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"Is she okay?"
"We don't know yet."
"What the fuck?"
He didn't say anything more. Instead, he got in the truck and slammed his door closed. Seconds later, Shotgun hammered down on the accelerator and barreled through the front gate.
Fritz and I rushed over to our bikes and raced to catch up with them. We were two blocks away when I spotted the smoke billowing into the sky. It was dark and looming, and I had no doubt that Jagger had seen it, too.
I could only imagine what he thought when they pulled up to his ol' lady's office and saw it overtaken in flames. As soon as we parked, Jagger bolted towards the front door. As he ran, he shouted back to us, “You see any sign of Collins?”
Collins had been prospecting with us for almost six months. He was a big guy with a big personality to match. If he was close, we would’ve known it. Shotgun was running behind Jagger when he answered, “Not seeing him!”
“Fuck!” We were enveloped in smoke as we followed Jagger up to one of the firemen. He sounded panicked as he asked, "Do you know if everyone is out of the building?"
"We don't know anything yet, but we're—"
"What do you mean, you don't know?" Jagger asked frantically. "My ol' lady could be in there!"
"We're doing everything we can." The fireman pointed over to the street as he said, "The best thing you can do is back up and let us do our job."
"What job? You're just standing here." Jagger pointed to the fire behind them as he shouted, "You should have your ass in there looking for Sophie! That's your fucking job!"
"I'm gonna need you to calm down, sir."
"I'm not calming the fuck down! Sophie might be in there!"
Jagger gave him a shove, then charged up the steps. We'd all seen the dark, thick smoke pouring through the front door and knew Jagger would never survive if he made his way inside. I couldn't let that happen, so I charged after him, tackling him just before he made it up to the front doors.
By the time we hit the ground, Fritz and Shotgun were at our side, making sure Jagger didn't try to do anything stupid. When he tried and break free from my hold, Shotgun knelt down next to us and said, "I know this shit is fucked up, brother, but you're not helping Sophie or anyone else by gettin' yourself killed."
"I have to get to her!"
"You don't even know if she's in there," Shotgun argued.
"But what if she is!" He started thrashing from side to side as he cried, "I can't lose her. I have to do something!"
I tried to keep my voice steady and calm as I said, "We're here with you, brother. We're gonna help you do whatever needs to be done, but you've gotta chill the fuck out so we can do so. You got me?"
"Yeah, I got ya."
He stopped fighting me and took a deep breath. Once I was certain he’d settled down, I released my hold and helped him to his feet. We all moved away from the door and back down to the curb. Hawk placed his hand on Jagger’s shoulder. “I’m gonna go over and talk to some of the others. See if anyone might’ve seen Sophie or Collins.”
“Thanks, brother.”
We all took a moment to search the crowd that had gathered around the burning office building, making sure that we saw no sign of Sophie or Collins, but none of us spotted either one. Our attention was drawn back to the office building when several firemen came barreling out the front doors, releasing even more smoke and ash into the air.
One of them removed their facemask and took in a deep breath before telling his buddies, "It's clear. There's no one left inside."
"What?" Jagger stepped over to him. "Are you sure there was no one inside?"
"Yeah, man. It was clear."
"Damn." Jagger looked around for any sign of Sophie. "Then, where the hell is she?"
"You tried calling her?"
"Called her about a hundred times on the way over here. Collins, too." He took out his phone and dialed his number. After waiting several seconds, he shook his head, "Neither of them are answering."
Jagger was growing more frantic by the second, and it didn't help matters when Hawk stepped up behind us and said, "I just talked to some of the girls who work with Sophie, and none of them saw her this morning. Not even the girl who works the front desk."
"Then, where the hell is she?"
"I got no idea." Hawk was scrambling for answers. "When was the last time you talked to her?"
"This morning. She said she had to go in early to get some paperwork done."
We weren't getting anywhere with all the back and forth, so I suggested, "We could have Menace try and track her phone. Maybe then we can figure out where the hell she is."
