What happens next is history.
My history.
Maybe they never explained these dinners because you can’t. I’m twenty-eight, but here—no person is older or younger. Time is frozen, and a soul-bleeding feeling sings and screams—an experience that philosophers and mathematicians would fail to encapsulate.
I’d try.
But then again, I’d rather carry their secrets to my grave.
44
THATCHER MORETTI
“SKY! SKYLAR!” I yell out and drop my bike. I bolt into pitch-black water. Soaked up to my waist before I swim, and I reach the facedown floating body, turning my brother over—our gold necklaces snag. My strong pulse beats in my ears, and gripping him, I swim and pull. I drag him to the graveled shore.
My strong pulse beats.
Water drips down my eyelashes. I lie him down, chained at the necks, forced to stay close.
It beats.
I pump on his chest.
It beats.
I blow breath into his mouth and compress his chest—Skylar jolts up and grabs my arms in panic. “Thatch!”
My eyes snap open, a cold sweat coating me. Nightmare—just a fucking nightmare. I stay still and blink a few times, my pulse on a decent. Fuck me. I blink and gather spatial awareness. I’m in Jane’s bedroom.
Our room.
She sleeps peacefully beside me, tucked under a purple blanket. Naked, both of us, except for the cornic’ around my neck and my dog tags around hers. Quietly, I grab my phone off the nightstand and check the time, squinting as the screen lights up in the darkened bedroom. It’s zero three hundred hours.
Early. Too early for sunlight.
I lie back, head to pillow, and I smear a hand over my eyes. My nightmares are always related to my time in the military—I can’t remember ever having one about that night in the quarry.
Back when I was twelve and Sky was fifteen, my brother—he never woke up.
I try to think about other things. Like how it’s nearing the end of March, and we’re only three days away from Tony’s transfer to Charlie’s detail. And him becoming the Omega lead.
Yeah, that’s not making me feel any better.
To slow my heart rate, I take a few deep, measured breaths, and I smell something…
I sniff the air.
My pulse shoots back up, and I narrow my gaze on the door.
Filmy lines of smoke billow underneath and spill into the room.
I’m on my feet in a split-second. “Jane.” I tug on my drawstring pants, then I jostle my fiancée. “Jane!”
She flinches awake. “What, Thatcher?” Panic strikes her eyes as I leave the bed to cross the room and swing open the closet.
“Oh my God.” She sees the smoke pooling inside, and while I grab the fire extinguisher behind a shoebox, she hurriedly puts on panties and my black crewneck. And she glances at the wall. “LUNA! WAKE UP!”
Her cats—our cats. They barrel to the front of my mind.
I sprint out. Smoke skates across the second-floor landing and narrow staircase, stinging my eyes. I cough into my bicep and yell up towards the attic, “MAXIMOFF! FARROW!”
The fire isn’t coming from their room.
I slam a fist on a second-floor bedroom. “LUNA!” She’s a heavy sleeper. Could take more than that to wake her—but I run downstairs to stop the fire.
Heat is pouring from the first floor. The cracking sound is as violent as the sweltering temperature, and I enter an absolute fucking horror scene. Fire spreads to the ceiling, eats the floorboards, attacking the wood foundation, and it tries to crawl up the brick walls.
Pink loveseat in flames, but the kitchen—the kitchen is engulfed, maybe in seconds. I extinguish the living room, protecting the front door exit.
“BANKS!” I yell at the adjoining door.
My brother.
SFO.
They’re asleep in the other townhouse. The door opens, and Donnelly almost blows back. “Shit.” He’s been crashing on security’s couch. I remember Akara spent the night here too. He hasn’t moved back to the gated neighborhood yet.
I throw the empty extinguisher, abandoning the task.
We can’t put out this fire. I spot a gray cat cowering beneath the rocking chair, tail on fire. Sweat drips off me as I run and snatch up Licorice, putting out the flames with my hand. Fur singed.
Donnelly shields his nose and races towards the staircase like he’s going to find someone.
I yell back at him, “Wake Akara, Quinn, Banks, and Tony! Get them outside!” Licorice claws up my chest, and I pull the frightened cat down.
Donnelly coughs, stops, and reroutes back into security’s townhouse.
