Solar Flare, page 9
“No way.”
Predictable. Finn wasn’t going to do anything more than me and less if he could get away with it.
“Then we’ll go together, all right?”
Finn stared at me, head cocked, jaw outthrust, no doubt planning to argue further, but he finally relented. I pushed open the old barn doors, sun-damaged and swarming with splinters. Maisy trotted after us, eager to poke her nose into every corner and watch the crawlies scuttle out of sight.
The barn was the oldest thing on the ramshackle ranching property and a far cry from the Austin urban bungalow we’d grown up in. But Mom and Dad had fallen in love with the potential of the place. They’d gotten out before the tech crash and wanted to give back by transforming the homestead into a sustainable stronghold for our family that would last generations. And with the main house nearly done and their new business selling Luminescent Lanterns—aquariums by day, bioluminescence-powered lamps at night—up and running, the barn would no doubt be next.
“Watch your step.” The last thing we needed was one of us stepping on an old nail or rusted saw blade on our way to the tool rack. We grabbed the rake and shovel and returned outside.
The compost pile was a three-by-three-foot patch out back just before the partially overrun xeriscaping turned rather abruptly into a wall of trees heralding the boundary to Carson National Forest. After liquidating our life in Texas, Mom was desperate for trees and mountain views. Dad liked the cooler temps and being closer to his brother in Colorado. With a clean slate, they were able to build an off-the-grid home that was a better hedge against climate change than anything in Texas, putting us at far remove from deadly heat waves and water boil advisories and public areas overrun with the displaced and unhoused. In exchange, me and Finn got a forty-minute-long bus ride to school on winding mountain roads, but we could live outside in a way that had been impossible before.
A big change but worth it even if it was sometimes accompanied by the unmistakable stench of decomposing fruit and vegetable scraps. “Get the compost bucket from the house,” I told Finn.
“Why do I have to go?”
“Because I said so.” I’d already had to pull rank, and it wasn’t even noon. “And don’t forget the coffee grounds,” I called after him.
Maisy tracked him to the house but relaxed once he disappeared inside, for once not tripping on his heels. She found a sun-warmed paver and lay down with a contented sigh.
I got to work, steeling myself against the sight of the worms and beetles squirming through the dark, spongy compost. My throat itched by the time I was done. A reaction to one of the plants out here maybe. Distant smoke gave the air an ashy tang. Probably the Apodacas, our neighbors to the east, getting ready for a day of mesquite-fired barbecue.
What was taking Finn so long? We still needed to water the pile from a hose connected to one of the rain barrels.
Movement in the trees caught my eye. A brown-and-tan blur, coyote-shaped, slinking through the underbrush. Each spring, Dad always arranged for the goats of a cousin of a neighbor to come to our property and eat down the growth so our ten acres of mixed conifer and aspen would be manageable come fire season, but it had already grown back, making it hard to pick out anything. Even the forest was eerily quiet, without magpie chatter or trilling songbirds. Only the wind breathed through the trees. Strange.
Coyotes weren’t around much during the day, but they could get rabies… Maybe that explained the odd behavior. Maisy still drowsed nearby, unconcerned. She’d be barking up a fuss if something got close.
“Colton!” Finn’s voice shattered the silence. “Come here!”
What now? I headed inside, Maisy right behind. Finn met me at the door and waved me toward the landline in the kitchen. “Dad wants to talk to you.”
Dad? He usually left the check-ins to Mom. I dug my cellphone out of my pocket, but it didn’t show any missed calls. 5G-coverage was spotty up here on the best of days. I hurried down the hall, the living wall of plants that scrubbed our air clean rustling in my wake. “Hello?” I said once I got ahold of the handle set.
“There you are.” Dad’s voice was uncharacteristically harsh. It took a moment to process the shift from the affable if under-caffeinated man who’d left the house that morning. “The road’s been closed going up to the house. A fire started outside of Trampas, and the wind’s been driving it north toward Peñasco.” Where we lived.
My brain stuttered over the word fire. “What?”
