Chapter 11 The Night the Sky Caught Fire #3
Each word seemed to lag behind his lips, like a film out of sync, but his intention was unmistakable. “NO!” Colin shouted, clutching him. “JOSH, NO!” He caught him by both shoulders, shaking him. “Stay with me. We have to get out!”
He dragged Joshua toward the shattered front door, but Joshua wrenched away and surged forward, limping toward the kitchen with grim resolve. He caught the wall for balance, refusing to stand by while their home burned.
Colin started to follow him, then saw flames curling up the curtains around their octagon window, just catching on the trim—fast and hungry.
Joshua’s curtains! The sheer curtains he’d bought the day they moved into this house. Transparent—so they could see the river while they ate. They were burning up!
And something inside him suddenly shattered. He screamed and lunged forward, raging, desperate, unthinking, beating at the flames with his bare hands, a throw pillow, a tablecloth—anything within reach.
Pain didn’t register. Only the instinct to protect, to fight, to save the home they both loved. Suddenly, Joshua was at his side, gripping the extinguisher, turning it toward the flames, spewing white foam.
The front door burst open, splintered wood flying inward. A dark figure charged through the smoke, powerful and determined. Daniel Lopez.
“Campbell!” The sound was fractured, but it got through.
“Get back!” Daniel barked, snatching the extinguisher from Joshua’s trembling hands. He squeezed the trigger in one smooth motion, dousing the flames while shoving Colin and Joshua toward the door with his free arm.
“Out! Both of you!” Daniel forced them toward the front door. “Get outside!” Then he turned back, disappearing into the smoke-filled room, extinguisher still spraying.
Colin and Joshua tumbled through a front door hanging broken on its hinges.
An open mouth trying to scream. The whole porch was splintered.
Smoking. Wind chimes gone. Flowerpots shattered.
Just wreckage now. They stumbled to the far corner, choking on smoke, clutching each other to keep from collapsing, gasping for breath between wracking coughs.
Red and blue lights pulsed through the smoke-filled darkness, bathing the yard in harsh, flickering color.
Several cruisers skidded to a stop. Doors flew open.
Officers poured out—some with weapons drawn, all shouting over each other.
Flashlights sliced the shadows. Voices filled with panic called out Colin’s name.
He turned toward the chaos, eyes stinging, smoke clinging to his skin. And then he saw them.
A group of officers—huddled, unmoving—gathered on the lawn. Flashlights pooled around a single figure. One officer knelt beside it, head bowed. Another backed away, then dropped to his knees. No one spoke.
Colin took a step forward before he realized he had. The world was too bright. Too loud. And yet, impossibly silent.
She lay on her side in the grass, one arm outstretched toward the porch. Her face was turned toward the house, eyes open and unseeing. Her vest was scorched. One boot missing. A thin ribbon of smoke curled from her sleeve.
“Josh—” Colin choked out. “Oh God, Josh, I think—”
Joshua followed his gaze—then staggered backward with a grief-stricken cry.
“She was trying to reach us,” Colin said, barely audible, his voice hollow and stunned.
The image seared itself into him. Not the brokenness. Not the silence. Just her—on the grass, one hand still reaching, her body forever turned toward the people she died protecting.
Neither man spoke. They couldn’t. The silence from that corner of the yard said everything.
And behind them, their home—the life they’d built—burned on.
Colin slowly sank to his knees, hands lifting to cover his face.
Please, he thought. Just one second. Just make it stop—so I can think. So I can hear. Please.
But there was no stillness. Only the pounding in his chest and the harsh, broken sound of his own sobbing.
I don’t cry, he thought, dazed. That’s not me. Not my style. But the sobs kept coming, and he couldn’t make them stop.
Then Joshua was there—kneeling, holding him, rocking him. And from somewhere far away, another voice called his name.
“Colin!” He could barely make out the word over the high-pitched whine clawing at his eardrums. He lifted his head, blinking through smoke and tears.
“Lenny?”
Lenny Anderson had been Colin’s supervising Lieutenant and close friend during his decade as a campus cop. “Jesus, Colin—” He didn’t finish. Colin couldn’t hear him anyway. He wrapped his arms around Colin and Joshua, holding on tight.
“I heard the call,” Lenny whispered, voice shaking.
“Your address—I ran every damn light between here and Fifth.” He tore off his jacket and tried to wrap it around his friend’s shoulders, but Colin wouldn’t release Joshua.
Wouldn’t move. Wouldn’t blink. His eyes remained fixed on the broken body of his friend.
“Come on, brother,” Lenny pleaded, tugging gently at his arm. “You’re freezing.”
Colin just shook his head.
Two other officers crouched beside Joshua, draping blankets over his shoulders, murmuring reassurances. Colin didn’t seem to hear. Lenny molded the jacket around Colin’s body, his hand firm between his shoulder blades.
“I—I didn’t know where you were. And—” Lenny’s voice broke. He looked toward the yard where officers still stood in a hard, silent knot — fists clenched, jaws tight, their grief edged with a fury that had nowhere to go. “God, Colin. I heard Sarah’s call and—” His breath caught in a sob.
Colin bowed his head, gripping Lenny’s arm in one burned, trembling hand.
Across the porch, Daniel stumbled past the smoldering front door, coughing hard, smoke pluming from his clothing. His eyes found the shape on the lawn and staggered toward her, the extinguisher dropping from his grip.
One of the officers, an older man, caught him by the arm.
Another laid a hand on Daniel’s shoulder.
Daniel shook his head, then sank beside Sarah’s body, burying his face in his hands.
One of the others knelt beside him, shielding him from the lights, talking to him, saying things that Colin couldn’t hear.
Then sirens.
Fire engines. EMS. The wail of them cut through the smoke, sharp and merciless.
Joshua turned his head, blinking against the strobing lights, and gave a choked, anguished cry. “Colin––your hands!”
Colin’s eyes dropped. Both hands were red. Raw. Burned. He hadn’t even felt it. “I—” He tried to speak, but the pain caught up all at once, searing through him sharp and agonizing, taking his breath.
Joshua leaped to his feet, wincing from his own pain, and waved at the nearest paramedic. “Here! Over here! Hurry! He’s hurt!”
Colin didn’t move. Didn’t speak. His gaze remained fixed on Sarah’s body, the smoke curling around her like a shroud.
Lenny’s voice was barely more than a whisper: “She’s gone, man.”
Colin closed his eyes.
And the world—or what was left of it—still burned.
Joshua crouched beside Colin and wrapped him in his arms, then staggered to his feet, dragging Colin with him. “Lenny!” he rasped, voice raw from smoke and panic. “Help me! Help me get him to the ambulance!”
Two officers joined Lenny and Joshua, hauling Colin to his feet.
He fought against them, muscles straining, his eyes locked on the huddled group still gathered in the yard.
His friends. His comrades. His brethren.
And Sarah! Lying so still beneath the flicker of firelight, her uniform covered in expanding dark blotches.
But four sets of hands gripped him hard, dragging him toward the street–away from the sight he couldn’t bear to leave.
“Colin, please!” Joshua cried as they half-carried, half-dragged Colin across the ruined lawn. “Please, you’re hurt!”
Lenny’s voice was low but fierce, urgent in Colin’s ear. “You can’t help her, Colin. She was gone the second that fucking thing went off.”
Two paramedics met them on the lawn and took Colin from their arms. They lifted him into the ambulance with practiced care, his burned hands dangling—raw, useless, the skin blistered and beginning to swell.
Joshua stood frozen, watching as Colin disappeared inside. Then, slowly, he sank to his knees beside the ambulance and buried his face in his hands, giving himself over to grief.