by K. J. Emrick
“What are you doing?” a girl’s voice said to him, stressed in frantic tones of panic. She was a dark beauty, with her skin the color of milk chocolate and her long dark hair all tangled from sleep. She was still in her tanktop and her sleep shorts. Genevieve was going to get in trouble, he thought stupidly. They weren’t supposed to be out of bed. They were all supposed to be asleep.
“Phin, come on!” Genevieve screamed at him over the roar of flames greedily eating up the bare floorboards and the wallpaper and the doorframes. “We’ve got to get out of here. What did you do? How did this all start? Phin, what did you do!”
Phin stammered something, but he couldn’t make her understand. He didn’t want to tell. He didn’t want anyone to know.
“Nevermind. Just stay with me, okay?” She grabbed his hand and pulled him one way, down the hallway that took them to mom’s bedroom. She’d know what to do. She’d help them put the fire out, wouldn’t she?
Further in the house, something crashed. Black smoke came billowing after them, and they ran, until the ceiling collapsed in front of them in burning chunks of plaster and wood and mess.
The fire was at their heels. Mom’s bedroom was on the other side of the collapsed ceiling. They couldn’t go forward. They couldn’t go back. They were trapped.
Young Phin began coughing. He couldn’t stop. The air hurt his lungs and stung his eyes. In his pajamas, he could feel the hot air pressing against his skin.
“Here,” Genevieve said abruptly, yanking him sideways hard enough that his shoulder twisted the wrong way. “In here!”
It was the downstairs bathroom that she brought him into and for a minute he thought maybe she wanted him to go pee before they escaped. They didn’t have time for that, he wanted to tell her. The flames can walk on the ceiling.
“Get in the tub,” she instructed him. “Turn the water on, and stay in there. I’m going to get the window open and then we’re going to get out of here, got me? Seriously, Phin, what did you do?”
The tub still had his plastic toys in it from when he’d taken his bath earlier. He stepped on the toy boat, and squeaked in pain, but he was a tough kid. His sister had always said he was a tough kid. He wouldn’t let her down. Taking hold of the knobs he twisted them both on full.
The pipes groaned and screed and shook, but nothing came out of them.
“Great,” Genevieve said when she heard it. “Just stay there, Phin. I’ve almost got this… there. It’s open. Come on.”
He reached for her hand.
Flames rushed in along the ceiling with a deafening whoosh, right through the wall, and they rushed along the edges of the floor like a flash flood. Phin curled up into a ball in the bottom of the tub. Maybe the fire wouldn’t see him if he stayed down. Maybe it wouldn’t find him. Oh, please God, don’t let the fire find him!
“Phin, come on!” His sister’s voice was hysterical now. “We have to go! Phin!”
He couldn’t move. The flames could walk on the ceiling.
Then she was there, his loving sister, pulling him out of the tub even though he was too scared to move on his own, making him pull himself up onto the window ledge and then pushing him out when his legs were trembling too bad to go any further. He landed with a thud on the soft, cool grass, unable to understand why it was so bright out here in the middle of the night until he remembered why. His house was on fire. It was so bright. They could probably see this from the moon, it was so bright!
He crawled on his hands and knees until he was far enough away that he couldn’t feel the heat trying to roast his bare toes. Then he knelt there, and he looked back, watching his sister lift herself up into the window.
She smiled at him.
A wave of fire and pieces of the house cascaded down, and took her away.
It was forever before what had just happened registered on young Phin’s mind. Darcy could feel his pain, feel his tears, feel everything that he felt when he realized that Genevieve was dead. She was dead because of him. If she hadn’t stopped to save him, she would be the one out here watching their house crash down on itself in a blaze of crackling, laughing flame. She would have lived.
Instead she was dead, and it was all his fault.
After another eternity, someone came to stand next to him. The boy was just a year older than Phin was, younger than Genevieve, but he always acted like he was the one in charge. Whenever Mom said don’t do something, he would do it anyway just to prove he could.
Like when she said don’t use the stove without her there to watch.
“That’s pretty bad,” Phin’s brother said to him. “Guess you shoulda never asked for that snack, huh? It’s your fault, you know.”
Phin looked up at the older boy, his white skin so different from his own. That didn’t matter in their family. They were still brothers, and when Phin had woken up hungry during the night it had made sense to go to his older brother and say he needed a snack. He didn’t know that meant using the stove to cook something. Mom had said never use the stove. Never turn the burners on.
Phin looked up at his brother. Through the smoke and the haze and the weird shifting light of the fire he couldn’t see that face he knew so well, but he didn’t have to. He knew what his brother looked like.
“It’s your fault, Phin. You did this.”
Darcy snapped out of her vision with a sudden gasp for breath that startled Phin. He stumbled back from her, into the cell, until his legs caught the edge of the cot and sent him dropping down on his backside. He stared at her, his mouth open, his eyes dilated and wide as the memories left him.
“You saw…” He coughed, like the smoke was still in his lungs. Darcy wasn’t sure if he understood what she’d just done or not but it had obviously left him as drained as if he’d been living it for the first time. “How is that possible?”
