Page 16 of Burning Up

“Yeah. The neighborhood… it wasn’t good. Lot of houses had them. Damn I wish to God they weren’t allowed to. Better to be robbed than trapped like that.”

Bryce leaned down and scrubbed his hands through his hair. His heart pounded against his chest, too hard, too fast. Was he about to have a fucking heart attack?

Toby moved to sit beside Bryce and laid a hand on his back. “You okay?”

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “It’s… Fucking hell, it’s hard to think about it.”

“You don’t have to,” Matt said, moving to Bryce’s other side.

Bryce nodded, acknowledging that. “I’ve gone this far. I might as well finish. I sure as hell don’t want to start over.” He drew in a shaky breath. Why did he feel like he had to do this at all, and why with these guys? He couldn’t explain that. At least after they saw him looking so pathetic, they weren’t likely to want him anymore.

“The fire had destroyed the kitchen and one of the bedrooms before we got there. The mother called it in, but instead of leaving the house, she went to get her children from their room. It was after midnight, so the kids were asleep. But once she got into their room, they couldn’t get back out. The fire had spread down the hall.

“My unit was first on the scene. We tried as hard as we could, but the flames wouldn’t quit. We knew the mother had refused to leave without her kids, and they weren’t outside, so we were certain they were still in there. The heat outside the room where they were trapped was too high for the primary search team, and when we were able to go in for a secondary search, they found the bodies, a twenty-eight-year-old woman and her two children, ages six and four.

“If we’d gotten the fire under control faster… Or if we could’ve gotten into that window…”

“Bryce,” Matt said, his voice low and serious. “Did anyone think you should have done something different?”

Bryce shook his head.

“Did you think you did everything you could?” Toby asked.

“Yes, but?—”

Toby interrupted him. “You did your job, and that’s all you can do.”

“They tried to get out, tried to break through the window. The woman’s hands were around the bars when we found her and the kids. The little boy had his hands and arms wrapped around her leg, and the girl was across the room, like she’d run, like she was determined to find another way out. I just think about being trapped like that, knowing there was a way out but you couldn’t access it, knowing that if only we’d gotten those bars off…”

Bryce dropped his head into his hands, fighting the tears that stung the backs of his eyes. He would not fucking cry in front of them, no fucking way. He hadn’t cried since the night of that fire and he’d been drunk then, really goddamn drunk. He wanted to be that drunk again.

“Would now be a good time to bring that bottle?” Matt asked, as if reading his thoughts.

“Yeah.” The word came out choked, and Bryce didn’t dare look up. Rollo pressed his head into Bryce’s lap, understanding he needed comfort. Toby stroked Bryce’s back, the movement rhythmic and soothing. “Do you need anything else?” he asked.

Bryce shook his head, not ready to attempt words. Matt returned a few seconds later and set the bottle on the table in front of Bryce.

When he thought he could look at them without tears spilling over, Bryce drew in a slow breath and lifted his head. Matt and Toby were sitting close together on the floor by the coffee table, nearly touching. “Y-you guys want some?” He raised the bottle to indicate what he meant, inwardly cursing the weakness in his voice.

Matt glanced at Toby, and Toby nodded. “Sure. I’ll get glasses.”

Toby returned, and Bryce poured drinks for all of them. No one said anything for so long Bryce decided he’d made a huge mistake in spilling his guts. “Should I go?”

Toby’s eyes widened. “What? No, we’re just… We’re honored that you felt like you could talk to us.”

“I just made the night fucking depressing for you.”

Matt shook his head. “No you didn’t.”

Bryce poured himself more whiskey, thinking how if he were alone he’d resort to drinking from the bottle at this point.

“Did it help? Saying it out loud?”

Bryce considered Matt’s question, trying to force his now fuzzy brain to think clearly. The images in his head from the Atlanta fire still gave him a heavy, sick feeling in his stomach, but he didn’t feel the need to flinch away from them like he had before. He wasn’t at peace and he might never be, but… “Yeah, I think it might have.”

Matt nodded. “Good.”

8

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