“You running in there in a panic isn’t going to help. And it’s only going to get you hurt.”
He makes sense, I know he does, but then I see Joey and Silvia huddled together. “Joey!” I scream and break loose from Nikolai.
“Charlie!” Silvia reaches me first. “Oh, my god, Charlie. It’s gone. The whole thing,” she cries, tears running down her face, leaving clean tracks through the soot that’s smeared across her cheeks.
“Where’s Mark? You said Mark was inside?” I search frantically, but I don’t see any sign of him.
“He was in the bathroom,” Joey says. “The place, Charlie, I don’t get it. It just erupted in smoke and then there were flames coming out of the back.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know what happened.”
“Where is Mark?” I ask again; the details aren’t registering. I just need to know Mark is all right.
“They took him in the first ambulance,” Silvia answers. “They found him passed out on the floor in there. But he came to when they brought him out and gave him oxygen. He’s going to be okay.” She doesn’t look convinced of her own words though.
“Customers? Were any customers hurt?”
“No. We had a slow afternoon, the last guy just left when it happened,” Joey said.
Breathing becomes a little easier now that I know everyone has gotten out. Mark is stubborn, he’ll be okay. At least that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself until I can get to the hospital to verify with my own eyes.
“You the owner?” one of the firefighters asks me.
“Yes,” I nod, still watching my father’s dream crumble in front of me. He and Mom put so much of their heart into this place. I grew up in there. And it’s gone. Just… gone.
“We have it under control now. The fire spread to the other storefronts, but we got those out pretty quick. They’ll have some cosmetic damage. Your shop though,” he frowns. “It’s a complete loss.”
Complete loss. The words don’t make sense. This can’t be real.
“Do you know what started the fire?” Nikolai asks, and it takes me a minute to register his voice.
“Once we have it all out and we can get in there, we’ll know for sure.” He looks at me, pity in his eyes, then back to Nikolai. “But from what I saw in there, the patterns of the burns and the heat level suggest the fire was set.”
“You mean someone burned it down?” I ask.
He swings his eyes back to me. “We won’t know for certain until we can get in there and safely do an investigation.”
I take a step closer to the building, but Nikolai grabs my elbow and pulls me back.
“Stay back here.”
Shattered glass litters the sidewalk. The sign my father hung himself in front of the shop lies cracked on the ground, blackened on the edges from where the flames licked it.
My breath won’t catch, and my heart won’t stop pounding.
“This isn’t happening.” I put my hands to my head. Maybe I can block it all out. “My apartment. All of my things. The deli. It’s all gone!”
Nikolai grabs me, pulls me to his chest and wraps his arms around me. I don’t know what to do. I don’t have a plan for this. I have no idea how to make this better.
So, I don’t do anything. I grab onto Nikolai’s shirt and just melt into him. He kisses the top of my head and whispers to me. He’s talking in Russian. I can’t understand him, but I think he’s trying to soothe me.
I sink into his embrace.
It’s all gone.
I have nothing.
* * *
“I’m looking for Mark Johansen.”I rush straight to the desk when I arrive at the hospital. “He was brought in from a fire; he should be here in the emergency room.”