by J. A. Huss
Maddie turns to face me and buries her head in my chest. I don’t know what else to do, so I stroke her hair as she cries all over my shirt.
The cop I blew past to get here rolls up, but Dean pulls him aside and seems to be explaining the situation. He’s persuasive.
The hoses all around us are blasting full tilt, four crews of firefighters all working diligently to bring things back under some version of control. But the hoses seem to be doing almost nothing. It strikes me that we were just, not a half hour ago, embedded within more than enough water all around us to snuff this candle out in about ten seconds flat, and what a shitty irony that is, but whatever. It makes no difference now.
And then…
Without warning, there is an explosion.
I have no idea where it comes from, apart from somewhere within the building that is no longer a building, not in any meaningful sense. Upon hearing and seeing it, I flinch. Thankfully, Maddie flat-out jumps and shrieks so that she can’t see me react the way I did. I don’t give a shit because of my dumb fucking ego or whatever, but because it’s clear in a real vivid way that I’m gonna need to be here for her, and I can’t afford to allow my feelings to get in the fucking way right now. Even if they’re authentic.
“What was that?” she screams.
“I dunno,” I tell her in as soothing a voice as I can find. “Could be a lot of things.”
And while that’s true, I honestly can’t imagine what could have caused a fireball like that to erupt from in there. It’s a fucking strip club, not a chemical plant.
And then…
The roof collapses.
“No!” Maddie’s wail rips through me.
“It’s OK, it’s OK,” I assure her.
It’s not OK. Not even a little bit.
And then…
As the fire swoops around on itself and swallows its tail, like some kind of cannibalistic swan of flame, Brandon emerges.
Carrying a limp Jeff over his shoulder.
The curtain of fire sweltering all around them makes it look like he’s stepping out of the River Styx. I imagine.
“Crash!” shouts Brandon with an urgency I couldn’t imagine his voice having.
Someone comes wheeling a crash cart over and Brandon tosses Jeff’s ragdoll frame onto it as a paramedic cuts open his gear and starts warming up the paddles.
(Jesus. Is this what it was like when they had to come for me? I feel like an asshole. And then I feel like an asshole for thinking about myself right now.)
“What happened?” yells Maddie. “What happened to him?”
Brandon pulls his helmet off. Bends over. He’s drenched with sweat. He takes a hit of oxygen. Then, gulping breaths, he says, “Smoke. And a… Dunno… Beam… Or something… Hit him in the head. He…” He stops saying the most words I’ve ever heard him speak, takes up more oxygen, and the sweat around his eyes creates the illusion that he’s crying. I think it’s an illusion.
And as I look over and see them pull off Jeff’s helmet, I observe the blood that has baked itself onto his baby face.
Maddie is barely holding together. Given everything I just found out this evening, so am I. The parallels are impossible to ignore.
“Pete?” she now coughs out. “What about Pete?”
Brandon shakes his head.
“What does that mean?” she bellows. “He wasn’t there?”
Brandon raises his eyes to meet hers, stands up straight, and shakes his head again. “No… He was.”
And then…
Paroxysms of tears from Maddie. Only word to describe it. Shaking, convulsive paroxysms of tears as she collapses to the ground in a heap.
I start to go to her but I first ask Brandon, “What—?”
But once again, he just shakes his head and eyes me. You don’t want to know, the eyes say.
Fuck. Fuck! FUCK! And he’s right. No. I don’t wanna know.
Time slows in combat. Everybody knows that, even if they’ve never been in combat. It’s the same thing that happens in, say, a car accident. There’s always that moment when shit gets preposterously slow for no good reason, the brain dialing it all down a notch because it can’t hold onto the events in real-time.
As I look toward the smoldering heap that they’re just starting to get under control now that the roof has collapsed, everything about it washes over me in half-time. The people running, the lights flashing, the world burning. It’s kind of… beautiful.
That’s a real oxymoron about fires and explosions and stuff. They’re so destructive, but that destruction brings with it its own kind of poetic beauty. The same way a rose bursting into full bloom just means it’s that much closer to wilting and dying.
The combustible force of life is a wonderful, amazing thing. But it comes at a cost. The comforting thing about that, to me, has always been that then, finally, after the price is paid, and the fire that drives us all forward is extinguished, we finally get to rest.
And, as I watch the cinders rising, turning all that was there into ash, I think of Pete.
Pete Flanagan. My friend. Thanks for everything, man. Go. Go be with her
again. Rest now.
Or maybe it’s what I have to think to put enough of a spin on it to keep from having the glue that’s barely holding me together melted clean away by the heat of everything happening at the moment.
And then…
“Clear!” someone shouts as they put the defibrillator against Jeff’s bare chest.
I glance over at him again and see that his chest is stronger than I would’ve thought. Just because he seems small, I suppose. Even though I suddenly realize he’s not really. But his chest is smooth. Young. I remember the smoothness of his hand when I gave it a shake a few weeks back.
I don’t know why I think of that now.
“Clear!” whoever shouts again.
Doesn’t matter.