“We’re not…” Dad’s voice cracked or maybe it was just the connection. “We’re not going to get up there in time.”
Panic slammed into me. “But—”
Finn had snatched up his rocketship from the toy hamper full of stuff he hadn’t bothered to touch in weeks. “Zzzzzaaaap.” He buzzed me with it as he careened around the room, nearly taking out the ten-year-old aloe vera plant by the window that was only a few months older than he was.
“Knock it off, Finn.”
He threw the rocketship onto the floor with a growl. The battery compartment flew open, and the electrolyte power pack skittered under the oven.
“Listen,” Dad was saying. “You need to raise the fire shield. Panel’s on the east side of the house. Remember when we installed it?”
A couple years ago right after we moved, I helped Dad and Manuel, one of our neighbors, set it up. “Yeah, but I’ve never—”
“Doesn’t matter. Raise the shield, then get yourselves to the fire lock.”
Finn tugged on my arm, pulling me to the living room. “Colton.”
The phone cord kept me tethered to the doorway. I wriggled out of his grasp. “Not now.”
“But look.”
I squinted out the windows overlooking the valley. Past trees and scrub, the hint of the Sangre de Cristos in the distance. Fall up here was full of rugged beauty as the yellowing gold of the aspen trees fought against the stalwart pines, creating a joy of contrasting color. But the mountain view Mom loved so much was barely distinguishable now thanks to the haze that had descended in the short time we’d been inside. That definitely wasn’t from the neighbor’s firepit.
“Colton, you still with me?”
“Yeah, it’s just…” A lot, all at once.
“You can do this,” Dad said, but all I heard was, “You’ve got to.”
“I understand.” And I did, in theory. But that wasn’t particularly reassuring in the face of a real crisis.
When I hung up, Finn was waiting to pounce. “Well? What did he say?”
“We’ve got to get moving.” All the things you’re supposed to do in an emergency hovered in my mind, just out of reach. The rules Mom and Dad had drilled into me, all the preparations…
“Tell me.”
Ugh. My thoughts scattered at Finn’s voice. He’d picked up on Dad’s anxiety but clearly hadn’t been told anything else, leaving me to do the heavy lifting. “A wildfire’s headed this way.” I pushed Finn toward the hall closet. “Get the emergency kit.”
That would keep him out of my way while I checked over the fire shield. Hopefully.
But I just stood there. The blower on the heat pump hummed in the background, offsetting the morning chill. Water trickled as the irrigation lines built into the living wall fed the perennials and herbs anchored there. The pumps on the salt-water aquariums gurgled from the living room. All perfectly normal. All of it up to me to protect. That got me moving again.
Outside, the smoke was now undeniable, curling over the tops of the trees like mist escaping from the gates of hell. I rounded the corner of the house to where the shield activation panel was mounted to the exterior. The salesman had tried to up-sell Dad and go for the glossy, wi-fi enabled one that could be triggered remotely, but the signal out here was still spotty despite the local investment in rural broadband. While Dad was willing to shell out for the new technology and take advantage of the associated tax rebate, he didn’t dare put all his trust into sensors that theoretically could deploy the shield. The things were one-use only and expensive. We couldn’t afford a false alarm.
Today was different. I threw the switch to open the shield housing. Nothing happened. I bit my lip. There was power to the panel, so what could—
Finn showed up with a duffle bag full of rations, a printout of important phone numbers, a beat-up iPad, and a set of clothes for each family member. For once he’d dropped his posturing, magnifying his wide hazel eyes and pale cheeks. I tucked the straps higher on his shoulder. “Get the ATV ready.”
He shook his head. “Can’t.”
I nearly lost it. “Do I have to do everything around here? Come on.” I marched him over to the barn. The ATV was there, all right, but on blocks. Then I remembered. Dad wanted to replace the fuel lines with an electric conversion kit, and he still wasn’t done.
“See?” Finn said triumphantly.
