Sacrifice. Brigid Kemmerer
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Название: Sacrifice
Автор: Brigid Kemmerer
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Учебная литература
Серия: Elemental
isbn: 9780758294401
isbn:
“Why, so you can try to trap him with questions?”
“No, so I can spare him a trip in a squad car and his brothers a night with DFS.”
Michael straightened. DFS was the Department of Family Services.
“What does that mean?” He suddenly wanted out of this ambulance, as if social workers had secreted his brothers away already. Tension held him rigid, and the only thing keeping him sitting here was the knowledge that acting like a panicked freak would do more harm than good.
“It means if I take you in for questioning, I’m responsible for making sure your brothers are taken care of.”
“We just dragged him out of his house, unconscious,” Hannah said. “Why don’t you find someone else to question?”
“There is no one else right now, Hannah.”
The words hung there in space for a moment, and Michael flinched, realizing what that meant.
The fire marshal continued, “I had one of your brothers under arrest a month ago. Should I have kept him that way?”
“My brother didn’t do this.”
“Then help me prove it. Answer my questions. Take a walk through your house with me.”
Michael hesitated. The night had been too long, the events too quick to string together. He needed an hour to sit down and think.
Marshal Faulkner took a step closer. “A rookie cop could put two and two together on this one, Mike. Your brother was a prime arson suspect a month ago—and while he ended up with a rock-solid alibi during interrogation, you didn’t. Your house is the only one still standing. They’re talking about bringing in bomb dogs to see if that earthquake was really a natural occurrence. I’m not trying to rough you up here, but I need something that doesn’t look so damning or I’m going to have to drag you in on principle.”
Michael looked away. Didn’t an officer need a warrant to search the house? Should he be calling a lawyer? Could he even get one at three in the morning?
When his parents died, they sure hadn’t left a manual.
Chapter Three: When You’re Suspected of Criminal Wrongdoing.
Wind sliced into the ambulance, biting through his damp clothes. He shivered.
A terrible, dark part of his brain wanted to start shouting. Yes. I’m guilty. I should have stopped this. Instead, I made it worse.
He swallowed, and his throat was so tight that it hurt.
The fire marshal hadn’t looked away. “If you want me to get a warrant, fine, I’ll get one. But if you’re not doing anything wrong, then what’s the big deal?”
Michael rubbed at his temples. Maybe if they went in the house, he could choke down half a bottle of aspirin. Or a whole bottle of whiskey. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s get this over with.”
CHAPTER 5
Michael wanted to check on his brothers first. He remembered the months after their parents had died, how he’d spend all day worrying that they wouldn’t get off the bus after school. Back then, he hadn’t been sure which to fear more: the Guides who had wanted to kill them for their abilities—or the social workers who had wanted to split them up into the foster care system.
Right now didn’t feel too different.
His brothers and Hunter were huddled at the back of another ambulance, just a short distance away. Only Chris had abandoned the wool blanket, and he was sitting on the bumper, rain threading through his hair to paint reflective lines on his cheeks. Hunter’s dog was curled up beneath the tailgate, behind Chris’s legs. He looked up and beat his tail against the ground when Michael came over.
His brothers watched him approach, but didn’t move. Michael looked at each of them in turn, as if he could reassure himself just by seeing them alive and well and together. Their faces were drawn and cautious, their skin caked with dirt and soot.
None of them said anything. They didn’t have to. He could read the uncertainty behind their guarded expressions like a billboard sign.
What’s going to happen?
Where are we going to go?
Are we in danger?
They always thought he had answers. He almost never did, but he was pretty good at faking it. “Is anyone hurt?” he said.
“No,” said Chris.
“They’re lucky,” Marshal Faulkner said from behind him. “I understand two of you kids pulled a family of five out of . . .” He consulted a notepad, then pointed at a burned pile of rubble. “. . . that house.”
“Me and Nick,” said Gabriel. “They were right by the door. I guess that makes them the lucky ones.”
His words were sharp edged, a reaction to authority, and it was almost enough to make Michael snap at him. But he heard the fear beneath Gabriel’s snark, and he understood the reason behind it.
It gave Michael the answer to one question: his brothers hadn’t been trapped in the house at all. He’d crawled through smoke for nothing. He’d lost consciousness and started an earthquake for . . . nothing.
He swallowed his own self-doubt before they could see it. “Anyone who’s still sitting up and talking is lucky. Can you guys wait here for fifteen minutes while I check the house?”
“Where else are we going to go?” said Nick.
His words weren’t snarky at all. It was a genuine question.
“I’m working on it,” said Michael. “Sit tight.” And then he started walking.
Hannah and Marshal Faulkner were right on his heels, but he needed to get some distance from that ambulance before his brothers figured out that he didn’t have a clue about what to do or where to go. He didn’t even know the right answers to keep himself out of a police station.
When he hit the grass in front of his house, however, he stopped. The sidewalk was destroyed, but from what he could tell, the damage didn’t reach far below the surface. All the front windows had been smashed out, and the boards of the porch looked warped. The front door was hanging open, half off its hinges. Splintered wood surrounded the area around the lock and the knob.
“Wow. You really did break in,” he said to Hannah.
“Yeah.” She paused. “It’s procedure. The windows—we have to let oxygen in—”
She sounded guilty, and Michael shook his head. “I’m not blaming you, Hannah.”
“People blame the fire department all the time,” said Marshal Faulkner. “Broken windows are the least of their worries.”
His tone sounded conspiratorial, but Hannah’s earlier warning had Michael on edge. Was this a ploy, to get him to СКАЧАТЬ