He was already in motion, barking orders through the thin wall to the hallway. “Nitro! Augustine! Get the truck ready, now!” The sound of boots and the slam of doors followed instantly.
I fumbled with my jeans, fingers refusing to work. Dean had my bra in his hand before I even asked, helped me hook it, his touch no longer gentle but efficient, professional. He kissed my temple, then herded me toward the door.
The hallway outside was a blur of men, most in varying degrees of undress, but all sober, all moving with lethal intent. Nitro met us at the end of the corridor, keys spinning on his finger. He nodded at Dean, then at me, and said, “What’s the sitrep?”
“Arson,” Dean replied, voice clipped. “They left a body.”
Nitro’s jaw set. “That’s a message.”
Augustine joined us, face pale but eyes blazing. “Who’s the stiff?”
Dean shook his head. “We find out when we get there.”
The four of us ran down the stairs, boots slapping hollow on concrete. The parking lot outside was lit by the cold blue of dawn, air thick with the ozone of the coming day.
I shivered, not from the cold but from the certainty that nothing would ever be the same. Sergeant, somehow, wasalready at the foot of the stairs, leash in her mouth, ready for orders.
We peeled out of the lot, Dean twisted in his seat, and locked eyes with me. The blue in his irises was gone, replaced with something harder, the color of battlefields and old bruises.
“It’s not your fault,” he said, quiet but absolute.
I almost laughed. It felt like the only thing I had left. “Yeah?” I said, voice thin as glass. “Then why does it feel like it is?”
He reached back, took my hand, squeezed it so tight the bones ground together. “Because you’re the only one who gives a damn.”
The sun was up now, lighting the edge of the world in a line of fire.
***
The shelter’s roof was rimmed in orange, fire painting the sky in a sick parody of dawn. We saw the smoke first, billowing black and straight as a goddamn column, visible for miles. Then we saw the crowd—people and uniforms, camera phones, children in pajamas clinging toparents.
I barely remembered my feet hitting the ground. The air was thick with wet ash, burning plastic, and the metallic stink of panic. Floodlights from the fire engines threw the world into white-hot clarity: men in bunker gear shouting orders, hoses snaking like arteries across the parking lot, the relentless sound of water beating against flame. The building was a riot of color—shards of yellow, blue, and red flickering through what used to be the cinderblock walls. The old mural of the smiling pit bull on the west wall had already blistered and sloughed away, leaving only scorched outlines, a ghost of better days.
They’d set up the dogs in the outdoor play pen, as far from the fire as the cyclone fence would allow. I ran to the fence, fingers tangling in the wire, my body pressed flat as if I could squeeze through by will alone. All the dogs were alive, but every one of them trembled, barking at the inferno or at the possibility that this time, no one would come back for them.
Dean caught up to me, his hand on my shoulder, pulling me back from the wire. His eyes swept the crowd, scanning for danger or survivors, I couldn’t tell which.
“It’s okay,” he said, voice low but steady. “You’re okay.”
I tried to focus, but the world was all noise—sirens, shouts, the drum of water against collapsing wood, thehowl of dogs, and the crash of things inside the building falling to pieces.
A firefighter, face streaked with soot, stepped in front of us. He pulled off his helmet, the gesture as ritual as last rites. “You from the shelter?” he asked.
I nodded, mouth too dry to form a word.
“We got the animals out,” he said, glancing at Dean, then back to me. “But there was a woman inside, in the back office. She…” He swallowed, looked away. “She didn’t make it. ID says ‘Marsha.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
The whole world turned to static.
I must have made a noise, because suddenly Dean’s arms were around me, bracing me upright as my knees buckled. The firefighter kept talking, but the words were just a hum, meaningless syllables ricocheting around my skull. I tasted blood and smoke, and for a second I thought I might vomit.
“No,” I said, voice barely there. “No, that’s—she was home, she—” but even as I said it, I knew. Marsha would have been there, finishing paperwork, making sure the kittens got fed, counting pills so she didn’t have to do it in the morning. Marsha would have opened the door for anyone and trusted they meant no harm.
Dean tried to turn me away, but I shook him off so hard I nearly fell. I shoved past the firefighter, toward the building, ignoring the way the heat clawed at my skin and the scorched gravel bit into my feet.
I screamed her name, over and over, loud enough to drown out everything else. For a second, I thought I saw her—just a shape, a woman’s shadow at the office window—but the glass was gone, melted or blown out by the pressure, and the heat was too much to bear.
Dean sprinted after me. He caught me at the fire line, arms locking around my waist, pulling me back just before I would have run straight into the arms of two paramedics. I flailed, hitting his chest with the side of my fist, but he didn’t let go. Not even when I went limp, the fight gone out of me like water dumped on an open flame.
