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“None of them started this,” said Tyler. “This is the way it’s always been.”
Michael looked at him. “It shouldn’t be this way.”
“No,” said Tyler. “It shouldn’t.”
But it was. And Michael couldn’t fix it. He felt like he’d been fighting forever.
And now he’d failed. The past five years seemed so pointless. Just borrowed time.
“Someone is coming this way,” said Tyler.
Michael straightened, suddenly alert, ready to fight. He was surprised to find himself eager for it, to have a target for all this rage. For the first time, he didn’t care about setting an example for someone else. He didn’t care about what his father would have expected him to do.
If the Guide showed his face, Michael was going to find a way to kill him.
The man who walked through the haze and smoke with a flashlight wasn’t the Guide, though. It was Hannah’s father, the fire marshal.
Jack flicked the flashlight over each of their faces. Michael couldn’t see his face clearly, but his voice was tired. “Hannah told me you were here. Come sit in the car. I don’t have any information yet, but—”
“Were they here?” said Michael. “Is this the place?”
The fire marshal didn’t even ask for clarification. He just nodded. “Yes.”
Michael felt his face start to crumple. He hadn’t realized there’d been a shred of hope left curling in his thoughts.
Gone now.
Marshal Faulkner put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on.” He didn’t offer false hope. He didn’t say anything else. He just left his hand there and waited until Michael started walking.
Every step brought them closer to the house. The bomb had done its job, and thoroughly. Most of the structure was gone, and what was left was burning. Michael kept hoping for some kind of miracle, that maybe after this step, his brothers would appear from the darkness. Or after this step, the rescue teams would declare that they hadn’t really found body parts from the explosion, that it was all a joke. Or his brothers had escaped, and they were looking for a pay phone—
His cell phone rang.
Michael choked on his breath and grabbed for it. He didn’t recognize the number.
Please. Please please please—
A girl’s voice spoke across a poor connection. “Michael?”
He didn’t recognize the voice, but she sounded young. His thoughts were too jumbled to make sense of this. “Yeah?”
“It’s Calla Dean.”
He stopped walking. He pressed the phone more tightly against his ear. “Calla?”
“Yeah.” She coughed. “I need you to get here.”
Her plea was surreal enough that it chiseled through his panic and despair. “You what?”
“I need you to get here. They had me trapped, but I got free.” She coughed again. A burst of static came across the line. “I don’t know how long—”
“Wait—you what? Who had you trapped? What are you—”
“I’m by the water. At the abandoned park at the end of Fort Smallwood. There’s an old storage shed—” More coughing, then silence.
“Calla? Calla?”
Hunter and Tyler and the fire marshal were staring at him, but he didn’t care. Michael pressed a hand over his other ear. “Calla? Are you there? You’re at the abandoned park? What are you talking about?”
