The smoke races them, but I see their fluorescent uniforms. I see the lights on their helmets and can hear the pounding of heavy boots on concrete.
“Get out!” The fire chief swings his arms as above them, the club eats away at itself. The roof collapses in and each new piece of steel that falls in leaves the rest of the structure groaning in protest.
Ten feet from the exit, the first fireman escapes and stops at his chief, only to turn back and watch the final two drag Kane forward.
I try to stand. I push the mask away, but my friends, myfamily,hold me down until the chief turns and shouts, “Everybody back!”
Luc, my strong, big brother that carried me a billion times in my life, turns on a curse and lifts me into his arms. He snags Kari’s hand with his right, and drags us to the ambulance that Laine sits in. He tosses me in so I land on my sister, then he tosses Kari on top of us so we’re a three-girl stack of legs while he and Angelo turn their backs to the inferno and guard the doors.
I scramble to my knees and tear the useless mask away from my face. Peeking past the guys’ shoulders, I watch the entire building collapse as the three men dive through the exit.
Hot air and black smoke whoosh out and blow my hair back. The guys close in to protect us from the blast, and the stench of burning hair and baking skin permeate the air as fireballs rush out from beneath the collapsed building, sending the fire crew diving for cover.
The final two that were carrying Kane scramble to their feet and race to their big red trucks, leaving Kane lying on the ground in front of the crumbling building.
Someday, I’ll be able to look back on this moment and see that everyone does everything they can to protect me. I’ll see the two firemen racing away from the man on the ground as self-preservation, because even hidden behind my friends, even forty or so yards from the front door, the heat pulsing off the fireball that used to be a club burns my nostrils.
Someday, I’ll be able to see the fancy black loafers on the unconscious man’s feet, the jewelry that adorns his sausage fingers, and the greasy black hair that’s now half missing on one side of his head.
Like I’ve been sucked back into a vacuum of non-reality, it’s minutes or seconds or hours before Luc and Angelo step away from the open ambulance doors. Luc takes my hand and helps me stand on shaking legs, then Kari slides an arm around my pain-filled ribs and holds my weight up.
When we’re allowed to move closer, she takes most of my weight and helps me toward the unconscious man that’s not unconscious at all.
He’s dead.
Just like Kane, a bullet hole rests in the center of his forehead.
Abel Hayes is dead, and Kane didn’t come back out of that horrible club.