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“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.
Then he amended that.
And alive. Please be together and alive.
Michael wished he had Hunter’s gun, so he could shoot these screeching smoke detectors. With their persistent beeping, he couldn’t hear anything in the house. No movement, no voices.
Everything seemed very still in the darkness.
His hands found the slate flooring of the foyer. Every forward movement brought another handful of grit, both a blessing and a curse. He hadn’t found his brothers collapsed in here, and that could be a good thing or a bad thing.
Maybe he should have used his cell phone to try to call them.
He choked on the thought, unsure whether he was laughing or crying. He put his forehead on his hands and inhaled again. When had he gotten so tired?
Glass shattered somewhere up ahead.
Michael jumped and felt as if he were waking up. Somehow, he’d ended up on the floor. He fought to get to his hands and his knees, but his limbs felt too heavy. His shirt had come off his face.
More glass shattering. Then a loud crack.
