The night it happened, she could not run. Or did not. Others had. She’d looked up the side of the mountain, saw the litter of deadfall, massive downed pines the whole way. It was breccia rock up high, loose and prone to sliding. Behind them, the fire caught a southwestern wind and howled; she would remember that sound until the day she died-it howled. Inside the flames, spectacular, horrifying things were happening-eddying colors, deep red to pale yellow, as the fire fought itself, adjusting for position, seeking fuel and oxygen, which was all that it needed for life once someone provided the spark. It had been given the spark, and then the wind gave it the oxygen and the dried-out forest gave it the fuel, and the only thing capable of stopping the monster’s growth was Hannah’s crew.
There was a choice, waiting there in the drainage, in an area they never should have approached: Break protocol and run, or hold protocol and deploy shelters. It was evident to everyone by then that the fire was gaining speed and was not going to be stopped. They all fell silent for a few seconds, recognizing what they had done, the way they’d trapped themselves, and she believed that more than a few of them also remembered the way it had happened, the way Nick had decided they would not descend into the gulch and Hannah had convinced him otherwise. There was a family down there, and they were trapped, and Hannah had believed they could be saved. Nick hadn’t. She’d won the debate, and they’d descended into the gulch, and then the wind shifted into their faces.
A quarter mile away, on the other side of a too-shallow creek, the family of campers looked at them and screamed. And Hannah screamed back, telling them to get into the water, get under the water. Knowing all the while that there wasn’t enough water to save them.
Her crew scattered then. A unit so tight they usually moved as one, but panic was a devastating thing, and it was upon them now. Nick was shouting at them to deploy fire shelters; some were shouting back that they had to run; one guy was telling them all to dump everything, every bit of gear, and sprint for the creek. Another one, Brandon, simply sat down. That was all. He just sat down and watched the fire burn toward him.
Hannah watched them make their choices and then disappear. Someone grabbed her shoulder and tried to tug her up the mountainside. She’d shaken him off, still staring at the family they’d come down here to help, this foolish family who’d camped in the basin, who’d pitched their tents inside the monster’s open fist. The screaming children seemed to be addressing her personally. Why? Because she was a woman? Because they saw something different in her eyes? Or because she was the only one dumb enough to just stand there and stare?
It had been Nick’s voice that finally registered with her. “Hannah, damn you, deploy or die! Deploy or die!”
The shouted words were nothing but surreal whispers in the midst of the fire’s roar. The heat registered next, a staggering wave of it, and she had the sense that the wind had picked up again, and she knew that was bad. She looked up the slope and saw the backs of those who’d elected to run and then Nick shouted at her again and finally he’d deployed his own fire shelter and shoved her into it. The shelter popped up like some tinfoil joke tent. The heat was all around her and oppressive then-a deep breath found nothing; the oxygen had been scalded out of the air. She crawled inside as the first tongues of flame advanced through the drainage like a scout party. The rules were simple: You got inside, you sealed yourself off, and then you waited, waited, waited. When the roar of the fire was past, that did not mean that the fire itself was. You could step out thinking you were safe and still be scorched.
She was facing southwest, into the wind, as she brought the flap of the fire shelter down around her. The last thing she saw, other than the living wall of fire marching toward her, was the boy. He was the only one left. The girl and her parents had ducked into the tent, evidently imitating the procedures of the firefighters on the other side of the creek. There was only one problem-their tent wasn’t fireproof. The family had pressed it beneath a ledge of stone, hoping to somehow duck the fire, but the boy fought off his parents and stayed outside, terrified of waiting for the flames. He wanted to run, wanted to get into the water.
She watched him splash into the creek, running just ahead of the fifteen-hundred-degree orange-and-red cascade behind him. That was the last thing she saw before Nick sealed her in. She was grateful for that. Grateful that he’d still been running. He made the creek too. Got under the water.
Boiled in it.
She didn’t know that until the board of inquiry’s investigation.
Hannah had stayed in the shelter for forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes of the most intense heat she’d ever felt, surrounded by human screams and fire roars. The blaze tried to kill her, it tried its very best, chewing tiny holes through the fireproof shelter material. She’d watched them develop, a hundred glowing dots, like a sky of bloodred stars.
They’d been trained to wait for release from the shelters by the crew boss. By Nick. She didn’t know then that the crew boss was dead.
“My God,” she said in her fire tower now, and she started to cry again. How long did a thing like that chase you? How long would memories like that keep their hands tight around your throat? When would they decide it was time to let you go?
She laid her head down on the Osborne, the copper bezel cool against her skin.
The man Jace hated most was Ethan Serbin.
Forget about the two coming after him, and his parents, who’d brought him here and promised he’d be safe, and the police, who’d agreed to the plan. The one Jace absolutely despised once his tears stopped was Ethan.
Because Ethan’s voice wouldn’t go away.
All those silly rules and mantras and instructions, falling on his ears day and night since he’d arrived in Montana, wouldn’t stop even though their source was no longer around. The lessons lingered behind like floodwaters. He wanted them gone. He was tired and he was scared and he was alone. It was quitting time.
There is no such thing as quitting time. Remember that, boys. You rest, you sleep, you pout, you cry. You’re allowed to get mad, allowed to get sad. But you’re not allowed to quit. When you feel like it, remember that you are allowed to stop, but not to quit. So give yourself that much. Stop. Just stop. And then, remember what STOP is to a survivor-sit, think, observe, plan. Spelled out for you, right there at the moment of your highest frustration, is all you need to do to start saving your life.
Jace didn’t want to do any of those things, but the problem was the waiting. He didn’t know how far off his killers were, how long he’d have to sit here before they found him.
It might be a long time.
He was doing the things he needed to without even intending to do them-he had sat; and he was of course thinking, he couldn’t avoid that, not once the tears were done; and without meaning to, when a light went on in the darkness, he found himself observing.
It grabbed his attention because it didn’t belong. There was another human presence on the mountain. Someone with electricity. Distant, but not so far away as to be unreachable. He stared in confusion, trying to comprehend how it had come to exist, and then he remembered the lunch break and the landmarks Ethan had used to help them orient themselves to their position on the map. You had to pick things that were unique, features that didn’t blend in with the rest of the scenery, and then you triangulated your position using the map and the compass. Pilot Peak was one unique point, and Amphitheater was another, but for the third, they had not used a mountain. They’d used a fire tower.