I know death when I see it.
I’ve observed enough of it.
They can keep trying to shock him back to life all they want.
Jeff’s gone.
He’s gone.
Goddamn it, kid.
Part of me wants to just go make them stop, but they’re already loading him in the EMT truck to, I suppose, keep giving it their best.
I’ve said it before… People fighting the inevitable always gives me the hardest time. But if it makes them feel better to try, who the fuck am I to stop them? They need to believe, so let ’em believe, I guess.
And there’s absolutely no fucking time to even begin thinking about all the shit I’m starting to think about. Maddie’s coming undone and I need to be there for her.
I pat Brandon on the shoulder and he nods at me like, Go. And so I do. I go to Maddie, who’s still crumpled on the ground in the parking lot.
“Hey—” I start, but she waves me off. That’s fine. I get it. I mean, damn, I really just wanna try to fix it. But I can’t. So I’ll stand here and see if I can not get in the way.
And then…
Like out of fucking nowhere—and this is probably the last thing in the world I’m expecting—her phone dings.
This is not something I should be able to hear. There’s so much going on that the dinging of a cell phone shouldn’t even register. But it does. I dunno why. But it does.
She has an odd look on her face. I can’t describe it. Not in words. But if I had to try I’d say it looks pained, defeated… knowing, I guess.
She pulls her phone out of her jacket pocket and, sure enough, the screen is lit.
She looks down at it, slowly.
And then…
She throws it to the ground, balls her hands into fists at her sides, looks up at the dawn-breaking sky being kissed by tendrils of hot orange and sooty black…
And she lets loose a guttural, primal scream that begins in the center of the earth, rips its way through her body, past her breaking heart, out of her mouth, and up into whatever bullshit heaven sits in the sky, where a bullshit Go
d looks down laughing, having broken his promise to me that I was being given the chance to repair the damage I created.
That was never the deal.
I get it now.
I am back here to be forced to watch Maddie suffer.
Because I missed it all the first time.
Fuck you, God, you lying cunt.
I pick her phone up off the ground to see what it was that affected her so.
It’s a text.
It says…
“U got 3 weeks. Nowhere left to hide, bitch.”
Chapter Twenty - Maddie
I don’t see the fire. I don’t see the men trying to put it out, or the trucks, or the hoses, or the ambulance, or the police.
I don’t even see Tyler. Or Evan, once he gets here.
I see the text.
Tyler has my phone, so I’m not looking at it. But it’s burned into my mind like a brand.
This was Logan.
We wait there, just watching the responders do their jobs, Tyler and me together. He’s devastated, his arms around me in a constant hug—a need for support just as much as it is supportive.
New partners. Everything was so great and now…
Now Pete and Jeff are dead. Burned alive. In a fire I—
I stop myself there. I was gonna say caused.
But fuck that. I didn’t do this. I didn’t kill Scotty, I didn’t kill Pete, and I didn’t kill Jeff. I don’t owe Carlos Castillo shit. Tyler will not pay that motherfucker back. I will not pay that motherfucker back—
But then things slow down. Stop, maybe. Everything around me goes still. Sounds recede with my vision. I no longer hear the deafening roar of water spraying onto the flaming building. The sinister crackling of things burning goes silent. The shouts of men go unheard as…
An idea forms in my head.
That’s right, Devil says. That’s what you need.
That’s all I hear.
Him.
Me. That part of me that fell.
But not the sad part. Not the defeated part. Not the part that always loses, no matter how hard I try.
You have a bad temper. Ricky Ramirez said in that car the day he drove me home from Carlos Castillo’s compound. My temper is my problem. That’s what he said.
No. It’s not. My temper isn’t my problem. My problem is Carlos Castillo and his stupid henchman, Logan. My problem is that I let him believe I owed him. My problem is that I didn’t lose my temper with him, I went along. Let him lead me down a path that resulted in this outcome.
Two people dead.
I wait for her. That angel inside me. So she can pop up and make her case. It’s a long wait, I think. Time has stopped, so I’m not really sure, but it feels long. Like she’s wrestling with her options. Her feelings. Her rage.
Revenge, my devil says. That’s what you need. Revenge.
He’s been wrong before.
This is probably a very bad idea.
But I am the reigning queen of very bad ideas these days.
So I pull myself back from the edge. I rein in the rage, the fear, the desperation and the sadness. Sounds of fire, and water, and men return. I see the building, collapsed into a pile of charred beams and broken walls. I see the flashing red lights of trucks. I see Evan, standing in front of us, talking with Tyler. I look at them. Each of them. See the truth written on their faces. Both of them overfull with miserable reality.
And I make a decision.
I do owe Carlos Castillo something after all.
Payback.
GET THE NEXT BOOK, Flesh Into Fire, HERE
END OF BOOK SHIT
So we’ve decided to do the EOBS a little different this time you guys. I asked Johnathan a few questions about what this new writing partnership has been like for him and he asked me some back. So I hope you enjoy this little change up!
