Page 150 of Burn

There’s no way in hell I want anyone seeing that video. I watched it on Finn’s phone the other day and then deleted it and everything else off his phone for even having the video.

What a bunch of fuckers.

“Goddamn you,” I mumble under my breath.

Owen smiles triumphantly. “Paybacks are a bitch, muthafucka!”

When we get to the job, it’s a construction site where they’re building a skyscraper. A guy is dangling some two hundred feet in the air by his feet, which are tangled up in a rope.

That’s a bad day.

No idea what he was doing when it happened, hell, he probably didn’t know, either, but I go up there on the freight elevator and get him hooked onto me to bring him down.

We’re locked together when I tell him with a laugh, “Whatever you do, big guy, don’t look down.”

He looks down.

Stupid shits always do.

“Holy shit! I’m going to die!” He starts scrambling, locking his legs around mine and then knocking us into the side of the building.

There goes my helmet.

“Hey, I said don’t look down, asshole!” Using my feet against the wall, both planted firmly, I keep us from swinging back and forth. “Stop fucking moving before you kill us both.”

Just then the rope slips about five feet. We go with it, but conveniently we’re at the spot where Owen and Finn are waiting to pull us into a fourth-floor window.

I’m sure the guy shit his pants.

Construction sites are dangerous. Dangerous to work at, and dangerous to save people at. I would be lying if I didn’t say I was sweating that one. Believe it or not, I’m actually afraid of heights. And blood. Oh, and those marshmallow peeps people eat at Easter. They scare the shit out of me.

Only Owen knows I’m scared of heights, and usually, he takes the jobs like this, but he made me do it this time. Another stipulation of not posting the video. So I had no choice, and we couldn’t trust Finn tied to a rope.

Look at him. He’s over near the truck playing with a staple gun.

Not more than two minutes later, the goddamn thing goes off and shoots Finn in the forehead.

“Got any suggestions?” Finn asks, looking scared but in shock.

“Yeah.” I chuckle lightly, grabbing hold of his shoulders, and then turning him toward the ambulance. “See that EMT over there, dude. You need to sit down.”

“What the hell happened to him?” Owen curiously watches them take the nail out of the side of his head. It turns out to be just a minor flesh wound, but still, you’re not careful and you shoot yourself with a staple gun.

“He was playing with it, and it went off in his hand,” Corbin tells him as he hands me my helmet that had fallen earlier.

Jay and I start laughing, but Owen doesn’t. I never thought Corbin would have a sense of humor. I never paid any attention to it because I was too busy hoping he’d shoot himself with a nail gun.

As the lights of the city burst on and we make our way back to the station, surrounded by the very places I’ve called home my entire life, I think about Evan.

With my body pressed against the seat in the back, it feels good to be back on the truck and getting calls after the two-week leave of absence they made me take. I wasn’t the only one thinking of him. All the guys in the house miss his hard, overconfident ass. They even put up a framed picture of him in the recliner he used to sit in inside the lounge, like it’d forever be his chair and he would always be there bullshitting with us.

I suppose in some ways, it’s helping us all cope with the loss. I may have been his brother, but Evan held a special spot in this house, whether we got along or not. He left a piece of himself with all of us, in subtle ways.

He taught Finn how to be reliable. Too bad he didn’t teach him some safety tips, but he did teach him to never give up, to stay focused and be prepared.

I wasn’t sure what he taught Owen. I’m not sure you can teach him anything.

And me, well, he taught me that inside a fire, always think, be fearless, butthink.

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