Bait

She’s shaking her head as I go on.

“He was screaming at me all the way. Begging me to get Mariana first.” My voice catches. “But he’s my brother… I couldn’t…”

“You saved him,” she whispers.

“If you can call it that.” I shake my head. “When I got back in there the whole place was up. The explosion must have blocked the door through to the store. The other exits were on fire. She was in there…”

I hear her breath catch.

“She was right on the other side of that door, and she was so fucking scared.” I close my eyes. “I told her I’d get to her. Promised I’d get to her. We had this racking, huge steel rigs to the ceiling. One of the bays fell when the drums blew and blocked the door. She couldn’t move it. Couldn’t even try. It was too hot to touch, she said. Everything was too hot to touch.”

I gesture to my shoulder without even thinking. “The door was heavy, it burnt like a hotplate. I shunted it with everything I had. Even still, I couldn’t open it more than an inch. I told her to get back, to run, but she had nowhere to go. The whole fucking world was burning around me and I couldn’t get through that door, not for the fucking life of me. My skin…” I take a moment. A long fucking moment. “I can still smell it. Still hear her screaming.” My gut churns. “You know the last thing she said to me?”

She shakes her head.

“She begged me not to let her die in there. Screamed that she didn’t want to burn.”

I have to look away as Abigail wipes tears from her eyes.

My heart fucking breaks all over again as the memory comes back. “She was so fucking scared. I was too. I promised I wouldn’t leave her. Swore I’d get to her. Told her just to hang on, that I was coming.”

I stare at the sky as I finish up the rest.

“The second explosion took the wall out. That’s the last I remember. I didn’t come around until I was already outside. The flashing sirens were hurting my eyes. My throat.” I put my fingers against my windpipe. “It hurt so bad to even fucking breathe, and I was screaming for her, fighting to go back in there, even as they held me down.”

“They didn’t get her out,” she says, and it’s not a question.

I shake my head. “They say that would’ve been the last she felt of it. That explosion would have been the end.” I rest back against the ledge. Fight to stay steady. “Jake says if I’d have got to that door earlier… if I hadn’t taken him out first…”

“No.”

“He says I’d have had more time… that I could have got to her… could’ve taken it off the hinges, driven a fucking truck through it…”

“No,” she says again. “I don’t believe that.”

And I’m not sure I do either. Not anymore.

I look her straight in the face. “I have scars. On my shoulder, mainly. My back too. They’re bad. Deep.”

She fights back tears. Nods.

“I didn’t want to…”

“You didn’t want me to see,” she finishes for me.

“I don’t talk about it. It’s not much of a conversation starter.” I feel so fucking grim inside as I try to explain. “The scars aren’t just out here.” I gesture to my back. “They’re inside, too. Guilt. Hate.”

“What you went through…” she says. “I can’t even imagine…”

“You don’t want to imagine.”

“Your brother,” she asks. “Was he okay?”

“Physically.”

She nods.

“We don’t speak anymore. He hates me. Blames me for all of it. Blames me for her being there. Blames me for saving him first.”

“How can he blame you for what happened?” she says. “It was an just accident. A horrible accident.”

“That’s just the thing,” I say, and her eyes open wide. “I’m not so sure it was.”Thirty-TwoMy longing for truth was a single prayer.

Edith SteinAbigailThe broken parts of my heart bleed, and it’s all for him.

For the love he lost.

The scars he bears.

The sadness in his eyes as he relives this all for me.

“It wasn’t an accident?” I ask, hating myself for even pushing.

“I don’t know,” he says. “They’re still to deliver the absolute verdict. There are signs it was electrical. It may have been an unfortunate combination of a faulty chemical canister and a spark from one of the generators. It burnt so hot it’s hard to call. So many factors to wade through, and a lot of the evidence was incinerated. They had to identify Mariana from her teeth. Officially, I mean.”

I hate the way I flinch as he tells me.

“Sorry,” he says.

I shake my head. “Don’t be. It’s amazing you’re still alive.” I inch a little closer. “If it was electrical, surely that’s an accident?”

He smiles a terrible smile. “The fire happened at midnight. Two people in that building, Jake and Mariana.”