Resisting the urge to throttle him, I thought for a moment while Maisy paced around, ears pricked forward at all the unusual activity. “Then get your bike and get to the fire lock.” Ever since we moved here, Mom had drilled us on the location of the nearest shelter. It was maybe two miles away. Better for Finn to get a head start. Surely he could handle that much.
“But what about Maisy?”
That stopped me. What about her? “Get her leash. She’ll follow you. She always follows you. This’ll be no different.”
“But—”
“Look, I’ve got to get the shield up no matter what.” I didn’t know how long it would take to get working. If I couldn’t do it… I forced that unhelpful thought away. “Just go. I’ll catch up with you.”
His jaw jutted forward with all too familiar belligerence. We couldn’t afford another fight, not today.
“Finn, for once in your life, just do what I say.” I stared him down, my breathing heavy, my pulse frantic. At his doubtful look, I added, “I’ll be right behind you. Promise.”
He finally got moving, even if he wasn’t happy about it.
I raced back to the fire shield, pushing away the image of Finn’s reproachful look with each step. Under different circumstances, he’d be raring to go somewhere without me watching his every move. He’d be fine. I shook off my guilty conscience by the time I reached the panel.
Holding my breath, I threw the switch again. This time, I could just make out a clunky chugging sound. Something had to be blocking the fire shield housing. I approached the long, narrow metal box running the length of the house. I’d cleared the surface myself earlier, but… There. A rock wedged the doors closed. Could it be that simple? I hardly dared to hope as I tossed it aside.
With that, the housing ground open with a mechanical whine, revealing the fire shield rolled up inside like a giant pool cover. Tension spilled out of me like a deflating balloon, but I couldn’t relax. Not yet.
I hurried back to the control panel and jabbed the big red button to activate the shield. That initialized the snapping release of the metal arms on either end of the housing, deploying the shield overhead like it was a parachute made of spider’s silk. It glimmered wetly as the fabric stiffened over the hard lines of the house, the solar panels that studded the roof, like a shroud. The material was comprised of teeny-tiny tubular channels full of some kind of fire suppression goo that would activate to protect the structure if, God forbid, the blaze got too close.
By the time the shield was in place, I was sweating and my lungs burned. My stomach lurched unhappily. I’d done what Dad told me, but it didn’t feel nearly enough. Not with practically everything we owned trapped inside what looked like a high-tech version of a fumigation tent. But I had to go.
I gave the house one last look before grabbing my bike. Finn’s bike was already gone, Maisy too. Good to know Finn could listen when he put his mind to it.
I hurtled down the road after them. The smoke and ash in the air turned everything sooty. A scene out of a horror movie with evil encroaching on all sides. I wrenched the neck of my t-shirt over my nose and mouth. No wonder the road had been closed if the fire was moving this fast.
The fire shield must have taken longer than I thought to get working since I still hadn’t caught up to Finn and Maisy by the time I reached the fire lock. Half-submerged in the ground, it was a cross between a war bunker and a hobbit house. The shelters had been installed around the southwest years ago to protect people and allow them to return home sooner to assess damage from the fast-moving fires that still raged no matter the strides taken to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. An old truck and a newer EV were parked alongside the road, tarped with fire blankets.
Manuel was posted at the door to the fire lock. “Colton, thank God!”
“You’ve seen my brother? I sent him on ahead.”
“No, but I just got here myself. I’m sure he’s down below. Come on. This fire’s moving fast.” He waved me inside.
I barely had the presence of mind to get off my bike and carry it down the narrow stairwell instead of careening down it headfirst like it was just an extension of the bike trails crisscrossing the area. My pedals scraped against the metal paneling, but the screech barely registered over the roar of blood in my ears.
At the bottom, a man I didn’t recognize took my bike and set it against the wall near two cat carriers, their occupants meowing piteously. Roughly a dozen people had taken refuge in the fire lock. I scanned the room, looking for Finn.
Ms. García, one of the neighbors I did recognize, came over, blocking my view. Her son rode the bus to school with us last year. He’d taken first place in the science fair for developing a new way to treat wastewater in rural areas and gotten a full ride to New Mexico Tech. When he told the other kids to stop harassing us for being from Texas, they’d listened, and some of that same kindness was there in Mrs. García’s dark brown eyes as she looked me over. “We were worried you weren’t going to make it.”
