Playing with Fire

by April Henry

  He exhaled in relief. “Yeah, I’d love it. It’s ABC, right?”

  She nodded. ABC was one of a half-dozen mnemonics to help remember what to do and in what order. A was airway. A mouth full of chew, gum, or vomit would mess things up if they had to start CPR.

  As she got out her own first aid kit and found her gloves, Wyatt asked, “Okay, Ryan, can you open your mouth? Do you have anything in it?”

  Ryan shook his head as he obediently parted his lips. The inside of his mouth looked pink and healthy. No signs of soot. His face wasn’t burned. His hair didn’t look singed, although it was hard to tell for sure because it was black to begin with. But this close, they would probably smell the horrible stench if it had been.

  “Great.” Somehow, Wyatt managed to sound almost cheerful, but Natalia reminded herself that the calmer they were, or at least pretended to be, the calmer Ryan would be. She could not afford to pay attention to the memories crowding back.

  Off to the side, AJ was helping Lisa remove the child carrier that held Trask. It had a kickstand, so when they put it on the ground he ended up suspended, his little legs dangling a few inches above the ground. His crying had been reduced to an occasional sob.

  She couldn’t afford to think about the toddler, either.

  Marco reappeared with a folded blue bandanna and an unopened bottle of drinking water.

  “Thank you,” Natalia said. After wetting the bandanna, she put it on the worst part of Ryan’s shoulder. He sucked air through his teeth. Under the cool, wet cloth, his skin still radiated heat.

  “Can you hold this in place for me with your burned hand?” she asked. He gingerly rested his hand on top.

  If burns covered 15 or 20 percent of the body, it could be fatal. The flat of a hand, including the fingers, was equal to 1 percent. She measured with her eyes. Her shoulders loosened. Ryan’s burns only covered 3 or 4 percent.

  “B is breathing, right?” Wyatt looked at Natalia for confirmation. She nodded.

  He turned back to Ryan. “Can you take two deep breaths for me?”

  When he did, they didn’t sound labored, and he didn’t cough.

  “Awesome,” Wyatt said.

  Still, Natalia thought, what if Ryan had breathed in a lot of smoke? It might have inflamed his lungs and airway. If they started swelling, even CPR wouldn’t save him. Her own breathing sped up. She reminded herself that Ryan had been in the outdoors. Not trapped in a house where the smoke was filled with toxic fumes from burning drywall, synthetic carpeting, and household chemicals. Where there was no place for it to go except in your lungs.

  “And C is … cardiac?” Wyatt ventured.

  She forced herself to focus. “Close. Circulation. But it’s pretty easy to see he’s not bleeding. Let me just check his pulse.” She took Ryan’s left wrist, rolling her gloved fingertips until she found the notch. Fast but not shallow. She knew she should count the beats, but her thoughts were still skittering. “Great,” she said, not elaborating, as she released his wrist.

  “How long is this going to take?” Jason demanded from behind them.

  “Just shut up and let her help him,” Beatriz said. “What if it was you?”

  “Okay, let’s see what we’re dealing with.” Wyatt plucked the wet cloth from Ryan’s shoulder. Part of the burn was obscured by Ryan’s T-shirt.

  From her first aid kit, Natalia took out the small pair of shears with slanted blades. But looking closer at his shoulder, she hesitated. The remaining fabric seemed fused to his skin.

  Ryan twisted his head and grimaced. “I think it melted. Hundred percent polyester. Great for hiking. Not so great, it turns out, for forest fires.” When she leaned closer and squinted at an odd black spot on his biceps, he added, “And that’s just a Swoosh tattoo. I work at Nike.”

  “Let’s leave his shirt be.” Wyatt looked at Natalia. “How many burn pads do we have?”

  She started with her own first aid kit. The contents were all neatly organized and labeled. But there was only one burn pad, just three by four inches. That wasn’t nearly enough.

  Wyatt’s kit had clearly seen heavy use, with different brands of supplies and some half-used tubes of ointment. There was even a flattened roll of silver duct tape, the cardboard center removed.

