit him again, feeling the jagged edges of his stone tear into skin. The man fell. Earth and vegetation grabbed hold of the man to trap him there.

  Michael dropped to pin the man’s arm with a knee, kneeling above him to hold the sharp edge of the rock to his neck.

  Then Michael got a good look: Hannah’s father.

  On his face was a hell of a mark. The rock had broken the skin.

  Michael still felt power in the ground. Leaves and underbrush smoldered all around them. Smoke curled between them, and Michael wondered how long they had before a police officer or a Guide stumbled across them.

  The fire marshal looked pissed, but his voice was low and even. “Let me up, Mike.”

  Michael didn’t move. “We need to get people out of the woods.”

  “Sure. I’ll get on m
y radio and we can clear all this up—”

  “Don’t patronize me.” Desperation filled his voice, but Michael couldn’t stop it. “You don’t understand. I didn’t start these fires. I’m trying to protect people—”

  “Is that what you’re doing right now?”

  His voice hadn’t changed, but his words hit their mark. Michael drew a tight sigh—and realized how deeply he’d dug himself in here. He’d assaulted an officer of the law. He’d broken free of the handcuffs and run. He was twenty-three years old and already a suspect in the bombing—to say nothing of the house fires on the cul-de-sac.

  There was no way in hell he was going to walk away from this.

  For an instant, he wished the Guide would find him and shoot him and put him out of his misery.

  “Please,” said Michael. “I didn’t do any of this.”

  “We can talk about it. Let me up.”

  “If I let you up, you’re going to arrest me and haul me out of here. There’s someone with a gun who’s going after Hannah, and I need to find him—”

  “You found him, Michael Merrick.” A gun hammer drew back and clicked behind Michael’s head. “And I have all the proof I need.”

  Michael went still. His world centered on that moment, the space of time between the click of the gun and the explosion of the bullet.

  And in that moment, he realized he truly had nothing left to lose.

  The jagged rock was still clutched in his fist, and Michael didn’t hesitate. He ducked and spun off his knee, driving the edge of the stone into the man’s abdomen. The rock glanced off bone. Michael felt a rib fracture. Skin tore and blood rushed over his hand.

  It should have horrified him.

  Instead, he kept on pushing. He thought of all the people who’d died over the last three days, and he kept on pushing.

  Another rib broke.

  The Guide stumbled back, yelling. Michael didn’t recognize him at all. He could have been the same guy from the restaurant bombing—or not.

  He was also aiming his gun again, but Michael’s free hand had already found another rock.

  That rock smashed into the man’s knee. The Guide fell. The gun fell.

  The fire marshal was yelling, but Michael couldn’t comprehend his words. His element had taken over, and his brain was focused on nothing more than survival.

  The Guide was on the ground, surrounded by smoldering underbrush. Michael trapped him there, holding him with power from the earth below. The Guide wasn’t powerless, however. The air had turned thin and ice cold again, and Michael couldn’t catch his breath.

  He didn’t care. He pulled the jagged rock free and put it to the man’s throat. Blood was everywhere, running down his fingers, dripping along the man’s neck to find the earth. Michael felt every drop.

  “I’ll kill you before I pass out,” he said, and meant it.

  The Guide smiled. “You can try.” The smoldering underbrush burst into full-on flame.

  Fire caught Michael’s clothes—and then his skin. He recoiled, smacking at his clothes, trying to ignore the burn. The fire seemed to burn hotter. The pain was intense. Michael sucked in a breath of cold air—but he got a lungful of hot smoke instead. His vision went hazy.

  The Guide raised himself up on one arm. Blood smeared across his face. He found his gun and pointed.

  A gun fired—but not his. Michael heard the shot just beside his head.

  The Guide fell. The fire died so quickly the flames seemed to be sucked back into the earth.

  The sudden silence was so absolute that Michael could swear his ears were ringing. He couldn’t move.

  Then Marshal Faulkner stepped past Michael, his gun still in his hand. He dropped to a knee beside the Guide and reached out to check for a pulse.

  He must not have found anything, because he holstered his gun, then looked up, at Michael. “You okay, kid?”

  Michael couldn’t even generate his usual fury at being called a kid. His breath shook, but he nodded.

  “You need an ambulance?”

  He shook his head, then had to clear his throat. “No.” “Any more surprises for me?”

  “I hope not.” Michael couldn’t quite believe how quickly that had all happened.

  The Guide was dead. He was safe. His brothers were safe.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Don’t thank me yet.” The fire marshal picked up his radio and spoke into it, requesting assistance, and probably explaining what had happened. More codes Michael didn’t understand. Then he looked at Michael. “Are you going to take off again?”

