CHAPTER 26

TWO MORE EXPLOSIONS RATTLE THE HOUSE. DUST FILLS THE room. My eyes sting. Along with the dust are the odors—the intense onion smell from the Elliotts’ entryway, the rotting-egg smell of their backyard, the fertilizer smell of Brandon’s hair.

I try to clear my lungs. Dad is coughing too. “Let’s go! Now!” he gasps. His hand squeezes my wrist.

My feet stay frozen in place. “What about Chad!” I choke out as Dad pulls me through the front door.

“He’s safe upstairs.”

Outside, sirens close in on us from all directions. Our house stands intact, but beyond the oak and pine trees, black smoke billows, and flames shoot high into the air above Mrs. Mac’s house. Fire trucks pull up to the house, sirens screaming. Then police cars and ambulances arrive, red and blue lights flashing.

Hoses crisscross both Washington Avenue and Cherry Street. I cover my nose and mouth with the rolled-up sleeve of my shirt to filter the chemical stench. Dad approaches a policeman who’s herding neighbors to the park.

“Did they get out?” Dad yells above the din.

“Stand back, sir.”

“A little boy lives here. Did you find him?”

“Stand back, sir.”

I gaze at the second floor engulfed in fire and smoke. A hose shoots water through the window above the side door, where the Mackenzies’ dining room used to be.

Where is Brandon? I saw him run into the house, just before the police officers knocked on our door.

“Did you see the little boy who lives downstairs?” I ask two cops on the sidewalk. “He was my friend.”

The officers’ walkie-talkies drown me out. Someone calls, “Person down, behind the garage,” and one of the cops dashes across the street.

“Going to get someone now,” the other cop says. He holds his arm out, keeping me away.

An orange-and-white ambulance backs up. Emergency workers surround a stretcher. Two wheel it into the street and a third holds a bag with a tube at the bottom. Before they roll the stretcher into the ambulance, I get a glimpse of who’s propped upright on it.

It’s a man. Mr. Elliott?

The flames have singed his long hair almost to the scalp. A mask covers his nose and mouth. He holds up one arm, and it looks like all four of his fingers have melted away, leaving only a black-tipped thumb.

The siren screeches as the ambulance drives off.

Then another ambulance rolls into its place. Its crew pours out, carrying a freshly made-up stretcher-bed. Its sheets are clean, white. Within minutes, a stretcher with Mrs. Elliott is wheeled toward the ambulance. Her hair is burned too, and there’s only black nothingness where her ear should be.

Dad lays his arm across my shoulders. I stiffen. I’m afraid to ask him about Brandon. His parents have been horribly burned. I imagine him burned too. But maybe . . . he escaped. He’s a little kid. He can crawl through small spaces. And his bedroom’s on the other side of the house. Maybe that side didn’t burn as badly.

Dad shakes his head slowly. “I can’t get any information about Brandon.”

My teeth chatter despite the heat. “I saw him run inside. Right before the cops knocked on our door.”

“They still think Chad’s inside too. Even though I tried to tell them . . .”

Little by little, the water from the hoses knocks down the fire. The smoke turns gray, but the chemical smell hangs in the air, and the empty feeling stays inside me. Another ambulance pulls up, but its lights and sirens are turned off. It waits, engine idling, back doors open.

My father jogs up to the EMTs. Cops fan out in the brush behind the Mackenzies’ yard and on the far side of the house. I listen to the crackle of emergency radios. Dad returns, shaking his head. “Brandon’s still missing. But at least they know Chad’s accounted for.” He rubs my back. I shudder.

“I’m not leaving till they find Brandon.” I have to play wrestlers with him again. Even if all his wrestlers got burned up, I’ll come up with the money to buy him new ones.

“I agree. Chad will want to know.” Dad pauses. “I want to know.”

A few neighbors drift away after one of the cops calls us “a bunch of looky-loos,” but then more come. The twins, Eddie and Mike Perez, arrive with their parents, who talk to one of the cops and then hustle the boys away. Channel 8 News shows up in a van with a satellite dish on top. Reporters jump out to interview people. I can hardly hear above the noise, the radios, the conversations, the vehicles, the sirens. An ambulance roars by on the avenue. A helicopter hovers.

Police say . . . a meth lab . . . Did you suspect something?

We had no idea.

They just moved in.

They kept to themselves.

Two young boys . . . little one’s a cutie.

The kids played in the park . . . there was music . . . in the park.

I turn away from the cameras, because I don’t want them to film me crying. I don’t need the entire state calling me Crybaby Kiara even though this time I have a good reason to cry.

My father pushes his way through the crowd. He dodges a reporter holding out a microphone. “Kiara! Kiara!” he calls.

I wave. I can’t tell from his face whether he has bad news or good news. Or any news at all. But someone told the reporter, Little one’s a cutie. Like he still is.

When he gets to me, Dad’s lips turn up at the ends. A smile. The skin around his eyes crinkles.

“Brandon?” I ask.

“They found him in the brush behind the house!”

“He’s okay?”

“Not okay. But he’s alive,” Dad tells me. “The police officer told me Brandon has serious burns, but they aren’t life-threatening.”

Burned like his parents? I shiver, thinking how awful they looked.

“But he will get better, Kiara.”

“You’re sure?”

“He’s on his way to the hospital now.” Dad nudges me toward home. “He’s in good hands.”

I breathe out. It feels like the first breath I’ve taken since the explosion.

“We need to tell Chad. He’ll be happy to hear his brother made it out,” I say.

We come home to a silent house. Dad calls for Chad.

No answer.

Dad runs up the stairs, two at a time. By the time I get to the top, Dad’s already in my brothers’ room. The door is wide open and I hear Chad’s voice, weak and groggy. “What’s going on? And where am I?”

I stand in the open doorway. Huddled on the bottom bunk, Chad faces me. His skin is greenish-gray.

Dad sits next to him, hunched over to avoid hitting his head on the top bunk. “You’re at Kiara’s house. You had too much to drink last night. We brought you here where you’d be safe.” Dad helps Chad to a sitting position, then reaches forward and drags a wastebasket toward the bed. “But there was an accident at your house this morning.”

“What kind of accident?”

“A fire.”

Chad pulls his legs up to his chest. His lips are cracked and crusted white. His eyes stare blankly into space. It occurs to me that his eyes are sky blue. Like an empty sky.

“Brandon?” he whispers. “Was he burned?”

“Yes, but he got out of the house before getting hurt too badly. The police found him in the brush behind your yard,” my father says.

“He will get better,” I add, repeating Dad’s words to me.

I expect Chad to smile like Dad did when he found out the news that Brandon made it out alive. But Chad doesn’t smile. Instead he says, “But he’s burned.”

My father pats Chad’s back gently. “Yes. They took him to the hospital. Your parents too.”

Chad squeezes his head between his knees. “I should have been the one that got burned.” His voice breaks.

“You should be happy,” I say, stepping into the room. “Brandon’s going to be okay. And you’re free from your evil parents.” They’ll never be able to snatch Chad back the way Gambit’s parents snatched him back.

I don’t know why both my father and Chad are staring at me, their mouths wide open.

In the silence, I continue. “But it’s true!”

Dad leans forward. “That’s enough, Kiara.”

I stomp my foot and give Dad the open-mouthed stare.

Chad buries his fingers in his hair, like he’s going to yank his hair out. “Why Brandon? He didn’t do nothing to no one.” Chad’s voice is tiny and hoarse. Suddenly, he slams both his fists against his head, over and over. And then he howls.