Sacrifice (Elemental 5)
Page 18
“Our house is smoking,” said Hunter. His voice was shaking. “I can’t sense anyone inside.”
Michael looked at him. That statement could mean two things.
“Where are they?” said Chris. At some point he’d grabbed Michael’s arm. His breath was shaking, his eyes a little too wide. The earlier indignant fury was gone from his expression, and now he just looked young. And frightened.
In a flash, Michael remembered Chris five years ago, flames reflected in his eyes exactly like this. Then, Michael had dragged his youngest brother out of a burning house much like this one. Chris had been choking, gasping for air.
Then, he’d been punching Michael, crying, yelling, his voice breaking. “Go get them! Get them!”
Their parents.
Red and white lights strobed between the houses, underscored by the sound of hydraulic brakes and sirens cutting out. The sound should have been reassuring, but it wasn’t.
Michael didn’t want to believe Calla was behind this—but five houses. Five points on a pentagram—a symbol typically used to call the Guides. She wanted a war. This couldn’t be a coincidence.
Or it might not be Calla at all. It might be an attack.
He immediately regretted yelling for his brothers. “Hide in the woods,” Michael said. “Now.”
“No!” said Chris. “Michael—we have to get—we have to get them—”
“I’m going to. I’m telling you to hide.”
“But—”
“Goddamn it, Chris!” His own voice broke. “I’m not losing all of you! Go!”
Chris’s face went whiter, if that was possible.
So did Hunter’s, but he took hold of Chris’s arm and started dragging. “Come on. We can hide.”
Chris jerked free—but he followed.
For a moment, Michael wanted to call them back. He wanted to form a human chain and drag them all into the house behind him.
But he didn’t know what he’d find inside.
He realized he was standing in the open, lit up by roaring flames.
A rookie sniper could take you out without a scope.
Everything suddenly sounded like a premonition. Michael sprinted onto the porch and grabbed hold of the door handle without thinking, throwing the French door wide and rushing into the kitchen.
Smoke hit him in the face, and Michael jerked back, coughing. The smoke detectors were screaming, three times as loud now that the door was open. He dropped to his knees and spent a minute relearning how to breathe. The air in here was hot and dry and tasted like ash. Pulling his damp shirt up over his mouth and nose helped, but not a lot.
He crawled forward. Darkness cloaked him immediately. He lost track of the door in less than five seconds. Every inhale tasted of smoke, along with something acrid and sour as he got farther into the kitchen. He put his hand down on something unfamiliar that crumbled under his fingers and wished the flashlight weren’t in the garage.
Michael stopped. The garage. Full of landscaping equipment—including fertilizer and chemicals.
Was the house still on fire? Was he crawling through a ticking bomb?
He inhaled to yell for his brothers again, but his lungs didn’t want to inflate all the way. Michael coughed and pushed forward, trying to rush now.
His shoulder hit the cooking island hard, and Michael swore—but at least it helped orient him. The doorway to the front hall should be straight ahead.
Gabriel could survive in an inferno, but Michael knew smoke made it hard for him to breathe. Nick could handle a loss of oxygen—but he couldn’t take a fire’s heat for long.
Please be together, he thought.