Playing with Fire

by April Henry

  The only other noise was coming from Trask, who was shrieking.

  Natalia didn’t move anything but her eyes. A few feet from her, AJ stood frozen mid-stride. Lisa had her hands cupped over her face, while Ryan was looking back over his shoulder. They reminded Natalia of a playground game she had loved in second grade. One person would spin in a tight circle, holding another player by the wrist, and then let go. The goal was to stay as still as a statue in whatever awkward position you ended up.

  Slowly, the bees tightened in a dark cloud around their broken home. One by one they began to dip back inside the log.

  As soon as she no longer saw yellow forms buzzing past her face, Natalia started to slowly turn in the direction Darryl had carried Zion. When that didn’t seem to aggravate the bees, she took a careful step and then another, keeping her torso stiff and her arms at her sides. With each step, she increased her speed, already dreading what she would find.

  In a small clearing, Zion lay on his back, his eyes darting with panic. Darryl was murmuring assurances in a shaky voice. He was using a credit card to scrape off the remains of stingers from Zion’s ashen face. Bees, Natalia remembered, could only sting once, and then they died.

  Had the bees just traded their lives for Zion’s?

  As she dropped to her knees, the others began to gather around them. All of them were dotted with welts. Trask was still screaming and red-faced, inconsolable even after Lisa hastily pulled him from the child carrier.

  If Zion had been stung on the extremities, a reaction might have taken hours. But Natalia counted at least a dozen welts on Zion’s face and neck, with more on his hands.

  He was already wheezing. It was the same ragged sound Marco had made when he had his asthma attack.

  “Now I’m the zombie,” Zion said to Marco. His voice rasped and shook.

  “I’m sorry, buddy.” Marco bit his lip, looking like he was trying not to cry.

  “Didn’t I tell you not to use his EpiPen?” Darryl demanded. “Now what are we going to do?” Natalia could hear tears in his voice, too.

  “Wyatt, do you have any Benadryl in your first aid kit?” Natalia asked. Hers was back on the other side of a lake inside her discarded pack.

  “I don’t.” His face was anguished. “I’m sorry.”

  “Does anyone have any allergy pills on them?” she asked the others. But she was met only by blank, frightened stares. Even though they probably wouldn’t have done much, she would have given anything to have the ones in her first aid kit now. Because Darryl was right. They had gambled with Zion’s life—and they were losing.

  Zion’s wheezing was getting even faster.

  “Okay, Zion. Breathe with me.” Natalia exaggerated the sound of her breathing and slowed it down, the way she had with AJ. But this wasn’t a panic attack. And just like with Marco’s asthma, calming him down wouldn’t stop the reaction, just slow it down a bit.

  It had only been a few minutes since Zion had been stung, but his lips were already swelling, pushing out from his face, like an actress who had resorted to far too much Botox. Natalia had heard the term bee-stung lips before. She had thought it meant what would happen if someone was stung on the lips. But now she understood it must refer to anaphylactic shock.

  It wasn’t only his lips that were swelling. The hollows under Zion’s eyes were puffing up like pillows, pushing his eyes closed. Through the rapidly closing slits, his dark eyes darted back and forth, from Darryl’s face to Natalia’s.

  “Maybe if we hurry we could get him to the road and call an ambulance,” Beatriz said.

  Nobody answered. They didn’t have to. It was clearly just a wish. They were hours from a road. And every second Zion’s breathing grew more labored.

  “You’ve killed him. You’ve all killed him.” Darryl pointed at AJ. “You knocked him down.” Next his finger pointed at Natalia and then Marco. “And you made me use Zion’s EpiPen on him. And now my grandson’s going to die.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Lisa said. “It was an accident. And there has to be something we can do.”

  “I’m so sorry.” AJ’s voice shook.

  “I would never have let them use the EpiPen if I thought Zion would need it.” Marco pushed back his hair from his eyes.

  “Wait a minute,” Wyatt said. “Do you still have them? The EpiPens?”

  “I stuck them in your pack so I could throw them away when we got back. But they’re both empty.”

  “Maybe not,” Wyatt said. “A hiking buddy told me once there’s actually more than one dose per pen. He said in an emergency it’s possible to hack one to get more doses out of it.”

