“Roddy and Ty aren’t answering their phones.” Nick hurried to the pump house and tried the door but it wouldn’t budge. He checked the glowing numbers on the indicator panel. “The fifth floor is already at six hundred degrees,” he called to Wade. “Help me get this door open and turn on the pumps.”
Wade knelt and rolled up his jeans, unstrapping a disturbingly large knife from a sheath around his calf. He wedged it under the doorknob of the pump house and began prying at the lock.
“Finlay, call your sister,” Nick called out to me. “Joey, call Sam. I’ll try Charlie. Someone has to pick up.”
The urgency in Nick’s voice was making me nervous. Nothing about this felt like a simulation anymore. I dialed my sister’s cell phone. It rang straight to voice mail.
“Finn, look!” Vero dragged me to the ledge and pointed across the drill field to the dormitory. A light was on in one of the third-floor windows. “I think that’s Mrs. Haggerty’s room.”
I pulled up my contacts list and dialed Mrs. Haggerty’s cell phone. “It’s ringing,” I said, blinking at her window through the smoke. I nearly cried out with relief when she picked up on the third ring. “Mrs. Haggerty?”
“If this is about my car’s extended warranty, I’m hanging up.”
“Don’t hang up! It’s Finlay Donovan. Thank god, you’re awake!”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m on a new medication for my cholesterol and it makes it hard to—”
“I’m sure it does, Mrs. Haggerty, but this is an emergency! I need you to look out your window.”
Vero gripped my arm, our eyes watering from the smoke as we waited. After what felt like four hundred years, Mrs. Haggerty’s window got brighter, as if she’d opened her blind.
“I can’t see anything. I don’t have my glasses on. Hold on a minute. I’m sure they’re here somewhere.”
“We don’t have time for you to find your glasses!”
“It’s not polite to shout.”
“I’m sorry. Just … forget about the glasses,” I said, fighting back a cough. “I need you to go to my sister’s room down the hall. Room three nineteen. I need you to knock very loudly on her door and tell her to call me. Tell her it’s an emergency.”
“Well, okay then. I’ll just get dressed and—”
“No, Mrs. Haggerty, please! There’s no time to get dressed. Just hurry. It’s a matter of life and death.”
“Well in that case—” The call disconnected.
“What happened?” Vero asked as I stared at my phone.
“I don’t know! She cut me off.”
There was a loud smash as Wade kicked the doorknob loose and disappeared inside the pump house. His phone light glowed through a thick haze of smoke as he studied the pumps.
Nick watched the numbers rise on the indicator panel, his phone pressed to his ear.
My cell phone rang. “It’s Georgia!” I said as I connected the call. “Georgia—”
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” she mumbled. “And why is Mrs. Haggerty in her nightgown in my room?”
“I need you to have someone turn off the simulator in the fire tower!”
“The what?”
“The fire tower!” I shouted, swatting at the smoke. “We need someone to turn it off!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Look out your damn window!”
There was a prolonged bout of grumbling, then the screech of her blinds. Georgia swore. “Who the hell’s running a simulation in the middle of the night?”
“I don’t have time to explain.”
“Where the heck are you?”
“On top of the fucking fire tower, Georgia! Turn it off!”
“I’m on my way!” The line disconnected. I covered my mouth with my sleeve.
Wade burst out of the pump room. “Nine hundred degrees!” he called out to Nick. “The emergency shutoff isn’t working and the pumps won’t start.”
A dull roar came from the floor below us. Nick swore at his phone.
“Georgia’s coming!” My lungs burned as I leaned over the roof ledge looking for her. Vero appeared beside me, carrying the fire hose over her shoulder. She dragged it to the half wall, unwinding it from its spool. “What are you doing?” I shouted. “The pumps aren’t working.”
She tossed the hose over the side. “I’m getting us off this roof. We’re climbing down. Just like we did from our dorm room.”
“We’re five stories up, Vero! And we didn’t climb down, we fell!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll go first,” she said eagerly, slinging a leg over the ledge.
A tiny flashlight beam bounced over the drill field, catching my attention. Others followed close behind it. Red and blue lights swirled in the distance.
“Eleven hundred degrees!” Wade shouted. “Everybody down!”
Nick appeared like a ghost through the haze. He grabbed Vero by her hood, dragging her off the ledge as he tackled me to the ground. Glass shattered as the windows in the floor below us blew out. A hatch in the floor shot open, ripped from its hinges. Fireballs spewed through it, coloring everything orange and black. I lost sight of Wade and Joey as Nick sprawled on top of Vero and me, sheltering us under his body, his coat spread over us to protect our faces from the smoke. The roof was hot through my clothes, the air hard to breathe.
Sirens wailed beneath the roaring wind. I heard my sister holler five stories below us. Heard her pounding against the control room door. A gun fired. Glass smashed. “I’m in!” she shouted.
The pumps kicked on with a loud rumble. The flames drew back through the hatch with a whoosh. Fans hummed somewhere below. Beyond Nick’s shoulder, the wall of smog began to thin.
His body was heavy on top of us. He waited a moment before lifting his head.
“Detective,” Vero said, her voice husky from the smoke. She waggled her eyebrows at him. “I think we’re having a moment.” I shoved my elbow into her ribs and pushed Nick off of us, starving for air.
He rolled over onto his back, black rivulets of sweat trailing down his neck. “Joey! Wade!” he called out through a raspy throat. “Everyone okay?”
Joey groaned. Wade coughed. I rolled onto an elbow and spotted them lying a few feet away, the duffel bag still smoking beside them. Charred paper towels tumbled in the wind.
Wade shook a cigarette from his pack and slid the filter between his lips. His Zippo scraped as he lit it. Joey reached out blindly for the pack and Wade passed the lighter to him.
“Finn!” Footsteps boomed up the fire escape. Georgia burst onto the roof deck, her eyes wild as they swung over the smoking landscape. She rushed to me through the blackened puddles. “Thank god you’re okay. Mom would have killed me.” She clasped my hand and hauled me upright. Her hand was slick with blood.
“What happened to you?” I asked her.
She glanced down at herself, surprised by the cuts. “The control room was locked. Didn’t have a key. I had to shoot out the window and bust in. Must have cut myself,” she said, wiping it on her flannel pajamas.