Me too, now that I had a chance to think about it. The shelter’s air was slick, noticeably cooler than above. The door to the fire lock clanged shut, the sound rattling down the stairs and through the rest of the shelter. One of the dogs shied at the sound and crept underneath a folding table.
“Your parents?” she asked.
“They took the truck into town this morning,” I said distractedly. I craned my neck, trying to look around her. “Have you seen Finn?”
Stress had replaced the smoke in the air. I hadn’t allowed myself to feel anything, and now, each detail rushed into me. The nervous looks, the lowered voices…even the pitbull under the table looked miserable. I wondered how Maisy was faring with the other dogs. A group of them were aggressively sniffing each other, but Maisy wasn’t among them.
A strange coldness ran down my spine with the subtlety of a nerve block.
Ms. García’s brows furrowed. “He’s not with you?” She glanced up the stairwell as if expecting him to be bringing up the rear.
No no no. This could not be happening. “He should be here already.” I blinked rapidly, furiously replaying my ride to the fire lock over in my head. There’d been no sign of him at home or on the road. If he had doubled-back, I should have seen him.
Shit. Adrenaline and fear surged through me as I sprinted up the stairs. Manuel was still stationed in front of the door, a hard look on his face. “I need to go back out there. Finn—”
“No way.” Behind Manuel, the ceramic glass porthole flickered with flames. The trees on the other side of the road were now burning. So close. “Not until the fire passes.”
His voice was heavy with the pronouncement, but how could he understand? I’d promised Mom and Dad I’d handle things and I’d already messed up. My stomach heaved. Finn, out there all by himself—Maisy, too—and it was all my fault. I bit my lip and tasted blood. I had to fix this somehow. I was the one who forced him to go on ahead, alone, and—
A trio of concussive pops sounded, much like artillery fire from one of my video games.
“Hear that? Those were the piñons on the ridge,” Manuel said. “Do you have any idea how hot it has to be for them to explode like that? There’s no way anyone’s going out now.”
My ears buzzed. My pulse kicked up. I nodded like I understood, then I shoved him, hard. Out of the way. I wrenched the door handle as flames leapt against the glass like gritty orange water.
Hands grabbed me from behind; someone else had come up the stairs. No. Didn’t they understand? How could I possibly stay at the shelter if Finn was out there somewhere? I swung my fists wildly, connecting with the wall, someone’s side. The air punched out of my chest when I landed on the concrete floor at the base of the stairs.
Concerned faces loomed over me. Someone helped me to sit up. Others reached out, patting my head, my shoulders, as if that could magically make everything better.
But not this.
My breath sawed in my ears. It was too much. Finn, the fire… How could I ever look Mom and Dad in the face again? Bile burned the back of my throat. My chest pounded with shame and fear. Darkness threatened at the edges of my vision. I had to get away.
If anything happened to my brother…
Arms tightened around me. To hold me back? No, a hug. That was what broke me.
Panic spiraled. Everyone turned wavy, talking like they were underwater. Then, for a long time, there was nothing at all.
* * *
Red chile and meat simmered low and slow scented the air. Was Mom making carne adovada again? When we first moved from Texas she’d made it her mission to learn New Mexican cuisine. As if that would keep the locals from resenting us for buying up what they couldn’t afford to hold onto. Luckily most folks didn’t care about all that once they got to know us. Ever since, Mom made tamales and posole over Christmas break, adovada and corn tortillas from scratch for every other occasion. But it wasn’t a holiday.
Then I remembered. My throat closed up with smoke even though the fire lock supposedly had enough air to last us a week. Someone had put me on one of the camp cots in the corner with a tattered knock-off Pendleton blanket draped over me like a shroud. The fire shield. What good was protecting our house if Finn had been stranded out there? My fear, my failure, wriggled around in my head like worms through compost. My promises no better than ash.