  “So how do you do it?” AJ asked urgently.

  “That’s the thing,” Wyatt admitted with a grimace. “He didn’t give me any specifics.”

  Marco had already pulled one out of its box. “I’m pretty good at reverse engineering things.” His fingers scrabbled at the plastic instructions glued around the clear tube, obscuring the contents.

  “Give it to me.” Beatriz held out her hand. “I’ve got longer fingernails.” With her now-battered purple-painted nails, she managed to scrape up a corner and then handed it back.

  Marco carefully unpeeled the rest. Muttering under his breath, he peered into the translucent plastic housing. One finger traced a line in the air as he tried to figure it out.

  Zion began to cough. Even the inhalations between coughs were wrong, squeaking and squealing.

  “I don’t get why there would be extra medicine,” Beatriz said. “EpiPens are so expensive. Why would they waste a single drop?”

  Wyatt answered like the engineer he planned on becoming. “Maybe there needs to be an extra volume of liquid in order to create enough pressure to push the right amount through. That’s just a guess. But it doesn’t matter why it’s there. Just that it is. If it is.”

  “I think there might be some left, but it’s hard to be sure,” Marco said. “I’m going to have to take it apart.” He pointed at the back of the EpiPen. “Back here, there’s a spring. When you push it against the thigh, the spring forces the needle through clothes and skin and into the muscle. But we don’t need it. They were just trying to make it as hands-off and unintimidating to a layperson as possible.”

  “Whatever you’re going to do, hurry,” Darryl said. Zion’s coughs were getting louder and lasting longer. His swollen face looked almost battered.

  “Let me have your knife,” Marco said to Wyatt. He unfolded it and handed it over. After resting the tube on a flat stone, Marco poked the tip an inch down from the top. He cut it with a rocking motion, turning it, before he broke the top off with a pop. A black spring shot out of the back.

  Gingerly, Marco slid out the syringe inside. On top was a covered needle. Inside the bottom of the syringe was a round black piece of rubber. And in between, as Wyatt’s friend had said, was more clear liquid and a small amount of air.

  Marco pulled off the gray sheath covering the needle. “Okay, that black rubber stopper regulates the dose. If I draw the needle back”—he pointed the needle up until it drew air—“until the plunger is near the end of the glass tube, and then turn it all back over”—he pointed the needle down—“and depress the plunger, it will stop again at the stopper. And it will give the same amount it did originally. It looks like it holds four or five doses.”

  “Are you sure about this?” Ryan said. “Obviously the manufacturer never intended someone to do that to an EpiPen.”

  “I’m sure it will give him the right dose,” Marco said.

  “And obviously the manufacturer also never intended for some kid to”—Wyatt lowered his voice—“die because he got stung by a bee.”

  “Just do it!” AJ cried out. “Listen to how terrible he sounds! It can’t make anything worse than it already is.”

  “Stop!” Darryl shielded Zion with his body. “What about that bubble? You’ll inject him with air. That bubble will stop his heart.”

  “No, it won’t,” Natalia
said. “This is going into the thigh muscle, not a vein.” Darryl didn’t look convinced, so she grabbed his hand. “I swear to you, even if there is a bubble of air it won’t hurt Zion. But not getting his medicine definitely will.”

  As if to underline what she had said, Zion let out a strangled cough so awful that all the hairs on Natalia’s arms rose.

  “Do it!” Darryl said.

  Marco wrapped his fingers around the tube and jabbed the needle into Zion’s leg. And he pushed the plunger.

  CHAPTER 32

  NOT THE MONSTER

  10:19 A.M.

  “I CAN’T HEAR HIM anymore,” Darryl said frantically. About a minute had passed since Marco injected the epinephrine. “I can’t hear Zion breathing!”

  Beatriz began to sob in Marco’s arms. Lisa clutched Ryan’s unburned hand. Susan began to shake her head.

  “No!” AJ wailed. “No! I’m so sorry!” He covered his face with his hands.

