Page 147 of Found by the Pack
Another explosion rocks the street. Flames leap higher, painting the night sky orange. People scream. Sirens wail.
Driftwood is burning alive.
And I swear to God, not one more person is going to die on my watch.
CHAPTER 37
Sadie
The house feels too quiet. Shepard keeps pacing between the window and the kitchen, running his hand through his hair like he’s trying to wear a hole in his scalp.
The smell of smoke drifts even here, faint but insistent, enough to remind me the town is burning while I stand in a borrowed sweater.
He finally stops, pulling two mugs from the cabinet. “Tea,” he mutters, as if the word itself will settle his nerves. He pours hot water over the bags, hands one to me.
“Thanks,” I say, curling both palms around the mug. The warmth helps, but not nearly enough. “Has anything like this ever happened before? Fires like this?”
His mouth presses flat. “No. Not in Driftwood. We get brush fires outside town, sure, but this—” He shakes his head. “This is something else.”
I sip the tea, but it tastes like paper, no comfort at all. My throat is tight. “If we hadn’t been on the water, Gabe could have stopped this.”
“Don’t do that,” he says firmly, eyes cutting to mine. “You don’t get to carry blame for this. Not when we don’t know what the hell’s happening.”
I nod, but the knot in my stomach won’t ease.
He sets his mug down, still restless. “I’m thinking of heading over to grab Gus. Bring him here, keep him with us. That way, when Boone and Gabe get back, everyone’s in one place. Safe.”
The word catches in me.Safe. I haven’t felt that since Memphis, maybe not even before. “Will you be long?”
“Half an hour, tops.” He watches me carefully. “Will you come with me?”
I glance down at my half-drunk tea, then shake my head. “I’ll stay here. Make another pot in case the guys come back hungry or wired. They’re going to need it.”
He hesitates, then leans down and presses a kiss to my hair. It’s soft, lingering longer than he meant to, I can tell.
His scent wraps around me, warm, anchoring. “Lock the door,” he says quietly.
I nod. “Go.”
When the door clicks shut behind him, the silence swallows everything again. I pull my phone out, flick to the news.
The feed is chaos. Helicopter shots of Driftwood lit up like a bonfire, whole blocks reduced to glowing skeletons. Reporters shouting over the roar of fire, the flash of sirens bouncing red and blue across black smoke.
Words scroll across the bottom: “multiple structures damaged,” “families displaced,” “emergency crews stretched thin.”
My stomach twists. The community health center, where Boone sometimes pulls shifts, is nothing but smoke. McCallister’s, where I only just painted a mural on the side wall, is collapsed in on itself.
The anchors keep saying the same thing over and over.No one knows how it started. No one knows how to stop it.
I set the phone down, hands shaking. My tea’s gone cold. I need something stronger, something bitter.
I dig in Shepard’s cupboards until I find coffee grounds. Maybe if I focus on that—measuring, pouring, waiting for the drip—I can drown out the images of Driftwood burning.
The smell fills the kitchen, sharp and familiar, a reminder of long nights painting when coffee was the only thing keeping my hands from giving out. I close my eyes and let it wash over me, just for a second.
A knock startles me so hard I nearly spill the pot.
My heart kicks. Shepard’s back already? That was fast.
