A dull roar came from the floor below us. Nick swore at his phone.
“Georgia’s coming!” My lungs burned as I leaned over the roof ledge looking for her. Vero appeared beside me, carrying the fire hose over her shoulder. She dragged it to the half wall, unwinding it from its spool. “What are you doing?” I shouted. “The pumps aren’t working.”
She tossed the hose over the side. “I’m getting us off this roof. We’re climbing down. Just like we did from our dorm room.”
“We’re five stories up, Vero! And we didn’t climb down, we fell!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll go first,” she said eagerly, slinging a leg over the ledge.
A tiny flashlight beam bounced over the drill field, catching my attention. Others followed close behind it. Red and blue lights swirled in the distance.
“Eleven hundred degrees!” Wade shouted. “Everybody down!”
Nick appeared like a ghost through the haze. He grabbed Vero by her hood, dragging her off the ledge as he tackled me to the ground. Glass shattered as the windows in the floor below us blew out. A hatch in the floor shot open, ripped from its hinges. Fireballs spewed through it, coloring everything orange and black. I lost sight of Wade and Joey as Nick sprawled on top of Vero and me, sheltering us under his body, his coat spread over us to protect our faces from the smoke. The roof was hot through my clothes, the air hard to breathe.
Sirens wailed beneath the roaring wind. I heard my sister holler five stories below us. Heard her pounding against the control room door. A gun fired. Glass smashed. “I’m in!” she shouted.
The pumps kicked on with a loud rumble. The flames drew back through the hatch with awhoosh. Fans hummed somewhere below. Beyond Nick’s shoulder, the wall of smog began to thin.
His body was heavy on top of us. He waited a moment before lifting his head.
“Detective,” Vero said, her voice husky from the smoke. She waggledher eyebrows at him. “I think we’re having a moment.” I shoved my elbow into her ribs and pushed Nick off of us, starving for air.
He rolled over onto his back, black rivulets of sweat trailing down his neck. “Joey! Wade!” he called out through a raspy throat. “Everyone okay?”
Joey groaned. Wade coughed. I rolled onto an elbow and spotted them lying a few feet away, the duffel bag still smoking beside them. Charred paper towels tumbled in the wind.
Wade shook a cigarette from his pack and slid the filter between his lips. His Zippo scraped as he lit it. Joey reached out blindly for the pack and Wade passed the lighter to him.
“Finn!” Footsteps boomed up the fire escape. Georgia burst onto the roof deck, her eyes wild as they swung over the smoking landscape. She rushed to me through the blackened puddles. “Thank god you’re okay. Mom would have killed me.” She clasped my hand and hauled me upright. Her hand was slick with blood.
“What happened to you?” I asked her.
She glanced down at herself, surprised by the cuts. “The control room was locked. Didn’t have a key. I had to shoot out the window and bust in. Must have cut myself,” she said, wiping it on her flannel pajamas.
A fire truck rounded the corner and two ambulances screamed through the gate. More footsteps pounded up the steps. Roddy, Ty, and Samara rushed onto the deck, carrying first aid kits, blankets, and extinguishers. A winded Charlie dragged himself up the last few steps behind them.
“We thought you all were cooked!” Sam said, kneeling beside Wade. He batted her hand away as she yanked the cigarette from his mouth and snuffed it out. He dropped his head back onto the deck, muttering to himself as she flipped open her first aid kit.
Ty wrapped a blanket around Vero and helped her to her feet.
“I’m sorry, Ty,” she said, her face a mask of smoke-smudged sincerity. “It’s been fun, but I’m afraid you and I have no future together. I’mpretty sure Detective Anthony and I just made a baby.” She patted him on the shoulder. “If it makes you feel better, you can keep my underwear as a token of our fleeting relationship.”
Ty backed away from her, darting odd glances between her and Nick as he handed Nick a blanket. “I’d better go see if anyone else needs any assistance,” he muttered.
Nick shook his head as he wiped a smear of sweat from his brow. He draped the blanket over my shoulders and leaned back against the ledge, opening an arm to me. My blanket pooled around my ankles as I waddled to his side with a shiver. He pulled me in close.
“Where’s Stu?” he asked Roddy.
“Cuffed in one of the classrooms,” Roddy said. “I saw the flames through the window and we came back as soon as we could. What the heck happened up here?”
“No idea,” Nick said. “The power came back on and the simulators started a second later.”
“The control room was locked.” Georgia winced as Sam plucked a piece of glass from her arm. “No one was inside it and I didn’t see anyone on the ground when I got here. It’s a mystery.”
“About as mysterious as that power outage,” Sam said as she reached for some gauze.
“What do you mean?” Nick asked.