  Oh God, oh God, no. Natalia leaned over Zion’s still, small form, squinting through the gathering smoke. His face was so puffy that it was hard to tell, but it seemed slack. Lifeless. She turned her head so she was looking toward his feet, her ear brushing Zion’s swollen lips. Time expanded as she heard nothing, saw nothing.

  Was there any point in trying to give him a second dose? Was he dead? If Zion’s airway was completely closed, was there even any point in trying CPR? Chest compressions might be able to force the blood to move around in his body, but that blood wouldn’t do him much good if it didn’t carry fresh oxygen.

  Then a puff of air, warm and moist, touched her cheek. At the same time, she saw Zion’s chest almost imperceptibly fall.

  Natalia blinked. Had she imagined it? But a second later his ribs rose a half inch as his lungs expanded.

  She realized that just because those horrible harsh moaning breaths had stopped it didn’t mean Zion was dead. It meant the hacked EpiPen was reversing the anaphylactic shock.

  “Zion is breathing!” Natalia cried to the ring of worried faces. “The medicine is starting to work.” She sat back on her heels and took her own deep breath. “That’s why we aren’t hearing him. Because he’s getting better.”

  Zion’s eyes were still swollen into slits, but now he opened them a fraction.

  “Hey, guys.” His voice was faint.

  Darryl struggled to say something, but was so overwhelmed with emotion that all he could do was shake his head. Tears ran down from behind his sunglasses.

  “Listen.” Zion made an exaggerated breath in and out, but it was barely audible. “I’m not the monster anymore.”

  “No, son.” Darryl’s voice was rough. “You’re not.” Squeezing Zion’s hand, he looked from Wyatt to Natalia to Marco. “Thank you for saving him.”

  “I’m afraid none of us are quite saved yet.” Wyatt said with a grimace. “We’ve still got to get into the burned-out area. The fire’s moving pretty fast.”

  Natalia turned. Wyatt was right. The fire was close enough she could see it flickering among the trees, hear it grumbling as it ate its way through brush and berries, ferns and fronds.

  When she turned back to Zion, it was also clear the swelling in his face was rapidly subsiding.

  Wyatt got to his feet. “Do you think you can walk, buddy?”

  After taking another nearly soundless breath, he nodded. “I think so.”

  “Good!” Wyatt offered his hand and helped him to his feet. As he did, he added, “I don’t know about you, Zion, but I really want to go home.”

  Home. The word was almost painful. Something so familiar, so longed for, but also so impossibly far away.

  Zion straightened his shoulders. “Let’s go.” Even if his face still hadn’t been swollen, he was hardly recognizable as the nervous little boy who had begun this hike never letting go of his grandpa’s hand.

  People got to their feet and gathered their things. Marco shouted for Blue, and after a moment, he appeared. Trask’s parents buckled him back into the child carrier. AJ put on Susan’s pack. Beatriz grabbed the shoulder straps of Wyatt’s.

  Natalia touched Beatriz’s shoulder. “Let me take it for a while.”

  “It’s okay.” Beatriz’s words were undercut by the groan she made when she lifted it.

  “I know you can do it, but I also know I probably weigh thirty pounds more than you.”

  “Let her do it, B,” Marco said. “That pack weighs nearly as much as you.” This time Beatriz didn’t resist when Natalia reached for it.

  “Okay!” Wyatt finished checking his map and compass. “That way.” He pointed.

  Giving the log with the bees’ nest a wide berth, they went deeper into the black. At first there were only a few scorched patches, but the farther they went, the blacker it got, until finally they were walking over coal-black earth topped with crumbling ash. The lush green forest had been replaced by dozens of blackened spires, like the masts of wrecked ships.

  Every step kicked soot into the air, releasing the reek of burned-out ground and charred wood. Soon they looked like coal miners with black-smudged faces, the whites of their eyes startling amid the grime. Blue occasionally yipped in pain as he found a hot spot.

  “Watch out for those.” Wyatt pointed at a place where wisps of smoke rose from the forest floor. “Sometimes a root can smolder underground for weeks. If you stepped on one, you could melt your shoes.”

  “Still beats trying to outrun the fire,” Ryan said. His bandages were as filthy as his skin. The one on his shoulder looked wet, like the burn was weeping. While there were a few more bandages in Wyatt’s first aid kit, Natalia decided it was better to leave things alone.