  “No.”

  “You want to tell me how you broke the cuffs?”

  Michael blinked. He’d forgotten about that part. The handcuffs were still attached to his wrists, a short stretch of chain dangling from each. “Adrenaline,” he said flatly.

  Hell, it was sort of true.

  Jack Faulkner’s mouth settled into a straight line. “You know I’m going to have more questions, don’t you?”

  “I figured. Am I still under arrest?”

  The fire marshal sighed. He looked back at the body, then at Michael. His eyes were tired—no, exhausted. “Wait and see, Mike. Wait and see.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Hannah found her father at the police station.

  She didn’t find that out from him, of course. He’d been gone from the scene before she and Irish had been ordered to bag the body of the man he’d killed. He wouldn’t answer her texts or her calls, and he wasn’t at his office by the courthouse—she’d already checked there. Her mother only knew that he’d said he’d be late—without anything more specific than that.

  So Hannah had been left to find him like a child who’d lost her mommy at a grocery store: by asking any adult who might have a clue. In this case, it meant someone with a badge.

  Even when she walked into the precinct and found him sitting at an empty desk, surrounded by forms and file folders, he barely looked up at her.

  “I’m busy, Hannah.”

  She didn’t move. Police officers moved about the room, creating dense background noise, but his words and the tone behind them came through loud and clear. It should have felt like a slap to the face, but for some reason, right now, his words hit her as nothing more than that: just words. He didn’t sound angry; he sounded worn out. In the bright fluorescent lighting, she realized she’d never noticed just how much grey had spread through his hair, or how many lines had etched the skin around his mouth and eyes. Her mind always thought of him as the hero fireman, maybe mid-thirties, with blond hair and a bright smile.

  Not as this stern taskmaster who lived and breathed by procedure and code, who looked as if life had chewed him up and spit him back out.

  Her father looked up more fully when she kept staring at him. His eyes were hard, a cold blue. “I’m not kidding, Hannah. I’ve got a mountain of paperwork—”

  “I see that.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  I wanted to see if you were okay. But she could never say that. They didn’t have that kind of relationship.

  Then again, she knew he’d never killed anyone before. Maybe she was just remembering the man he’d been, the firefighter who took every life as seriously as if the victim were a member of his own family. Ten years ago, this would have bothered him. A lot. After his last job as a firefighter, when he’d failed to save everyone, he hadn’t slept for a week. She remembered.

  She didn’t want to think too much about the flip side: that he wouldn’t have used deadly force unless his own life was in danger.

  At first glance, he didn’t seem bothered. But his knuckles were white, as if he gripped his pen too tightly. The set of his shoulders looked almost painful.

  “Hannah?”

  “I wanted to see if you were okay.”

  Maybe she could say it after all.

  His eyes widened a little. Just enough that she knew she’d surprised him. His voice softened. “I’m fine.”

 
“You didn’t tell Mom what happened.” Her mother had seemed startled that Hannah was even questioning her father’s whereabouts.

  “I don’t talk about active investigations. You know that.” His voice was automatic. Hannah thought about what Irish had said in the fire truck. He looked up at her. “Did you tell her?”

  Hannah shook her head. “No.”

  “Good.”

  Hannah wet her lips and dropped her voice. “You don’t want her to know?”

  “No reason for her to know.”

  “Dad. You shot someone.” A pause. “You killed someone.”

  “I was there, Hannah.”

  A small steel chair sat beside the desk, and she glanced at it. “Can I sit down?”

  She honestly expected him to refuse, but after a moment, he slid the paperwork into a file folder and nodded at the chair.

  She eased into it, wishing for privacy. This room was too open. Too many people swarmed around. If she said the wrong thing, her father would shut his mouth and order her out of here.

  “I’m surprised you’re not in your office,” she said. “I looked there first.”

  “I had people to question.”

  Hannah hesitated. “You mean Michael?”

  She didn’t expect an answer, but he nodded. “And his friend.”

  She’d tried to reach Michael, but his phone had gone straight to voice mail, and he hadn’t responded to her text messages. “Did you arrest them?”

  “No. They just had to give a statement.” Her father put his pen down, then rubbed his eyes. “We found evidence on the gunman linking him to the fire in the home.”

  “And the bombing?”

  “I can’t say.”

  Which meant yes. Probably.

  “What about the other fires?”

  “Hannah—”

  “No. It’s okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” She hesitated again.

  He studied her. “Why did you come looking for me?”

  She gave him a look. “Because you wouldn’t answer your phone.”