Page 80 of Breathe

Chapter 29

Ellen’s wasn’t the only car racing to the industrial park. She had to fight through TV trucks, SUVs, and sedans, all coming to a screeching halt the second they saw the buildings she’d seen on TV. She wanted to throw herself out of her car, too, not caring where it came to a stop, but made herself pull into the nearest parking lot.

The other drivers ran to the crowd still milling about, now far away from any building, surrounded by ambulances and police cars and fire trucks. But Ellen ran the other way: straight to a fire truck which stood in front of the larger warehouse. A man who looked to be a reporter was leaning on it, his notepad in hand, a tall hunting cap on his head that hid his eyes from her.

“Did you see where Kane Fielding is?” she asked him, in no mood for preliminary politeness. “Did he get out?”

The man opened and closed his mouth. So much for a reporter’s way with words. Finally, he said, “Uh huh.”

Ellen sagged against the fire truck, much of the terror that had chased her to the site lifting. “So where is he?” she said.

“Hospital,” he said. He was staring at her, his head raising enough that she could see his whole face. Non-descript, late-middle-aged. Saggy cheeks that suggested he’d recently lost weight.

“Which one? Is he okay?” she said, reaching out to grip his arm.

“He coughed a lot,” he said. “Didn’t burn though.”

Ellen frowned. “What?”

“Uh. Nothing.”

She still had her hand on his arm. The man gave his placid smile and went to pull away.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “I know you.”

He kept pulling, and Ellen hung on, her hand surprisingly strong. He went with a jerking movement instead, and as it lifted, his hand knocked his cap off his head.

Time telescoped as they stared at each other.

“You’re the one on TV,” Henry Tennant said. “Fought off two men.”

Ellen snaked her foot around his ankle and buckled his knee with one step backward. Henry went down without a sound, but when she twisted his arm behind his back, he screamed, and she remembered that he’d damaged his back in that first fire. Funny how little she cared.

“Did you come to watch your handiwork?” she asked, in a voice she didn’t recognize. She’d never been more furious in her life. Blood had rushed to her face, making her bruise throb. “Did you come to see if you’d killed him?”

But Henry just yelled. Ellen had never pretended she was a perfect human being, and today she was all out of fucks for predators. She used her other hand to push his face into the ground, not bothering to keep his face free of the patches of water from the hoses, already freezing in the winter air.