Burning Ember by Sara Arden

Author:Sara Arden [Arden, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Corvus Corax
Published: 2017-06-22T04:00:00+00:00

11

Hayden was on paid leave from the station pending the closure of the investigation. Bill had said he wanted to make sure it didn’t look like his son was getting any sort of preferential treatment.

It felt strange to him not to be at the firehouse.

He heard the familiar cadence of his brother’s knock on his front door. Opening it, he said, “I thought you were on shift?”

“I’m supposed to be, but I told Dad I had to talk to you.” Royce was grim.

“That sounds serious.” Hayden could still be “little brothered,” not that he wanted to admit it. His stomach dropped like he’d just gotten called into the principal’s office.

“It is. I saw the footage from the traffic cam.”

“Yeah, so has everyone, it seems.” He realized what his brother’s problem was. “So I jumped off a bridge. It’s not a big deal.”

“It really is, Hayden.”

“Not you, too.” He was tired of hearing it. Why couldn’t anyone just accept that he’d done a good thing and leave it at that?

“Definitely me, too. And you. Have you watched it?” Royce was incredulous.

“What kind of jackass sits around watching videos of themselves?” He wasn’t going to look at the stupid thing.

“Us, apparently. I was thinking of recording all the training sessions at the firehouse to help us improve. To remind us that what we do is real.”

“I don’t think anyone can forget that what we do is real.” He had burns on the backs of his hands to remind him.

Sophie had burns on her neck, her arms…

“I disagree.” He walked into the kitchen and took a beer out of Hayden’s fridge, considered it and put it back, pulling out a bottle of water instead. “Because you get blind to it. You know, like the boiling frog?”

“Why would anyone want to boil a frog? That’s just wrong.”

“You’re missing the point. I know you learned about it in animal science just like I did. If you boil the water slowly, the frog won’t even realize he’s being boiled alive until it’s too late. It can be like that with the job we do, too.”

“I don’t follow.”

“No, but you will. Have a seat, little brother.”

“Look—”

“It’s either listen to what I have to say or lose Sophie.”

“What?” Those words were like a fist to his gut.

He pulled out his phone. “You need to watch this.”

As the images started to play across the screen, he realized it was the traffic cam footage from the bridge.

“Man, I don’t need to watch this. I know what happened. I mean, I was there.” He knew something had changed with Sophie, but she’d sworn to him that she could handle this and he’d trusted her.

Had she lied to him and then confided in Royce?

A cold, sick feeling twisted in his gut like razor wire wrapped around his insides.

He imagined what it would be like to lose her and he couldn’t… Even before they were together she was the one constant thing aside from his family. Sophie was always there. Sophie was always part of not only he life, but who he was.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.