  They went up a small rise. At the top, they saw four things.

  One was a clear line where the burn ended, black on one side and green on the other.

  The second was the reason for the demarcation. The line was actually a narrow slot canyon with a river at the bottom.

  The third was Jason.

  He was standing in front of the fourth thing. A thirty-foot-long footbridge spanning the canyon.

  What was left of the bridge, anyway. Because it had been burned.

  CHAPTER 33

  JUST SCARED

  10:34 A.M.

  WHEN HE CAUGHT SIGHT of the group, Jason started backing away. He was moving awkwardly, his right hand cupping his left elbow. Dangling from his right index finger was the canister of bear spray.

  “Don’t get any closer!”

  They were about thirty feet away. Jason’s voice sounded hoarse, which made sense given the smoke and his probable lack of water. But was it also edged with tears?

  Ryan snorted. “Trust me, Jason—if that’s even your name—we don’t want to get close to you at all.”

  “What happened to your arm?” Zion asked. He was the only one who didn’t look some version of angry.

  “I tripped. I tripped on a stupid rock, and I fell. Pretty sure my collarbone is broken.” The corners of Jason’s mouth pulled down. “I can hear it clicking when I try to move it. Like, inside the bone.”

  His self-diagnosis sounded right to Natalia. It was a common result of what doctors called a FOOSH—Falling On Outstretched Hand, the most frequent mechanism of injury.

  “What did you think was going to happen when you ran off in the dark?” Sarcasm colored AJ’s voice.

  “No wonder you took off.” Darryl’s hands curled into fists. “We figured out you’re the one who started the fire.”

  Jason shook his head vehemently. “Not on purpose.”

  “Right,” Beatriz sneered. “That’s why you were carrying around the cap to a road flare.”

  “And after you realized I’d seen it,” Natalia said, “you tried to push me off the bridge.”

  Jason’s mouth twisted. “I was just scared, okay? And I didn’t really know you then. I was afraid you were going to tell everyone and they’d figure out the fire was my fault. And then at Sky Bridge you were right in front of me and I just had this sudden,
stupid impulse.” He sucked in a breath. “But I’m also the one who pulled you back.”

  Wyatt made a scoffing noise. “You know those two don’t cancel each other out, right?”

  “And where does that pin covered with diamonds and rubies come in?” Marco asked.

  “It was supposed to be the easiest job ever.” Jason made a face. “There’s this museum out in the middle of nowhere, right? It actually used to be some rich guy’s house. A rich guy who had rich friends, including the queen of freaking Romania. And my friend Brian knows a guard there. He said if we came at closing time we could tie him up to make it look good, smash the case, take the jewels, and then later break them apart and sell them. Split everything three ways.”

  “You said jewels,” Ryan said. “So where are the rest?”

  “In Brian’s pockets.” Jason pressed his lips together. “Afterward, I was supposed to set the car on fire so that there wouldn’t be any prints or DNA or anything. But something inside exploded. And suddenly everything was on fire, and I had to run.” He sounded exhausted. “And now I’m sure Brian’s on the plane to Thailand. I doubt he waited for me. We were going to be rich, kicking back on a beach. Instead, I’m stuck in the wilderness. And what good is a seventeenth-century diamond-and-ruby brooch out here?”

  Lisa swore. “My husband’s got second-degree burns because of you. He should be in a hospital right now. Just like I need a doctor for my knee. Except, we’re all trapped in the woods trying to outrun a forest fire. We could all die. Even my baby!” She took one stiff-legged step toward him.

  Releasing his elbow, Jason raised the bear spray. “Back off!”

  Marco moved to stand beside her. “You do realize there’s way more of us than of you, right?”

  Ryan stepped up on the other side of his wife.

  With a defiant shout, Jason pressed the nozzle, emitting an angled spray of red droplets. Even though everyone started to back up, it didn’t matter. The spray went less than fifteen feet.

  Meanwhile, Wyatt had started sprinting in a wide circle around the spray, with Trask bouncing and wailing on his back. Wyatt cocked his fist, but rather than punch Jason in the face, he punched him in the upper arm. On the side of the broken collarbone.