  But just one more burn pad. Which meant they had enough for Ryan’s shoulder, but not his hand. Or his hand, and only half his shoulder. She and Wyatt exchanged a glance.

  “Those are second-degree burns, right?” Marco leaned in, his expression curious. “Because there’s blisters.”

  “They’re called partial-thickness burns now,” she said. “But it’s the same thing.”

  “All I know is they hurt like hell,” Ryan said through clenched teeth.

  Better they hurt than they didn’t. That was what the nurses had told her. Natalia didn’t think Ryan would find it any more comforting than she had.

  Forcing herself to take a deep breath, she mentally repeated the Red Cross instructor’s advice. “Do the best you can with what you have.” It was similar to Dr. Paris’s advice: “Control what you can and leave the rest.”

  “Let’s use one pad on his shoulder and the other on his right hand,” she said to Wyatt. “It’s his dominant hand, which means he’s still going to use it even if he doesn’t mean to.”

  She peeled open the packaging. In her head, the Red Cross instructor said, “Anything that opens like string cheese—that you grab at the top and pull down on each side—is sterile.” And sterile was important, because Ryan’s burn was basically an open wound.

  Careful not to touch the pad, she laid it gently on top of the worst part of the burn.

  “Ow!” He jerked.

  She winced. “Sorry.” In the smoky light and with Ryan’s naturally darker skin, it was hard to tell how he was doing. Did he look pale? Was his skin clammy? She wasn’t sure. Maybe. But even if Ryan was starting to go into shock, they couldn’t exactly have him lie down while they elevated his feet and waited for help. Even though she felt helpless, she was glad her thinking was no longer as muddled.

  Natalia lightly pressed the pad into place, glad to see the skin around it turn paler as she did. Skin that didn’t blanch—that stayed red under pressure—would mean the burns were worse than they looked. Half her supply of antibiotic ointment went to smearing one side of a piece of dry gauze, which she put on a different section of his shoulder. She wrapped both with more gauze. Then she applied the second burn pad to his blistered palm and wrapped it with the last of the gauze from her kit, ignoring how the breath hissed between his teeth.

  Now that she actually was using the first aid kit, it felt more like a toy. She poked through the remaining supplies. There weren’t many more bandages, and a bunch of stuff just seemed useless. A triangular bandage. Four large safety pins. Two cotton swabs. Six antiseptic wipes. A bunch of Band-Aids. Short metal tweezers in a tiny plastic vial. A pencil and paper to record notes. Wyatt had a few more things but not many. If anyone else got seriously hurt, what would they do?

  She also had little packages of medications that Wyatt didn’t: ibuprofen, acetaminophen, aspirin, antihistamine, and antidiarrheal pills. The acetaminophen wouldn’t do anything for swelling. And if there was any bleeding she’d missed, the aspirin would only make it worse. Opening up a package, she shook two pills into Ryan’s good left hand. “Here’s some ibuprofen.”

  “Don’t you have anything stronger?” He shaped his mouth into something like a smile. “Like whiskey?”

  “Whiskey wouldn’t keep the swelling down, and those will.” She handed him the half-empty bottle of water. “Keep drinking this. Little sips.”

  Before they started off again, Wyatt moved to Ryan’s wife. “Hey, Lisa.” His voice was soft. “Why don’t you let me take Trask? I’ll give my pack to someone else.”

  “No.” She took a step back, shaking her head. “I can carry him.”

  “I’m sure you can, but we’re going to need to move fast. And if I carry Trask, it�
��ll be easier for you to keep an eye on how Ryan’s doing.”

  “Let him do it, Lisa,” Ryan said.

  There was a general shuffling of belongings. Marco gave his small pack to Beatriz and then took Wyatt’s. With assistance from Lisa and Natalia, Wyatt hoisted Trask onto his back. The toddler only fussed a little.

  “Damn it!” Beatriz said.

  “What?”

  Her hands were on her hips. “That stupid Jason guy must have taken off again.”

  And while a few people complained or cursed, no one was really surprised.

  CHAPTER 7

  ORANGE TWILIGHT

  8:28 P.M.

