Sacrifice
Page 12

Hannah slipped her hand under his and laced their fingers together. The motion felt comforting—but somehow defiant, too.
Michael couldn’t tell if Marshal Faulkner noticed. Rain was collecting on the shoulders of the man’s jacket. “It might just be smoke damage. There are a few local companies who can help with that. You’ll have to get an engineer out to check the foundation after that earthquake.”
Or Michael could just walk a loop around the house and feel it out for himself.
As if the insurance company would take his word for it.
Marshal Faulkner turned and looked past the ambulance, his eyes on something in the distance. “A lot of damage here. You guys are lucky.”
Lucky. Yeah, right. Michael hadn’t felt lucky since . . . ever.
The fire marshal stepped closer. “How did you put the fires out so quickly?”
Michael opened his mouth to respond, but Hannah squeezed his hand, hard. “Don’t answer that.”
Michael blinked. She’d asked him pretty much the same thing. “I—I . . . what?”
Her tone was even. “He’s not being nice. He’s trying to interrogate you.”
The fire marshal barely spared her a glance. His attitude didn’t change; it was still official, reassuring. “Hannah, why don’t you let me speak with Michael privately?”
“Why, so you can try to trap him with questions?”
“No, so I can spare him a trip in a squad car and his brothers a night with DFS.”
Michael straightened. DFS was the Department of Family Services.
“What does that mean?” He suddenly wanted out of this ambulance, as if social workers had secreted his brothers away already. Tension held him rigid, and the only thing keeping him sitting here was the knowledge that acting like a panicked freak would do more harm than good.
“It means if I take you in for questioning, I’m responsible for making sure your brothers are taken care of.”
“We just dragged him out of his house, unconscious,” Hannah said. “Why don’t you find someone else to question?”
“There is no one else right now, Hannah.”
The words hung there in space for a moment, and Michael flinched, realizing what that meant.
The fire marshal continued, “I had one of your brothers under arrest a month ago. Should I have kept him that way?”
“My brother didn’t do this.”
“Then help me prove it. Answer my questions. Take a walk through your house with me.”
Michael hesitated. The night had been too long, the events too quick to string together. He needed an hour to sit down and think.
Marshal Faulkner took a step closer. “A rookie cop could put two and two together on this one, Mike. Your brother was a prime arson suspect a month ago—and while he ended up with a rock-solid alibi during interrogation, you didn’t. Your house is the only one still standing. They’re talking about bringing in bomb dogs to see if that earthquake was really a natural occurrence. I’m not trying to rough you up here, but I need something that doesn’t look so damning or I’m going to have to drag you in on principle.”
Michael looked away. Didn’t an officer need a warrant to search the house? Should he be calling a lawyer? Could he even get one at three in the morning?
When his parents died, they sure hadn’t left a manual.
Chapter Three: When You’re Suspected of Criminal Wrongdoing.
Wind sliced into the ambulance, biting through his damp clothes. He shivered.
A terrible, dark part of his brain wanted to start shouting. Yes. I’m guilty. I should have stopped this. Instead, I made it worse.
He swallowed, and his throat was so tight that it hurt.
The fire marshal hadn’t looked away. “If you want me to get a warrant, fine, I’ll get one. But if you’re not doing anything wrong, then what’s the big deal?”
Michael rubbed at his temples. Maybe if they went in the house, he could choke down half a bottle of aspirin. Or a whole bottle of whiskey. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s get this over with.”
CHAPTER 5
Michael wanted to check on his brothers first. He remembered the months after their parents had died, how he’d spend all day worrying that they wouldn’t get off the bus after school. Back then, he hadn’t been sure which to fear more: the Guides who had wanted to kill them for their abilities—or the social workers who had wanted to split them up into the foster care system.
Right now didn’t feel too different.
His brothers and Hunter were huddled at the back of another ambulance, just a short distance away. Only Chris had abandoned the wool blanket, and he was sitting on the bumper, rain threading through his hair to paint reflective lines on his cheeks. Hunter’s dog was curled up beneath the tailgate, behind Chris’s legs. He looked up and beat his tail against the ground when Michael came over.
His brothers watched him approach, but didn’t move. Michael looked at each of them in turn, as if he could reassure himself just by seeing them alive and well and together. Their faces were drawn and cautious, their skin caked with dirt and soot.
None of them said anything. They didn’t have to. He could read the uncertainty behind their guarded expressions like a billboard sign.
What’s going to happen?
Where are we going to go?
Are we in danger?
They always thought he had answers. He almost never did, but he was pretty good at faking it. “Is anyone hurt?” he said.