Predictable. Finn wasn’t going to do anything more than me and less if he could get away with it.
“Then we’ll go together, all right?”
Finn stared at me, head cocked, jaw outthrust, no doubt planning to argue further, but he finally relented. I pushed open the old barn doors, sun-damaged and swarming with splinters. Maisy trotted after us, eager to poke her nose into every corner and watch the crawlies scuttle out of sight.
The barn was the oldest thing on the ramshackle ranching property and a far cry from the Austin urban bungalow we’d grown up in. But Mom and Dad had fallen in love with the potential of the place. They’d gotten out before the tech crash and wanted to give back by transforming the homestead into a sustainable stronghold for our family that would last generations. And with the main house nearly done and their new business selling Luminescent Lanterns—aquariums by day, bioluminescence-powered lamps at night—up and running, the barn would no doubt be next.
“Watch your step.” The last thing we needed was one of us stepping on an old nail or rusted saw blade on our way to the tool rack. We grabbed the rake and shovel and returned outside.
The compost pile was a three-by-three-foot patch out back just before the partially overrun xeriscaping turned rather abruptly into a wall of trees heralding the boundary to Carson National Forest. After liquidating our life in Texas, Mom was desperate for trees and mountain views. Dad liked the cooler temps and being closer to his brother in Colorado. With a clean slate, they were able to build an off-the-grid home that was a better hedge against climate change than anything in Texas, putting us at far remove from deadly heat waves and water boil advisories and public areas overrun with the displaced and unhoused. In exchange, me and Finn got a forty-minute-long bus ride to school on winding mountain roads, but we could live outside in a way that had been impossible before.
A big change but worth it even if it was sometimes accompanied by the unmistakable stench of decomposing fruit and vegetable scraps. “Get the compost bucket from the house,” I told Finn.
“Why do I have to go?”
“Because I said so.” I’d already had to pull rank, and it wasn’t even noon. “And don’t forget the coffee grounds,” I called after him.
Maisy tracked him to the house but relaxed once he disappeared inside, for once not tripping on his heels. She found a sun-warmed paver and lay down with a contented sigh.
I got to work, steeling myself against the sight of the worms and beetles squirming through the dark, spongy compost. My throat itched by the time I was done. A reaction to one of the plants out here maybe. Distant smoke gave the air an ashy tang. Probably the Apodacas, our neighbors to the east, getting ready for a day of mesquite-fired barbecue.
What was taking Finn so long? We still needed to water the pile from a hose connected to one of the rain barrels.
Movement in the trees caught my eye. A brown-and-tan blur, coyote-shaped, slinking through the underbrush. Each spring, Dad always arranged for the goats of a cousin of a neighbor to come to our property and eat down the growth so our ten acres of mixed conifer and aspen would be manageable come fire season, but it had already grown back, making it hard to pick out anything. Even the forest was eerily quiet, without magpie chatter or trilling songbirds. Only the wind breathed through the trees. Strange.
Coyotes weren’t around much during the day, but they could get rabies… Maybe that explained the odd behavior. Maisy still drowsed nearby, unconcerned. She’d be barking up a fuss if something got close.
“Colton!” Finn’s voice shattered the silence. “Come here!”
What now? I headed inside, Maisy right behind. Finn met me at the door and waved me toward the landline in the kitchen. “Dad wants to talk to you.”
Dad? He usually left the check-ins to Mom. I dug my cellphone out of my pocket, but it didn’t show any missed calls. 5G-coverage was spotty up here on the best of days. I hurried down the hall, the living wall of plants that scrubbed our air clean rustling in my wake. “Hello?” I said once I got ahold of the handle set.
“There you are.” Dad’s voice was uncharacteristically harsh. It took a moment to process the shift from the affable if under-caffeinated man who’d left the house that morning. “The road’s been closed going up to the house. A fire started outside of Trampas, and the wind’s been driving it north toward Peñasco.” Where we lived.
My brain stuttered over the word fire. “What?”