  MINUS JASON, THEY STARTED back on the trail. Lisa and Ryan were just ahead of Natalia. The hillside turned rocky. She plodded forward. Even if her boots felt like they weighed five pounds each, at least her feet were protected. Beatriz kept stumbling. How long until one of the rubber straps on her flip-flops broke?

  Wyatt was still bringing up the rear, if you didn’t count Trask. When Natalia looked back, the toddler was fast asleep, his head tipped forward to rest on Wyatt’s shoulder. She turned back around, glad Trask was out of her direct line of sight. He reminded her too much of Conner.

  She desperately wished she were anyplace but on this trail. Home. At the Dairy Barn. Or back in Wyatt’s Toyota with her feet bare and the windows rolled down, the wind tugging at her hair as the tires hummed underneath them.

  Earlier the sky had been bright blue, seemingly limitless. But now the gathering darkness combined with the smoke to create an eerie orange twilight haze. When Natalia licked her lips, she tasted ash.

  Her shirt was sticking to her back, and sweat trickled down her spine. She eyed Ryan. He was actually managing to keep a steady pace. If he was in shock, it must be mild.

  Ahead of Ryan, Darryl slipped a granola bar from his pocket into Zion’s palm. He bent down to whisper in his ear. He was still wearing sunglasses, even though the sun was starting to set behind them. As furtively as a kid could, Zion unwrapped the bar and began to sneak bits into his mouth.

  “I’m so glad you were there to remind me what to do,” Wyatt said. “I mean, I know some first aid because of Scouts, but it feels like you know a lot more.”

  “I take classes at the Red Cross.” The idea had originally been Dr. Paris’s, a way to help Natalia feel more in control. She retook them every summer to keep her certification current. “I want to be a doctor.” Doctors saved lives. That wouldn’t make up for her failure. Nothing would. But the idea allowed her to keep living. After pushing a branch away from her face, she continued to hold it for Wyatt.

  When he placed his hand on the branch, his fingers brushed hers. “Plus you have a much better first aid kit than I do. Like you had shears and all those little packets of medications. Mine’s pretty basic.”

  Natalia had been thinking about her kit. “I don’t know how much help it will be if something else goes wrong. On the front it says it has more than a hundred pieces, but there’s a lot of filler. It’s got five or six knuckle bandages, for example, and how often do you really need even one? And that was my only pair of gloves.”

  “In some ways, I don’t think it really matters what’s in your kit. What matters more is what you do with it. And I think most girls would have just been freaking out.”

  Natalia felt a flush of pride—and also the need to set him straight. “That’s not just a girl thing. It looked to me like most people were freaked out when they saw those burns.”

  “Fair point.”

  “Sorry I froze at the beginning.” She sidestepped a gnarled root. “But I’ve had some personal experience with burns.” The words slipped past her lips before she had time to think.

  Wyatt weighed this information, then asked, “Is that why you’re afraid of fire?”

  “Yeah.” Why had she brought it up? It was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. “But I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I don’t want to think about or talk about it right now. I just want to get out of here. I wish we could fly instead of walking.” After taking a particularly long step to avoid a divot in the trail, she changed the subject. “Why do you care so much about keeping us together? Jason’s a jerk. Who cares if he went off by himself?”

  “If we stick together, then we’re stronger. Everyone has something different to contribute. That’s why I like scouting. I like being part of a group.”

  As if to underscore the point, ahead of them AJ offered his hand to Susan as she clambered over a rocky part of the trail.

  “You’re not just part of this group,” Natalia pointed out. “You’re pretty much leading it. Even the adults are listening to you.”

  “Somebody had to take charge. When you put a group under stress, it either pulls together or falls apart. I’m trying to make sure we pull together.”

  Her nose was running, partly from smoke and partly from exertion. She took a tissue from her pants pocket.

  “Since we could be stuck out here for a while,” Wyatt said, “you might want to use your sleeve for your nose and save that for later.”

  “But why—” Natalia figured it out and shut up. She was definitely not going to pee—or, worse yet, poop—in the woods. Still, she followed his suggestion, even though it felt gross to smear her nose on her sleeve. After she did, she sniffed. “It doesn’t smell quite as smoky now.”

