And now, it’s too late. We have to go back to her and tell her that it’s gone. Carlisle catches my eye as the fire trucks come screeching to a halt behind us, at least a dozen men springing into action as they go to contain the forest fire that reached the town.
“You’ve done a good job,” one of them tells me, slapping me on the shoulder. “But we’ve got this from here.”
I don’t reply. I should be relieved that the worst of it is over, but I wonder if going back to the cabin and facing Angelie to tell her the truth will be far, far worse than anything this town contains right now. Whatever fires we can put out here, we can’t do the same when it comes to the sheer weight of the pain that’s going to hit her when she discovers what happened.
And whether or not any of us want to say it out loud, we all know it too damn well to hide from it.
15
ANGELIE
Perched on the front step,I crane my neck toward the road, straining my ears for any hint that they’re getting close. The sensors on the map were snuffed out a half hour or so ago, the heat no longer intense enough to set them off, which means that the guys must have gotten the fire under control, right? Right…?
I’ve been turning it over and over in my head, the possibility of everything that might have happened—how awful it would be if the school has been badly effected, how I would somehow keep up with classes if we had to cordon off one side of the building or something.
It’s the strangest thing, even with the fire that threatened my house, this is the most emotional I’ve felt about anything to do with the chaos up until now. The school is more than just my job; it’s where I’m going to educate my own children, the same place my sister and I attended, the same place that has stood as a bastion in this town for so long. And if it’s lost…
I swallow hard, pushing that thought from my mind. I can’t let my head go there, no matter how tempting it might be. I know that they will have done everything in their power to make surethat the school is safe, along with the rest of the town. The way that Carlisle looked at me before he left, the way he swore to me that he would do everything he could to keep it safe, he couldn’t have faked that.
The walkie-talkie is sitting between my feet on the step below, silent. I have the door open to the ops room, so I’ll hear if the alarms go off again, but I don’t think they will. I’m pretty sure that I made out the shriek of sirens heading along the road that led up to the ridge, so it looks like the main firefighting forces from the city have finally woken the hell up to do their jobs. I have to pray that means that everything will be under control soon, that everything will be back to normal before I know it. But I have the horrible, creeping dread that it’s only proof of how bad things have gotten, and I don’t know if I can live with that.
Or what my life will look like if thingsdojust go back to normal, for that matter. I mean, with everything that has happened since I moved into this cabin, can I just brush it all off and go back to the life I had before? I miss the kids terribly, of course I do, but being with the guys…it’s dizzying and thrilling and confusing all in the same breath, and I’m not sure if I should crave more of it the way I do. Shouldn’t I be a grown-ass woman about it, see it for the chaos that it is, and get on with my life?
Maybe. But when they make me feel the way they do…
Suddenly, I hear the rumble of an engine, the crunch of turf beneath wheels. I spring to my feet and sure enough, a few seconds later the van rounds the corner, Joe and Carlisle in the front cabin. I search their expressions for some kind of answer before they draw any closer, but as the van comes to a halt before me and they both step out, I can tell that it isn’t good news.
“Are you okay?” I ask, rushing up to them, clasping Carlisle’s hand and examining Joe’s face as though it might explain what happened down there. There’s a smudge of what looks like ash beneath Joe’s right eye, and I reach up without thinking and brush it away. His skin his rough, coated with sweat and ash, and my heart pounds as I wait for an answer.
“Callum, Dylan, are they?—”
“We’re fine,” Dylan intones as he climbs out of the van behind us. Like Carlisle and Joe, the twins look exhausted, spent. Not just physically, but like there’s something even darker going on there, something they can’t quite put into words. My heart sinks to my shoes, dread nagging at the back of my mind.
“Come inside,” I insist. “Is everything okay? Is the town?—”
“The guys from the city are getting it under control now,” Carlisle replies as he makes his way inside the house, shrugging off his jacket. “Jesus, I need a drink…”
“Let me get you guys one.” I hurry to the kitchen and pull out four glasses, arranging them on the counter in front of me before I hunt down the bottle of scotch. I try not to pay attention to how much my hands are shaking, praying that they haven’t noticed either. I don’t want them feeling as though they’ve failed, no matter what has happened, not when they ran into the midst of danger without a second thought.
The sun is setting now, the golden rays tracing shapes out through the leaves of the forest beyond. It’s almost peaceful, were it not for the situation at hand.
When I emerge into the living room with their drinks, I find them all slumped in seats, Dylan and Joe still wearing their jackets, the air heavy with something that has, as yet, goneunspoken. My heart thrums in my chest as I hand them each a drink, and they all mutter their thanks but none can look at me in the eye.
“What happened down there?” I ask. My voice is so tiny I can hardly get the words out, and my chest feels like it may burst with horrible anticipation.
“The school,” Dylan replies, finally. All of them tense. A lump leaps into my throat, and I hold it there for a moment, willing it to be a misunderstanding, a miscommunication, something. Anything other than the obvious conclusion.
“What happened to it?” I ask. I stand there before them, the tips of all my fingers tingling as I wait for someone to break the silence.
Carlisle looks up at me, meeting my gaze as though he wishes he didn’t have to. “It…it burned down.”
My hand flies to my mouth, shadows playing at the corners of my vision as panic and shock course through me. For a second, I think this must be some weird, twisted joke at my expense, something that I’ve entirely misunderstood—no way could the school begone.Not the place where I’ve worked for years, the place where I studied as a child myself, the place that was meant to serve as the education for my children too. It’s too solid, too grounded, to ever really be gone…
But nobody makes a move to contradict him. I look around the room, silently pleading for any of them to tell me that this isn’t true—to tell me that it’s just a mistake, that the school will be fine, that Carlisle is just catastrophizing and there’s nothing for us to worry about.
Silence rings through the room, and it hits me that this is really happening. The school…the school is gone. Sickness twists in my guts, and my knees crumple out from underneath me. I grab for the arm of the chair closest to me, the one Joe is sitting on, and he rises to his feet just in time to pull me into his arms before I hit the ground.
“Hey, hey, it’s going to be alright?—”