“We’re not…” Dad’s voice cracked or maybe it was just the connection. “We’re not going to get up there in time.”
Panic slammed into me. “But—”
Finn had snatched up his rocketship from the toy hamper full of stuff he hadn’t bothered to touch in weeks. “Zzzzzaaaap.” He buzzed me with it as he careened around the room, nearly taking out the ten-year-old aloe vera plant by the window that was only a few months older than he was.
“Knock it off, Finn.”
He threw the rocketship onto the floor with a growl. The battery compartment flew open, and the electrolyte power pack skittered under the oven.
“Listen,” Dad was saying. “You need to raise the fire shield. Panel’s on the east side of the house. Remember when we installed it?”
A couple years ago right after we moved, I helped Dad and Manuel, one of our neighbors, set it up. “Yeah, but I’ve never—”
“Doesn’t matter. Raise the shield, then get yourselves to the fire lock.”
Finn tugged on my arm, pulling me to the living room. “Colton.”
The phone cord kept me tethered to the doorway. I wriggled out of his grasp. “Not now.”
“But look.”
I squinted out the windows overlooking the valley. Past trees and scrub, the hint of the Sangre de Cristos in the distance. Fall up here was full of rugged beauty as the yellowing gold of the aspen trees fought against the stalwart pines, creating a joy of contrasting color. But the mountain view Mom loved so much was barely distinguishable now thanks to the haze that had descended in the short time we’d been inside. That definitely wasn’t from the neighbor’s firepit.
“Colton, you still with me?”
“Yeah, it’s just…” A lot, all at once.
“You can do this,” Dad said, but all I heard was, “You’ve got to.”
“I understand.” And I did, in theory. But that wasn’t particularly reassuring in the face of a real crisis.
When I hung up, Finn was waiting to pounce. “Well? What did he say?”
“We’ve got to get moving.” All the things you’re supposed to do in an emergency hovered in my mind, just out of reach. The rules Mom and Dad had drilled into me, all the preparations…
“Tell me.”
Ugh. My thoughts scattered at Finn’s voice. He’d picked up on Dad’s anxiety but clearly hadn’t been told anything else, leaving me to do the heavy lifting. “A wildfire’s headed this way.” I pushed Finn toward the hall closet. “Get the emergency kit.”
That would keep him out of my way while I checked over the fire shield. Hopefully.
But I just stood there. The blower on the heat pump hummed in the background, offsetting the morning chill. Water trickled as the irrigation lines built into the living wall fed the perennials and herbs anchored there. The pumps on the salt-water aquariums gurgled from the living room. All perfectly normal. All of it up to me to protect. That got me moving again.
Outside, the smoke was now undeniable, curling over the tops of the trees like mist escaping from the gates of hell. I rounded the corner of the house to where the shield activation panel was mounted to the exterior. The salesman had tried to up-sell Dad and go for the glossy, wi-fi enabled one that could be triggered remotely, but the signal out here was still spotty despite the local investment in rural broadband. While Dad was willing to shell out for the new technology and take advantage of the associated tax rebate, he didn’t dare put all his trust into sensors that theoretically could deploy the shield. The things were one-use only and expensive. We couldn’t afford a false alarm.
Today was different. I threw the switch to open the shield housing. Nothing happened. I bit my lip. There was power to the panel, so what could—
Finn showed up with a duffle bag full of rations, a printout of important phone numbers, a beat-up iPad, and a set of clothes for each family member. For once he’d dropped his posturing, magnifying his wide hazel eyes and pale cheeks. I tucked the straps higher on his shoulder. “Get the ATV ready.”
He shook his head. “Can’t.”
I nearly lost it. “Do I have to do everything around here? Come on.” I marched him over to the barn. The ATV was there, all right, but on blocks. Then I remembered. Dad wanted to replace the fuel lines with an electric conversion kit, and he still wasn’t done.
“See?” Finn said triumphantly.