Farrow runs down the stairs. “Fuck,” he curses at the sight and winces. Cringes.
The heat is un-fucking-bearable. My eyes sear from smoke, lungs burning. “Less than two minutes before it’s upstairs!” I yell. If the fire barricades Jane, Maximoff, and Luna, we’ll need to exit a window. I point to the front door, the better exit.
The clock is set. Less than two minutes.
Farrow nods and eagle-eyes something on my six. “Go.”
I trust him. I don’t wait to look at what he sees. I leave Farrow and sprint back upstairs. Back to the people we’d give our lives to protect.
Jane is already on the phone with the fire department and corralling Ophelia into a cat carrier. Her eyes widen when she sees Licorice’s singed tail.
“He’s fine.” I shove him in with Ophelia.
“I have Toodles!” Maximoff yells from the landing, a tuxedo cat tight in his arms. That cat—he never lets Maximoff hold him, except for right now. Toodles isn’t fidgeting. “Luna, you ready?”
“Yeah.” Her Thrashers sweatshirt consumes her gangly frame.
I zip up the carrier while Jane hangs up. Fire truck sirens blare in the distance.
We’re missing four cats.
We have no time to search a house that’s going down fast.
Jane is near tears, but she pushes through the grief and fear. “We need to leave now.” She stands with the carrier.
“Where’s Farrow?” Maximoff asks.
“Cover your nose.” I hand Jane a shirt from the floor. Luna already buries her nose in her sweatshirt.
“Thatcher, where’s Farrow?!” Maximoff screams.
“Downstairs. He’s fi—”
Maximoff is already running down the steps.
I walk out in front of Luna and Jane in case the fire has swarmed the stairs. Farrow is already at the bottom, grasping the furry necks of two calico cats. One in each hand. “The door is clear!”
Two cats missing.
Maximoff sees Farrow is okay. Farrow assesses his fiancé, and we all work together to leave. I press against the brick wall, making the girls pass me, and I come up in the rear, my hand on Jane’s hip.
Maximoff draws his sister closer, protecting Luna while Farrow leads them through the fast-burning, tiny living room.
One clear path.
That’s all we have.
We cough, and through the thick, bright haze of smoke and fire—I stay vigilant and see a black cat in the unlit fireplace. On the mantel, flames eat away and consume family photographs.
I reroute.
Jane feels my hand leave her side. “No—wait, Thatcher!”
“Don’t stop!” I yell. Don’t wait for me.
Maximoff pulls her forward.
I barrel through fire, heat licking my chest, and I don’t think. I just collect a scared Lady Macbeth, and I exit behind the four of them.
We’re on the street. At a safe distance while the old Philly townhouse burns and burns. Flames lick the second-floor windows.
Our room.
I cough out a lungful of smoke, and Jane tears Lady Macbeth out of my arms. More so I can catch my breath without a cat clawing me to death.
“Thatcher?”
I nod to her that I’m fine, and I sweep her—she’s alive, safe, breathing. And I swee
p the chaotic perimeter. Fire trucks aren’t here yet. Neighbors pool out onto the street. Paparazzi shout, spilling out of their cars. They toss water bottles to us, ask if we’re okay, and take pictures and videos.
Banks.
I search for my brother, but he’s already jogging up to me. “SFO is good. Everyone is out.” He glances between me and Jane. “The cats?”
Jane looks up at me, and agony finally reaches her—she breaks down, tears pouring out. Face contorting. I hold her against my body. My stomach is in knots—I fucking failed. All I can do is comfort her.
“How many?” Banks asks me.
“We didn’t find LJ.”
“What?” Tony hears that last part, walking closer. “You left the kitten?” He combs back his hair, eyeing the opened front door.
He wouldn’t.
I look back at the end of the street. For one second, and when I turn, Tony is running towards the engulfed townhouse. To save a cat that’s probably already dead.
To prove something.
That he’s worth more than me.
“TONY!” I growl out. “STOP!”
He doesn’t stop.
“What the fuck is he doing?!” Quinn shouts.
“Saving a kitten,” Banks says, his voice tight like he’s caging breath. Probably hoping Tony will retreat at the foot of the door.
Farrow jogs closer. “Luna has LJ.”