The hallway was an inferno. Fire climbed the walls, licked across the ceiling, and consumed everything it touched. Somewhere deeper in the building, something crashed. Glass shattered. The structure was failing.
"Fire department! Call out!" I shouted it even though I knew no one would answer. The security guard said he was alone, but you always called. You always checked. Because the one time you didn't would be the time someone was there.
We pushed forward, knocking down flames as we went. The water hissed and steamed against superheated surfaces. Visibility dropped to nothing. I could feel Brian beside me. The two of us moved in sync, reading the fire's behavior, watching for signs of collapse.
By the time we had it under control, the first floor was gutted. The desks were black. The ceiling tiles were melted. A bulletin board near the entrance had warped into an unrecognizable mass, the student artwork it once displayed reduced to ash.
Outside, I pulled off my mask and let the night air hit my face. Sweat dripped down my back. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind the familiar exhaustion and something heavier.
"Briggs." Garrett's voice was flat. "You need to see this."
I followed him back inside, to the gymnasium. The double doors were blackened but intact. Inside, the fire had barely touched the space. Just enough to make a point.
On the far wall, spray-painted in letters three feet tall:
LET THE SYSTEM BURN.
I stared at the words. There was anger in them. Rage that had been building for a long time.
"Arson unit's already on their way," Rodriguez said, coming up behind us.
I looked around the gymnasium. Basketball hoops at either end. A painted mascot on the floor, now covered in soot and ash. A banner on the wall that readHOME OF THE THUNDERBIRDS.
Kids played here. Laughed here. Felt safe here.
And someone wanted to watch it burn.
"We'll know more once the investigators process the scene," Rodriguez said. His voice was steady, but I caught the tension underneath. "For now, we need to finish securing the building."
I nodded and took one last look at the message on the wall.
Whoever wrote that wasn't finished. I could feel it in my gut, the same instinct that told me when a structure was about to come down.
This was just the beginning.
The security guard’s name was Harold—sixty-three years old, eleven years on the overnight shift at P.S. 156. He was doing his rounds when he smelled the smoke. He tried to find the source and caught a lungful of toxic fumes before he made it out.
We loaded him into the ambulance with an oxygen mask strapped to his face. His eyes were red and watery, darting around like he still expected flames to follow him.
"The kids," he kept saying, voice muffled. "Thank God the kids weren't there."
I rode in the back with him while Brian drove. Queens General was fifteen minutes out, and I could feel him pushingit, running lights, the ambulance swaying through sparse 4 AM traffic. I kept my focus on Harold, monitoring his oxygen levels, checking his vitals, and keeping him calm.
"You're doing great, Harold. Just keep breathing for me. Nice and slow."
"Eleven years," he said. "Eleven years I've watched that building. All those kids."
"I know. You did good getting out. You did exactly what you were supposed to do."
His hand found my wrist, grip weak but desperate. "Who would do something like this?"
I didn't have an answer.
The ER was its usual chaos: fluorescent lights, beeping monitors, nurses moving with the controlled urgency of people who'd seen everything twice. We wheeled Harold through the double doors, and I gave the report to the triage nurse. Smoke inhalation, possible chemical exposure from the accelerants, vitals stable but he needed monitoring.
I was about to head back to the ambulance when I spotted Brian.
He was standing at the nurses' station, shoulders tense, talking to a woman in a white coat with auburn hair scraped back in a messy ponytail.