Resisting the urge to throttle him, I thought for a moment while Maisy paced around, ears pricked forward at all the unusual activity. “Then get your bike and get to the fire lock.” Ever since we moved here, Mom had drilled us on the location of the nearest shelter. It was maybe two miles away. Better for Finn to get a head start. Surely he could handle that much.
“But what about Maisy?”
That stopped me. What about her? “Get her leash. She’ll follow you. She always follows you. This’ll be no different.”
“But—”
“Look, I’ve got to get the shield up no matter what.” I didn’t know how long it would take to get working. If I couldn’t do it… I forced that unhelpful thought away. “Just go. I’ll catch up with you.”
His jaw jutted forward with all too familiar belligerence. We couldn’t afford another fight, not today.
“Finn, for once in your life, just do what I say.” I stared him down, my breathing heavy, my pulse frantic. At his doubtful look, I added, “I’ll be right behind you. Promise.”
He finally got moving, even if he wasn’t happy about it.
I raced back to the fire shield, pushing away the image of Finn’s reproachful look with each step. Under different circumstances, he’d be raring to go somewhere without me watching his every move. He’d be fine. I shook off my guilty conscience by the time I reached the panel.
Holding my breath, I threw the switch again. This time, I could just make out a clunky chugging sound. Something had to be blocking the fire shield housing. I approached the long, narrow metal box running the length of the house. I’d cleared the surface myself earlier, but… There. A rock wedged the doors closed. Could it be that simple? I hardly dared to hope as I tossed it aside.
With that, the housing ground open with a mechanical whine, revealing the fire shield rolled up inside like a giant pool cover. Tension spilled out of me like a deflating balloon, but I couldn’t relax. Not yet.
I hurried back to the control panel and jabbed the big red button to activate the shield. That initialized the snapping release of the metal arms on either end of the housing, deploying the shield overhead like it was a parachute made of spider’s silk. It glimmered wetly as the fabric stiffened over the hard lines of the house, the solar panels that studded the roof, like a shroud. The material was comprised of teeny-tiny tubular channels full of some kind of fire suppression goo that would activate to protect the structure if, God forbid, the blaze got too close.
By the time the shield was in place, I was sweating and my lungs burned. My stomach lurched unhappily. I’d done what Dad told me, but it didn’t feel nearly enough. Not with practically everything we owned trapped inside what looked like a high-tech version of a fumigation tent. But I had to go.
I gave the house one last look before grabbing my bike. Finn’s bike was already gone, Maisy too. Good to know Finn could listen when he put his mind to it.
I hurtled down the road after them. The smoke and ash in the air turned everything sooty. A scene out of a horror movie with evil encroaching on all sides. I wrenched the neck of my t-shirt over my nose and mouth. No wonder the road had been closed if the fire was moving this fast.
The fire shield must have taken longer than I thought to get working since I still hadn’t caught up to Finn and Maisy by the time I reached the fire lock. Half-submerged in the ground, it was a cross between a war bunker and a hobbit house. The shelters had been installed around the southwest years ago to protect people and allow them to return home sooner to assess damage from the fast-moving fires that still raged no matter the strides taken to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. An old truck and a newer EV were parked alongside the road, tarped with fire blankets.
Manuel was posted at the door to the fire lock. “Colton, thank God!”
“You’ve seen my brother? I sent him on ahead.”
“No, but I just got here myself. I’m sure he’s down below. Come on. This fire’s moving fast.” He waved me inside.
I barely had the presence of mind to get off my bike and carry it down the narrow stairwell instead of careening down it headfirst like it was just an extension of the bike trails crisscrossing the area. My pedals scraped against the metal paneling, but the screech barely registered over the roar of blood in my ears.
At the bottom, a man I didn’t recognize took my bike and set it against the wall near two cat carriers, their occupants meowing piteously. Roughly a dozen people had taken refuge in the fire lock. I scanned the room, looking for Finn.
Ms. García, one of the neighbors I did recognize, came over, blocking my view. Her son rode the bus to school with us last year. He’d taken first place in the science fair for developing a new way to treat wastewater in rural areas and gotten a full ride to New Mexico Tech. When he told the other kids to stop harassing us for being from Texas, they’d listened, and some of that same kindness was there in Mrs. García’s dark brown eyes as she looked me over. “We were worried you weren’t going to make it.”
