In the middle of the night, I wake from a bizarre dream where I’m chewing soft plastic. I’m taking more and more of it into my mouth but can’t swallow any of it. A horrible taste coats my tongue, and it’s when I gag that I finally wake up from the nightmare.
But the bad taste doesn’t stay in the dream, and now my nose wrinkles from a bad smell.
As I surface from my sleepy haze, my mind makes excuses for the acrid odor, but a soft popping sound from somewhere in the house snaps my eyes open.
As I’m blinking in the dark, the shrill shriek of the smoke alarm slices through my skull and turns my blood to ice.
Wide awake, I sit up fast, coughing from air that tastes like it’s full of chemicals. My eyes sting, and my heart pounds violently.
T.J.
I grab my phone as I hurry out of bed. The floor is cool, but the air is warmer than it should be. When I open my bedroom door, the hallway is hazy. There’s an orange glow coming from the living room, and when I step out, the open doorway to the den on the opposite side of the house is bright with flickering light, crackling and snapping.
The alarm in the hall comes alive, overlapping with the first one, making it hard to think. For a split second, I consider solutions like water, the fire extinguisher, and blankets, but as smoke billows out of the den and spills into the living room, my priority becomes clear.
In T.J.’s room, I flip on the light and focus on the shape of my child under the blanket. “T.J., wake up!”
He blinks as he answers me in a voice thick with sleep.
“Buddy, up. Now. There’s a fire. We’re leaving.” I keep my voice low and calm. “Let’s go.”
My eyes are watering, and my fingers are clumsy with adrenaline as I reach for T.J. He grabs his stuffed frog, and I lead him up and out of his room, picking up his hoodie on the way out.
The den is too close to the front door for that to be a safe exit. With my hand clamped around T.J.’s wrist, I tell him to stay low. Heads ducked, we quickly head toward the back of the house, through the kitchen, into the small mudroom, then finally, out the back door.
I suck in deep lungfuls of the cold night air and cough out smoke as I lead my son away from the house. He’s trembling beside me, his feet only in socks, and his eyes huge in the dark.
It’s not until we’re at the back of the small yard, as far from the fire as we can get, that I pull my phone from my pocket with shaking hands and dial 9-1-1.
CHAPTER 6
BUCK
I already know what to expect when I arrive at Elena’s in the early hours of the morning, but I’m not prepared for the physical response I have when I see the emergency vehicles surrounding her house.
Ignoring the heavy ache in my chest, I park and find Elena standing next to a patrol car talking to Officer Hanks. The back door of the cruiser is open, and T.J.’s sitting inside, wrapped in a blanket and clutching a stuffed animal, his eyes wide as he watches men going in and out of the house.
Elena’s wearing a coat, obviously given to her by one of the firefighters, that’s so large it covers the top half of her pajama pants. There are rubber boots on her feet that also look like they came from the crew.
I give Elena and Hanks a nod, but don’t interrupt. Instead, I crouch down next to T.J. “Hey, I’m Marshal Brennan. How’re you doing, buddy?”
He stares back at me for a few seconds, then says, “I’m okay.”
“Does your throat hurt?”
The boy shakes his head. “The firemen asked me that. I feel all right. Mom was coughing, but she’s better now.”
“What’s your friend’s name?” I tip my head toward the stuffed toy.
A pause. “Hopper.”
“Nice to meet you, too, Hopper. I heard you both did a great job getting out of the house quickly. Are you warm enough?”
The boy nods again as his eyes focus behind me, where one of the guys is rolling up a hose.
With T.J. secure and Elena still answering questions, I straighten and head to the house.
The porch is slick with frost, and the air is clean and cold, but inside, it’s warm and damp with a sour chemical tang that clings to the back of my throat.
