Snippet #1085615

Dawn half-collapsed, and Jordan was quick to bend with her. This left his knees smarting on the pavement while Dawn folded into him. She wasn't making sense anymore. Her words had just turned into a tumbled series of vowels all swelling together from the shock. Jordan wrapped his arms tighter around the girl, feeling the wetness of her tears against his neck and smelling the strawberries and smoke in her hair.

The house still burned as freely as ever, and even though they were a 'safe' distance away from the blaze its heat was unforgiving. Jordan wiped sweat from his forehead before it could drip into his eyes. He knelt there with Dawn for what must have been ten minutes; thankful she wasn't hitting him anymore. From the base of the driveway, Logan looked on.

Not that he really saw them. Logan was the picture of emptiness. He stood eyes hooded, fists jammed in his pockets, jaw set. Something coppery filled his mouth; he spat to the side. Blood, from chewing the inside of his lip too hard and not noticing. His entire body felt numb.

’Make Peace With Your God!’

Strange. Even though he had been in the mall when the crisis broke, even though he had watched Nikki -- sorry, Charmena casting fire with her own hands, even though he had lived out an escape scene straight from the Bourne films .. Logan realized it was only in this moment that everything clicked, that everything felt real. Wizards were taking over the world. Funny, right? No one was laughing now.

In contrast to Logan, Sylvia couldn’t seem to stand still. She tried pacing one way, then another – hands snarled in her curls, eyes red and puffy. The girl’s expression was drawn somewhere between horror and disbelief. She had to move! But where? Back to the truck? Over to where Jordan and Dawn?

Sheri stood even further back behind the kids. Her mind was somewhere else completely – thinking perhaps about a fiancé who was a volunteer firefighter, or a mother who lived on the East Side. Her gaze trailed from the flaming house to the crest of a hill where only blue sky could be seen. Perhaps she was wondering what was beyond that hill.

None of them could have known that the Keating’s backyard (once so richly manicured, full of luscious green) was now crisscrossed with swathes of charred black from low-flying fireballs as though a child had angrily taken up a black crayon on paper.

None of them could have known that there were four bodies of four very dead Wizards crumpled here and there like lawn ornaments -- Wizards who had discovered that fire magic was not very good for deflecting bullets.

None of them could have known that a fifth body was not wearing a robe and a hat.

Mr. Keating had made his final stand in the garden about a stone’s throw from the house itself. Flowers had withered from the heat, stone from marble statues was blasted away. Andrew’s body lay half submerged in the fountain, as though he had crawled there in a panic once being lit up like a stuck pig. None of them could have known this, which was almost for the better. The smell of burning flesh would have made them sick.

They couldn’t have known, but somehow they did. Dawn, Sheri, Jordan, Sylvia – even Logan. They knew, but didn’t see. They didn’t want to see.

“Jordan,” Sheri spoke up, now, loud enough to be heard over the roaring and hissing of the fire. “We have to go.”

At these words, Logan was jerked from his trance, Sylvia turned her head blearily, and Jordan gave a small little frown.

“Not every house on the block got burned like this,” the woman kept talking. “And from what you said happened at your house, I can already paint a picture for you. The Wizards came here looking for Dawn’s mother, like they did looking for your mother. Whoever these people are, they’re tying up loose ends and the last thing we need is to give them a sitting set of hostages. We have to go.”

Jordan breathed in, breathed out. It seemed such a simple thing to do, but nothing was simple anymore.

“She’s right. They – we’re not safe here,” oh, shit. His voice was shaking; he had just realized that his own house was probably now in a similar state of disrepair. “We could head up to Ramble. Maybe bog down at Logan’s house. I doubt the Wizards know where that is.”

Sylvia unstuck her throat.

“Are you stupid? Ramble is made up of solid trees,” she tugged at her hair, harder. “Trees that .. “ her voice cracked at the memory of the logging truck, “ .. that burn.”

"What do you want to do, then?" Jordan yelled, and he immediately regretted it. He still had Dawn in his arms. He quieted. "Dawn. Look. Sheri has a point. I don't know how safe it is being here right now. But .. w-what do you want us to do?"

"Guys!"

It was Logan's voice croaking, now -- his first words in the last half hour. He had wandered back down to the truck (maybe more eager to leave than the others) and seemed to be charging back up the driveway towards them.

"Mr. Chuckles is gone!"