JULIE’S QUESTIONS FOR
Since this is now your second novel, did you notice it felt different to write book two, versus book one?
It doesn’t really feel like a second novel because it’s the same world, same characters, and a continuation of the story. It feels rather more like I’m writing a massive novel spread over four major acts (as in playwriting – what we’re doing is kind of like a big four-act play).
I think what feels different is that Sin With Me was an introduction of characters to the reader – the book was very much constructed to be that – so in Angels Fall, we now have to deliver on the promise of book one. So it’s almost like writing SWM felt like a really great and successful freshman year, and the last thing you want to fall into is a sophomore slump, so I suppose my expectation of and approach to the work was maybe a little more rapacious.
Insofar as there was an urgency present that didn’t feel as palpable in the first book. Because the first book was almost like an experiment, right? Like, “Let’s try this and see how it goes.” And when it felt like it went well, there’s that self-imposed responsibility to replicate that successful experience.
Now, as I write this, Sin With Me has yet to be released, and so who knows how it will be received. But that’s not what I mean when I say “successful.” I mean it felt like a successful artistic endeavor, and so that’s the only measuring stick I’m using. And honesty, it’s the only one I really care about.
Which is, of course, bullshit.
I very much care about how readers respond. It is for readers that I am doing this. But when all is said and done, I’m the one in the mirror when I brush my teeth, so I’m the one I have to live with ALL the time, and I’m the one who has to feel proud about what I’ve made. And if I feel that I’ve done the best possible work I can, in whatever the medium is I’m working, that’s what lets me sleep at night.
There’s a great TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love. It’s on YouTube. Check it out if you haven’t. It’s all about “genius.” The idea of it. The premise of it. The burden of it. And she discusses the onus an artist puts on him or herself when they feel an obligation to replicate an achievement. At the end of the day, she concludes that success or even “good work” is not the creator’s to own. Because the creator isn’t really. Not really the “creator,” I mean. I am not the source. The universe is the source. And if I get lucky and the special gift from the universe (in this case the story, the book) lands in my brain, then I’m fortunate. But it’s not mine to claim.
Now, let’s be clear, this is also an easy way to divert responsibility if you make something shitty. (“Wasn’t me. The universe made the shitty thing and I just handed it over.”) But if, in the striving to create, one can free oneself from the responsibility of having to make something perfect, then you actually liberate your mind to find the specialness hidden inside of what you’re doing. The work can breathe. And that’s true for just about all of life.
So, I’m not sure that answers the question, but that’s how it felt.
What did you learn about yourself as a writer? Like… did you notice your style evolved?
Although I’m an actor first and these are my first proper novels, I’ve been writing for a long, long time, so my style/my voice is pretty firmly established. But the thing about writing in the first person is that the voice is the voice of the character you’re writing. So stylistically, I suppose there’s something about Tyler and Maddie’s voices that steer me and not the other way around. Y’know, I’m eager to see how the tone of the next books we have planned after the Original Sin series emerge and change.
I can say that I have learned, quite frankly, I can write much more quickly than I ever thought possible. Writing a series of books to be released in the tight time frame we have for this series has been a real test of my ability to do fifty things at once, if nothing else. Because I’m also still working on my other two careers (acting and producing/writing television), I have every moment of every day filled with something active. Which I’m not complaining about. It’s amazing.
I have never been good with downtime. Someon
e asked me recently what my hobbies are, and I was like, “what’s that now?” I’m lucky enough to practice my hobbies for a living, so with the addition of novel writing to my résumé, I get to wake up every day with something creative to focus on.
That said, MAN WE’RE WRITING A LOT OF BOOKS QUICKLY.
So I suppose this entire experience is teaching me to be patient and at the same time urgent. Which sound like contrary skills, I suppose. But when melded together become something akin to efficiency.
Y’know, truth be told, I’m learning something about myself as a writer that I always knew, but is being reinforced: I’m willing to die for an idea I believe in. You learn very quickly in television to pick your battles carefully. Not everything is precious and not everything is worth saving. In the parlance of TV writing (and probably other writing too) it’s known as “killing your babies.” Which is macabre as fuck, but ideas do feel like babies. Things that have been birthed from your brain and that feel precious. So picking and choosing what to stomp your feet about and what to roll over on is a talent you have to cultivate.
All that said, if there’s an idea or plot point or character attribute that I believe in strongly, I will burn down the whole fucking village if I have to in order to defend it. And I hope that I do that sparingly enough that it doesn’t become white noise. I value my writing partnership with Julie exceedingly much and honoring and respecting that partnership while at the same time standing fast behind my passionate opinions is something I think I’m maybe learning how to balance even more than I already knew.
Because working with Julie is something that I think I’m going to be doing for a long time. And like any long-lasting relationship you need to grow together. Not as one. That’s fucking stupid. I hate it when people say dumb shit like that. Because forfeiture of your own personality and sense of individual passion isn’t collaboration, it’s co-dependence. But growing as individuals on parallel tracks is crucial for longevity and what I aspire to in all the relationships I have that are worth keeping.