  “I think your nose just gets used to it. It’s like when you’re in a freshly painted room and after a while you stop smelling it. Humans—all animals, really—are hardwired to notice contrasts, not constants.”

  “Like how they say not to run if you meet a cougar, because it will want to chase you?” She had tried to prepare for this hike by reading a bunch of worst-case scenarios.

  “Yeah. It’s why animals like rabbits are so good at staying still. Because staying still is sometimes the best thing to do.”

  While Wyatt was talking, Susan let AJ go on ahead. She stood and waited for them with an anxious expression.

  “How are you doing, Susan?” Wyatt asked. “Are you holding up okay?”

  “I know I should remember, honey, but where are we going again?” She bit her lip.

  “Sky Bridge,” he answered.

  The older woman snapped her fingers. “Right. That’s where I was going. I love that bridge.” She looked from Wyatt to Natalia. “Are either of you wearing a hand clock?”

  They exchanged a puzzled look, before understanding dawned. Susan must mean a watch. Her phrasing made her sound like someone who spoke English as a second language, only she didn’t have an accent.

  Natalia slipped the corner of her phone out of her pocket. “Eight thirty-nine.”

  The older woman nodded. “So sunset’s not far away.”

  “Yeah, it will be after sunset by the time we get to the bridge.” Wyatt pressed his lips together. “Maybe that’s actually better.” He and Susan exchanged a look.

  “Why would that be better?” Natalia asked.

  “The slot canyon it goes over is pretty deep,” Wyatt said. “That’s why it’s called Sky Bridge.”

  Great. Natalia didn’t like heights. Or enclosed spaces. Or swimming if she couldn’t touch the bottom and keep her head out of water.

  Or, of course, fire.

  “Why is it called a slot canyon?” she asked, trying to distract herself as they all kept moving closer to it.

  “It’s what happens when you pit water against rock. First there’s just a tiny crack with water flowing through it. But over thousands of years that stream of water carves a narrow canyon that just gets deeper and deeper.”

  “Huh,” she said, trying to act as if the thought weren’t completely terrifying.

  Thirty minutes later, they rounded a bend and there it was. Sky Bridge. Even though the sun had slipped below the horizon, it was still light enough to see it. Made of wood, it was just wide enough for one person. The drop to the water far below had to be at least seventy-five feet.

  But that wasn�
�t why the group was starting to freak out.

  And it wasn’t from the sight of Jason, still on the same side of the slot canyon as them.

  It was the fact that there was a tall makeshift gate across the bridge.

  And it was padlocked.

  CHAPTER 8

  DISCO BOOTS

  9:12 P.M.

  MARCO TURNED ON THE flashlight on his phone, illuminating the paper sign duct-taped to the middle of the gate.

  Trail closed due to fire.

  “Why did the helicopter pilot tell us to come here when the stupid bridge is blocked?” Jason gave the gate a shake. “He trapped us.” No one had confronted him—or greeted him, either.

  Adrenaline zapped through Natalia. Behind them the sky glowed orange, and it wasn’t just from the remains of the sunset.

  “They probably have no idea this gate’s even here,” Wyatt said. “I’ll bet in the last couple of days some ranger threw this up to keep people from taking the Cougar Creek trail on the other side. They didn’t realize there was going to be another fire. And now the first responders must be scrambling, trying to figure out who all’s in the woods and where to tell them to go.”

  The gate did look improvised. They must have been limited by what they could carry up here. It was really just two pieces of chain-link fence, each about six feet high by five feet wide, overlapped and then chained together in the middle. The fencing had been anchored to the narrow bridge by more chains threaded through the handrails. The ends of the makeshift gate stuck out on either side of the footbridge.

  Taking baby steps, Natalia got close enough that she could look down to the bottom of the narrow canyon. The others crowded around. It was a straight drop, far deeper than it was wide.

  And then suddenly someone shoved her hard from behind. She shrieked as she fought to keep her balance. Pebbles skittered out from under her boot like marbles, then disappeared over the edge. Leaning back desperately, she pinwheeled her arms.

  And then hands grabbed her.