Darcy didn’t have time to explain. What she’d just seen… “You have a brother,” she said, holding onto the bars to steady herself. “It was you and your sister… and another brother.”
Her brother killed her. That’s the message Genevieve gave to Colby.
She didn’t mean Phin.
She meant her other brother. The one who really started the fire. The one that Phin had been covering for all these years. All this time, he felt like Genevieve’s death was his fault. In a young boy’s mind, the fact that he had asked his brother to get him a midnight snack meant the fire was his fault, even though his brother had been the one to use the stove against his mother’s rules. In a young boy’s mind, that also meant his sister’s death was his fault. She’d saved his life and died in the process.
All that guilt, built up and compounded over the years, had manifested as psychic blood on his hands. Even if it wasn’t really his fault he felt the burden of her death on his soul.
Phin was a good man. Good men took responsibility very seriously.
And now, he was trying to take responsibility for the bakery fire too, even though… it wasn’t his fault.
She swallowed down a metallic taste in her throat. It was a side effect of using this aspect of her gift. Colby would learn how to do this someday. When she was ready. Would Addison, she wondered?
Would Grace?
No. Her sister had turned her back on the gift, and in the process turned her back on Darcy too. Maybe that wasn’t fair, and maybe Grace had been the best sister she knew how to be, but that was how it felt to Darcy right now. She’d been abandoned when she needed her sister the most.
Phin’s sister had rushed back into a burning building to save his life. Grace had let Darcy go, because she couldn’t stand the thought of sharing the same fate. She didn’t want to be kicked out of the house too. She had wanted to be normal.
Normal, in Darcy’s opinion, was overrated.
After all, she wouldn’t have been able to prove it wasn’t Phin who killed his sister if she was normal. She wouldn’t be able to prove it wasn’t him who burned down the bakery, either, if not for her gift.
It wasn’t Phin.
It was his brother. Well. Half-brother. Just like Phin said. Same mother, different fathers. Phin’s brother.
And she had a pretty good idea who that was.
“You have an Iroc registered to you,” she said, putting the pieces together in her head. “It’s registered out of state but it’s in your name.”
“Yes,” he answered hesitantly. “I had to help him. He didn’t have the money to pay for the registration, so I did it in my name. Darcy how did you do—”
“Who, Phin?” she insisted. “Tell me who your brother is.”
He did, and everything suddenly made sense.
Chapter 9
“You’re sure about this?”
“Jon,” Darcy said, answering his question with one of her own. “You trust me, don’t you?”
“With my life.” He turned the car down another street and kept going. “I mean, literally with my life. I’d be dead now if it wasn’t for you.”
“I can say the same thing about you,” she told him, reaching across to hold his hand. They were almost to their destination, and this was probably not the right time for this conversation, but she couldn’t help herself. “I just need to hear you say it, I guess.”
Driving one handed, Jon wrapped his fingers into hers. “I’ll tell you every day of your life if you need me to, Babe.” He took his hand back as the car fishtailed a little on the snowy streets. He let off the gas and turned into the skid and they were fine again. “You want to tell me what’s bothering you? Besides this case, I mean.”
She did. She really did want to be able to talk to her best friend in this life, and tell him every little thought that kept racing round in her brain. “Grace said something to me, is all. It really upset me.”
He nodded, slowing carefully to a stop at an intersection. The snowplows might have cleared the roads enough to get the kids to school, but that didn’t mean that they could drive like maniacs. “I figured it was something like that after we basically shoehorned everyone out of the house last night. You should have just told me. We could have all talked about it, together.”
“No.” She shook her head. “This is something too private to talk about over a game of poker. I’ll tell you all about it, and when I’m ready I’ll talk to Grace again. Just… not now.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” she said. “We’re here. Look.”
Sure enough, as they drove by the parking lot of Misty Hollow’s big box store on Coldspring Road, a series of long, squat metal buildings had come into view. The Key-Pit storage units were painted red and white, with overhead doors that rolled down and locked in place to keep people’s belongings safe when they couldn’t store them at home. The church kept a unit here, too.
According to Phin, that was where his brother was staying while he was in town.
Once Darcy had been able to show him that the fire that claimed his sister’s life wasn’t really his fault, the guilt had washed off him in cold waves that she could feel crashing against her senses. It had freed his soul, and his tongue. The bakery wasn’t his doing either, he said. Maybe it was his fault, and maybe Jon should keep him locked up, but he wasn’t the one responsible.
Jon was more than happy to take him up on the suggestion to keep him in his cell, at least for now. There was a lot to this story that still needed explaining. Like, why he’d agreed to let his brother sleep in the church’s storage while he was in town, especially considering his brother had warrants out for his arrest. For now, he was satisfied with knowing who the real owner of the Iroc was, and that it was the Iroc’s owner who had started the bakery fire.
“There it is,” Jon said as they pulled into the paved lot around the units. Next to the third building, in front of the red overhead door with the number fourteen painted on it, sat a blue Iroc. Darcy remembered these cars vaguely, with their long front end and that hatchback rear window design and their pocketed headlights. Cool enough for their day, maybe, but they stuck out like sore thumbs among today’s cars. “Right where Phin said he’d be. He’s really been living in a storage facility. I don’t believe it.”
