Page 100 of Shrapnel

Sprinting across the road, he dodged past a blinking fire truck. His lungs were screaming. The adrenalin wasn’t enough to push back the pain, but he didn’t care. Once he cleared the truck, he could finally see the apartment building.

Fire licked out of the top windows. Glass shattered from the heat and sparkled in the grass below. Smoke poured into the sky, heavy black stuff that reeked of all the artificial materials the apartments were built with. Jamie knew this smell. He loved this smell. But today he hated it.

Panic rising in his throat he kept running. Two officers tried to stop him, but he ducked under their grasp. A third grabbed him around the middle and he elbowed her in the face, ignoring her cry as she fell back.

“Stop or we’ll tase!”

Jamie ignored them, pushing past their barricade. Three firefighters were manning the heavy hose attached to the fire engine. Water pouring out at 95 gallons a minute punched through the open windows to try and douse the flames. Another window exploded, this one on the second floor. The fire was moving, and the gathered firefighters were chatting furiously, arms waving in their thick bunker gear.

A crowd of onlookers was standing outside the makeshift barricade. In various stages of dress, they looked shocked and grief-stricken. Several were speaking to a reporter, eyes wide in the flickering light.

His heart hammered against his ribs as he looked up at the building. If Owen was inside…he couldn’t think that. Three more steps and he was tackled to the ground. Someone screamed and Jamie realized it was him. He bit down on the closest piece of flesh he could find, and the officer holding him down swore. His knee found a soft abdomen and he pushed the person off, climbing to his feet only to hear the click of a gun.

Spinning he grabbed it, disarming the officer, and ejecting the 9 mm clip. He was about to toss it into the man’s head when he heard a soft voice.

“Jamie?”

The gun dropped from his hand as he turned. Owen was sitting in the back of an ambulance, a heavy blanket over his shoulder and a plastic non-rebreather held against his face. Much like the one Jamie had just been wearing.

Owen’s face was grimy, and his hair was matted with blood. Dropping the oxygen mask, he smiled faintly.

Jamie moved to him, shoving an EMT out of the way so he could get to Owen. His hands were shaking as he reached for him. He stopped halfway, unable to touch him. Unable to believe he was in front of him and whole.

“Are you ok?” Owen asked, leaning over to look at the carnage in Jamie’s wake.

He crumbled.

Coming forward, he wrapped Owen in a hug, burying his nose in his burnt-out strands of hair. He smelled like smoke and blood. And it hurt. It hurt him to smell anything except the chemical tang of energy drinks and fabric softener. Not on his Owen.

“Jamie?” Owen stiffened in his hug, one arm coming around to hug him back. Jamie couldn’t answer. There was something in his throat and he dimly realized it was fear. He had not felt its sting in so long he didn’t remember what it felt like. It greeted him like an old friend, sending a cold chill down his spine and directly into his heart. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. All he could do was cling to Owen and breathe in his life.

“Sir? Sir, you need to come with us. You’ve just assaulted three officers—” a woman’s nasally voice cut through, but Jamie ignored her. He pressed his lips to the top of Owen’s head.

“Are you hurt?”

Owen shook his head against Jamie’s chest. “No, just hit my head. And my arm.”

Jamie backed off, blinking the smoke from his eyes so he could look down at Owen. “Show me.”

Brushing the blanket aside, he saw that Owen’s arm was bound in a sling and pressed up against his chest. “They gave me something for pain. It’s not bad.”

Jamie turned Owen’s head up, checking his pupils. His soft eyes were distracting. Owen was smiling as he looked up at Jamie and it only made the choking fear in his chest worse.

“Sir, you need to come with me.”

“Fuck off,” Owen snapped, tightening his arm around Jamie. “He’s with me.”

“He assaulted three officers!”

“Get good, noobs.”

The woman was about ready to say something when Elijah appeared. He pulled her aside and used his serious face to mitigate the situation.

“What happened?”

Owen shook his head. “They told me it was a bomb. In that package.” He swallowed before dropping his head.

Jamie carefully moved some of Owen’s blood-crusted hair aside to check the laceration. It probably didn’t need stitches, but he would need to be checked out. Head wounds bled a lot, but they were complicated.