Me too, now that I had a chance to think about it. The shelter’s air was slick, noticeably cooler than above. The door to the fire lock clanged shut, the sound rattling down the stairs and through the rest of the shelter. One of the dogs shied at the sound and crept underneath a folding table.
“Your parents?” she asked.
“They took the truck into town this morning,” I said distractedly. I craned my neck, trying to look around her. “Have you seen Finn?”
Stress had replaced the smoke in the air. I hadn’t allowed myself to feel anything, and now, each detail rushed into me. The nervous looks, the lowered voices…even the pitbull under the table looked miserable. I wondered how Maisy was faring with the other dogs. A group of them were aggressively sniffing each other, but Maisy wasn’t among them.
A strange coldness ran down my spine with the subtlety of a nerve block.
Ms. García’s brows furrowed. “He’s not with you?” She glanced up the stairwell as if expecting him to be bringing up the rear.
No no no. This could not be happening. “He should be here already.” I blinked rapidly, furiously replaying my ride to the fire lock over in my head. There’d been no sign of him at home or on the road. If he had doubled-back, I should have seen him.
Shit. Adrenaline and fear surged through me as I sprinted up the stairs. Manuel was still stationed in front of the door, a hard look on his face. “I need to go back out there. Finn—”
“No way.” Behind Manuel, the ceramic glass porthole flickered with flames. The trees on the other side of the road were now burning. So close. “Not until the fire passes.”
His voice was heavy with the pronouncement, but how could he understand? I’d promised Mom and Dad I’d handle things and I’d already messed up. My stomach heaved. Finn, out there all by himself—Maisy, too—and it was all my fault. I bit my lip and tasted blood. I had to fix this somehow. I was the one who forced him to go on ahead, alone, and—
A trio of concussive pops sounded, much like artillery fire from one of my video games.
“Hear that? Those were the piñons on the ridge,” Manuel said. “Do you have any idea how hot it has to be for them to explode like that? There’s no way anyone’s going out now.”
My ears buzzed. My pulse kicked up. I nodded like I understood, then I shoved him, hard. Out of the way. I wrenched the door handle as flames leapt against the glass like gritty orange water.
Hands grabbed me from behind; someone else had come up the stairs. No. Didn’t they understand? How could I possibly stay at the shelter if Finn was out there somewhere? I swung my fists wildly, connecting with the wall, someone’s side. The air punched out of my chest when I landed on the concrete floor at the base of the stairs.
Concerned faces loomed over me. Someone helped me to sit up. Others reached out, patting my head, my shoulders, as if that could magically make everything better.
But not this.
My breath sawed in my ears. It was too much. Finn, the fire… How could I ever look Mom and Dad in the face again? Bile burned the back of my throat. My chest pounded with shame and fear. Darkness threatened at the edges of my vision. I had to get away.
If anything happened to my brother…
Arms tightened around me. To hold me back? No, a hug. That was what broke me.
Panic spiraled. Everyone turned wavy, talking like they were underwater. Then, for a long time, there was nothing at all.
* * *
Red chile and meat simmered low and slow scented the air. Was Mom making carne adovada again? When we first moved from Texas she’d made it her mission to learn New Mexican cuisine. As if that would keep the locals from resenting us for buying up what they couldn’t afford to hold onto. Luckily most folks didn’t care about all that once they got to know us. Ever since, Mom made tamales and posole over Christmas break, adovada and corn tortillas from scratch for every other occasion. But it wasn’t a holiday.
Then I remembered. My throat closed up with smoke even though the fire lock supposedly had enough air to last us a week. Someone had put me on one of the camp cots in the corner with a tattered knock-off Pendleton blanket draped over me like a shroud. The fire shield. What good was protecting our house if Finn had been stranded out there? My fear, my failure, wriggled around in my head like worms through compost. My promises no better than ash.