“Why not?” Darcy asked him. “Would you have thought to look for him here? I wouldn’t. It’s a nearly perfect hiding space. With the rows of buildings you can’t even see that car from the road.”
“Right. Well. We’ve got him now. One more name off our naughty list.”
“Two,” she reminded him. “How far away is everyone else?”
Jon checked his watch. “Wilson said they left five minutes ago. They should be right behind us. We’ll surround the place, and then we’ll all move in together. I don’t care if there aren’t any weapons charges on this guy’s criminal history. I’m not taking any chances.” Positioning his car in the only entrance to the storage facility, Jon undid his seatbelt and put the engine in park. “We’re going to sit right here and wait for—”
Without warning the Iroc roared to life and shot forward, its back end spinning sideways on the slushy pavement as the Camaro powered itself ahead.
“—something to happen,” Jon finished.
He wrenched the gear shifter back into drive and tromped the gas pedal and angled them in between the buildings just in time to see the Iroc bounce its way over the ditch that separated that corner of the lot from the road. It bottomed out, and sparks spread out to die in the snow, and then its tires bit into the surface of Coldspring Road and it was off like a shot.
“Don’t turn left,” Jon muttered to himself, “don’t turn left, don’t turn left!”
“What’s left?” Darcy asked as she watched the Iroc finally get itself under control and speed away—to the right.
“Misty Hollow is to the left,” Jon said, speaking rapidly as he spun their car around the buildings and back to the paved entrance. He wasn’t going to try jumping the ditch like the crazy driver of the Iroc had. “I didn’t want him to go left because I didn’t want to chase this idiot through town. Call Grace. Let her know what’s going on.”
He unclipped his cellphone from its belt holder and tossed it to her, and then it was both hands on the wheel as he pushed his plain-wrapper sedan to catch up with one of the best known muscle cars in America.
Catching the phone in the air, she scrolled down his contacts list to find Grace’s name. She experienced a moment of hesitation. She didn’t want to talk to Grace. She didn’t want to have anything to do with her. Not right now.
She felt the car slide right, toward the ditch, and heard Jon swearing as he twisted the wheel and with a thud, they were back on the road. The next minute, they were slipping again. They were in trouble, and the bad guy was getting away. Would get away, if they didn’t get help.
She pushed the button to make the call.
Her sister answered on the second ring. “Hey Jon. We’re almost there.”
“Grace, it’s Darcy. We’re…” She trailed off as their car threatened to bolt sideways again, this time into the oncoming lane. The Iroc was still far ahead of them, still outpacing them, but it was having a worse time of it than they were, using up both sides of the road as it slipped on the slush and ice, turning completely sideways as she watched and then righting itself again.
“Darcy?” she heard her sister’s voice in her ear. “What’s going on.”
“Uh, Grace, listen. We’re on Coldspring Road and we’re chasing the Iroc now.”
“In pursuit,” Jon told her. “Say we’re in pursuit.”
“For Pete’s sake, I’ve got this, Jon. You just…” The car was suddenly in a spin. It made one full revolution that left Darcy feeling dizzy before it got its nose pointed straight again. “You just drive! Grace, we’re headed out of town. The Iroc’s getting away.”
“No, it’s not,” Jon argued.
“No talking! You drive!”
“I am driving.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.” Her hand had a tight grip on the door handle, and she had both feet braced against the floor.
The phone was stil
l to her ear. “Darcy, I wanted to say… I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”
“Not now,” Darcy growled. “Just get some people here to help us.”
It was all the time she was willing to give Grace right then. She dropped the phone out of her hand so she could brace it against the dash as they took a curve the Iroc had already sailed through. They were drifting. No control at all. They were getting closer and closer to the edge as the curve went one way and Jon’s car tried to go the other.
Going much too fast, they skidded off the road slantways down into the ditch. Jon revved the engine and with all his might wrestled with the steering wheel to get the car aimed back up towards the road. Their speed carried them up the side of the ditch and then… they were airborne for several seconds…
…before the tires landed hard on Coldspring Road again.
Darcy’s heart was in her throat. Jon wasn’t letting up on the speed, and they were gaining on the Iroc but at this rate they were likely to both get killed, both cars in a fiery crash in the snow, if they didn’t slow down.
Darcy’s eyes went wide as she heard those words in her mind. Slow down. That’s what Colby had been telling her for days now. She needed to slow down.
Up ahead, the Iroc was heading for a hill bordered by trees growing close to the road on both sides. The roads were worse here, away from the new businesses and houses that had stretched the town limits of Misty Hollow. Few people had a reason to come out this way. It was just them, and the Iroc, and the trees.
Jon pushed their car faster.
The Iroc skidded as the driver pushed itself up the slippery slope of the hill, drifting toward the center.
Darcy watched as they got closer, and then closer.
She reached across to Jon, and gently put her hand on his knee to get his attention. “Jon. Slow down.”
Slow down.
“What?” he exclaimed. “We’ve almost got him. This is our chance.”
“Slow down. Please, Jon, trust me. You do trust me, right? You said you trust me.”
Slow down.
“Darcy…”
