Page 99 of Until We Come Home

“Back,” I tell Ollie, shoving him ahead of me. “Back down the line, now. Move.”

We run.

We’ve made it maybe two hundred yards back the way we came when I see it. Below us, between us and the end of Ridgeview Court, a spot fire has taken hold on our side of the line, in a thick stand of broom right along the edge of the backyards. It’s a wall, the broom going up all at once in a whoosh I can feel in my chest, flames thirty feet high racing across the slope, cutting straight across our escape route.

I stop so fast Ollie slams into my back.

Behind us, the main fire is coming over the ridge, driven down the hill by the shifting wind, a wall of orange swallowing the trees. In front of us, the spot fire is spreading across the line, trapping us against the slope.

We’re boxed in.

“Shit,” Ollie says, his voice going thin. “Mateo, what do we do?”

I key my radio, my voice calm. “Emergency traffic, emergency traffic. Strike Team 7, Navarro. Two firefighters cut off on the dozer line above Ridgeview, halfway between Ridgeview Court and the water tank. Spot fire across the line below us, main fire coming down the slope above us. Escape route’s compromised. Repeat, escape route compromised.”

The radio goes silent for a beat. Then Barnes comes back.

“Copy, Navarro. All units, hold traffic. Engines are moving. Rebecca, take the engine up Ridgeview Court and see if you can punch through. Mateo, find your safety zone. Find it now.”

In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never heard his voice sound like that.

“Copy,” I answer.

My headlamp sweeps the hillside, my mind going stone cold and clear. There is no safety zone. Not up here. The slope above us is thick with fir and broom. The dozer line is fifteen feet of dirt, nowhere near wide enough to keep the heat off us if the fire sweeps across from both sides. The backyards below are on the far side of the wall of flame.

“Rebecca, can you get through?” I ask over the radio.

A long pause. “Negative. Tree down across the court and the bottom of the line is fully involved. We can’t get to you. Repeat, we can’t get to you.”

Ollie lets out a small, broken noise beside me, and I grab his shoulder and spin him around.

“Look at me,” I tell him, gripping his jacket. “Look at me, Ollie. We’re going to be fine. You hear me? Stay with me and do exactly what I say.”

He nods, terrified. Over his shoulder, up the slope, the draw catches.

The spot fire hits the thick broom, the wind slams into it, and the whole gully erupts. A column of fire roars up the draw like a blowtorch, faster than anything I’ve ever seen. The porch light winks out. The little house disappears, tire swing and all, and the roar shakes the ground under my boots.

Ollie turns and sees it, the color draining from his face. That’s the draw he wanted to climb. That’s where we would’ve been standing.

“Oh my God,” he whispers.

I don’t let myself think about it. There isn’t time.

The heat builds on both sides, so intense it presses against my face through my goggles. The spot fire below is climbing. The main fire above is sweeping down. The gap narrows by the second, the dozer line shrinking as the flames close in.

I unclip my fire shelter from my harness.

“Ollie,” I tell him, keeping my voice level, the way they teach you, the way I’ve never had to do for real. “Get your shelter out. Right now.”

His hands shake as he fumbles for the tab. Above us, the main fire crests the last stand of timber, the roar rising to a scream, and the whole night goes orange.

CHAPTER 31

Mia

The phones in the room start blaring in unison.

The high-pitched screech shatters the quiet house, and Henry drops his cup on the rug and bursts into loud sobs. Laila bolts out from beneath the kitchen island, nails clicking across the wood as she barks at nothing. I grab my phone off the granite, my heart in my throat before I even read the screen.