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“I…I think so,” she stammers, looking around. “Some of the classes came out the back door, so maybe check back there to be sure.”
“I’m on it.”
Chief gives me the nod, and I weave my way through the young bodies toward the back of the house. Kids are milling around, crying. Maybe fifty or sixty of them, if I had to guess. They’re all lucky they got out when they did, because this fire is raging, and the scene in front of me could’ve been much, much worse.
I find the first adult, a middle-aged man. There’s a phone pressed to his ear, but he hands it off to one of his students when I approach.
“Are all of your kids acco
unted for?”
“Yeah,” he sighs, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “All of my kids made it out.”
“Great.” I clap a hand to his shoulder before I turn to check the next group of kids.
“Wait!”
I turn to the right. A young girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen, is standing next to a group of kids. She shakes her head frantically, tears streaming down her face.
“Their teacher,” she cries, motioning toward the group of kids huddled around her. “She went back in.”
I close the distance between us. Everyone is running on high emotions, so I speak in a clear, steady voice. “Who is the teacher?”
“Claire Daniels,” a little blonde girl says, looking up at me.
Shit!
My heart races in my chest as I squat down in front of the little girl. I put myself at her eye level and do my best to stay calm, though everything inside of me is screaming to run into that damn building and save Claire.
“Do you know why she went back in?” Claire is a smart girl—level headed—and there’s no way she’d run into a burning building unless she felt she had a damn good reason, not after what happened to her father.
Her tiny head bobs. “Because she only counted eight of us, and there should’ve been ten.”
I look at the group of kids, doing a quick count of my own, and sure enough, there are only eight. “Do you know who’s missing?”
The little girl looks around at the other kids in her group as they watch the house go up in flames, and she nods. “Troy and Marcus. They’re twins. They went to the bathroom before the fire alarm went off.”
“Which way did she go in?”
The high school girl points to the back door. “Just a couple of minutes ago.”
Smoke curls from the back door. This fire is escalating fast. There’s no way Claire will make it out of there with two boys on her own.
Not alive anyway.
I hear the little girl burst into tears when I turn away. Chief is standing with a group of kids, but he steps away when I walk up.
“Three people are missing, a teacher and two boys. She couldn’t find them after evacuation, so she went back in for them.”
His jaw clenches as he looks at the charred house, no doubt thinking the same thing that’s racing through my mind. I’m tempted to run in whether he likes it or not, but I’m not stupid, and I know if I want to get Claire out of there alive, I’ve got to keep a clear mind.
“We don’t have much time,” I urge.
“The structure is unstable. It isn’t safe.” Chief’s words are clear, yet I hear the but in the tone of his voice.
“I know, sir. We can go in through the back. It doesn’t look as engulfed.”
His eyes are hard, but he nods. “In and out, Trevor. Take Mikey with you.”
