Carrie Vaughn - Voices of Dragons

Back to the reporter: “Chief Perez would not give details, but he said there have been several serious injuries, and people have been transported to area hospitals. Once again, I’m in downtown Silver River, where several government administration offices are burning…”

Her heart nearly gave out. At least it was night. The buildings would have been empty. Her parents wouldn’t have been working—except, because of the trouble on the border, they hadn’t stopped working.

She retrieved her cell phone from her bedroom and dialed her mother. The call rolled to voice mail.

“Crap,” she muttered. Everyone in town who had any vaguely official position was probably either at the scene or on the phone. She’d have to keep watching the news and get the one-sided filtered version of what was happening. Or not.

She changed quickly, pulling on jeans, a sweatshirt, and her hiking boots. She called her mother again, then her father. Neither was picking up, which shouldn’t have surprised her. No doubt they were way too busy to talk to her. And she knew better than to head down there and get in the way.

But she wouldn’t get close enough to get in the way. Just close enough to flag down someone who could tell her what was going on. May as well—she certainly wasn’t going to get any more sleep tonight, and she didn’t want to wait until morning to get more news. Mom and Dad may yell at her for leaving the house, but that was all they could do. She’d take it as a fair trade for finding out what was happening. She got in her Jeep and set off.

An orange glow sat over the entire town, flames reflected into the night sky, billowing and flickering. Kay had seen wildfires in the distance that looked and sounded like this, a constant crackling of wood. The air smelled of heavy soot and ash. But this wasn’t a distant wildfire; this was right in the middle of Silver River. She had to squint into the light.

Six blocks away, the streets were barricaded, police cars blocking access. The flashing blue-and-red lights hurt her eyes. She felt only half awake, muzzy-headed, as if maybe she were still in bed dreaming. Kay pulled over and left the car, moving closer to the disaster on foot. She wasn’t the only one. A crowd had gathered outside the police barricade, people huddled together, murmuring questions: What was going on?

“Kay! Hold up!” someone called out to stop her. She recognized the voice—one of her father’s deputies, at the open door of his car across the street. It shook her awake. Someone to answer questions, that was all she wanted. Deputy Kalbach could answer her questions.

“What’s going on? What’s burning? I can’t get ahold of my folks. Have you seen them? Are they around anywhere? Where’s my dad?” She hadn’t thought she’d have sounded so panicked. This must have been what it felt like to be in an earthquake, when all the phone lines went down and you didn’t know if anyone was alive or dead.

When he crossed over to her and took hold of her arm, she saw it as a bad sign. There was too much tension in the grip. She didn’t think her stomach could drop any farther.

He touched the radio at his shoulder. “Yeah, I got Kay Wyatt here. What should I do?” She couldn’t make out the reply that scratched back at him, but he didn’t look happy about it. “Okay, got it.” He turned off the receiver and pulled her toward the car. “Come on.”

She dug in her heels. “Wait a minute, where are we going? What’s happening?”

“Your folks are at the hospital. I’m taking you there now.”

At that, her mind stopped working. She let the deputy push her into the passenger seat of his patrol car. They drove, lights flashing and siren blaring. People got out of the way instantly. It was eerie.

“What happened?” she finally managed to ask, when her mouth started working again. “Are they hurt?”

“It’s your dad,” he said, his face a grim mask. “He got to the scene first. The night dispatcher was on duty, and he went in to make sure she got out. It was pretty bad.”

Kay leaned her head on her hand and tried not to imagine what “pretty bad” meant. Wait ’til you see before you start crying.

“Alice—your mom—rode in the ambulance with them.”

“Why didn’t anyone call me?” Her voice was hoarse and unreliable.

“This happened twenty minutes ago! We’ve barely been able to think!” His expression twisted, and Kay realized with a shock that he was holding back tears, too. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I don’t mean to yell. It’s just we’re all shaken.”

Her father’s deputies were honorary uncles and aunts to her. They looked after her. They were anchors. Seeing Deputy Kalbach like this—face twisted, shoulders slouching—Kay almost burst into tears right there.

Instead, she hugged herself and stared ahead, trying to be numb.

The hospital wasn’t in town, but a few miles out on the highway. It wasn’t big, just an emergency room and a few clinics to serve the outlying areas. For anything serious, people went to Great Falls.

She tried to reassure herself that if this were serious, they’d have airlifted him to Great Falls. So he had to be okay.

With the police siren heralding them, Kalbach brought them right to the emergency room doors. Kay rushed inside before the deputy had climbed out of the car.

The place was crowded. There’d obviously been more people injured than her father. A couple of men wearing blackened firefighter’s coats lay on beds sucking oxygen through masks. Walking wounded were being led to backrooms by orderlies. A reporter with a cameraman was being herded out none too politely. Panicked, Kay looked around for a familiar figure on a bed, for her mother standing watch, and couldn’t find them.

The deputy pushed past her and tapped a white-jacketed nurse on the shoulder. “Sheriff Wyatt, where is he?”

The woman pointed to a corridor. Kay rushed past them both.

Two steps into the hallway, she stopped, froze. Her mother sat in a plastic chair, part of a row of them lining the wall. Her elbows rested on her knees; her hands covered her face.

A doctor, a woman in a white coat, closed the door of a room a few paces down. She kneeled by Kay’s mother, touched her shoulder, and said a few words. Mom didn’t respond. When the doctor stood to return to the emergency room, she spotted Kay, and her lips pressed in a line.

Kay wanted the world to stop right there, she wanted to run away, and she wanted not to have to live the next five minutes of her life. The universe could end and she wouldn’t care, as long as it prevented the next five minutes.

The doctor approached her. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Kay Wyatt. My dad—”

The doctor looked back at Mom, seemed to debate with herself. Then she lowered her head. Her smile was probably meant to be comforting, sympathetic. But it was just sad.

“I’m very sorry. We did everything we could.”

Just make everything stop , Kay begged. She was still asleep. Her brain couldn’t hear the words.

The doctor touched her arm, then walked away. Kay managed to sit next to her mother, though her limbs tingled when she moved. Like her body wasn’t hers, or she was leaving it. Still, her mother didn’t react.

Kay eyed the door that the doctor had closed. A door to a room where a body lay on a bed. She said, “Can I see him?”

Her mother looked up at that. Her face was red; her eyes were red, swollen. Her hair was mussed. A streak of black soot smudged her cheek, and she smelled like smoke. She didn’t look at all like Mom. She only stared at Kay, expressionless.

Kay started again, pointing at the door. “Can I—”

“Oh, baby, you don’t want to see him, not like that, you don’t—” She broke down, folding against Kay like her bones had disappeared, pressing her face to her shoulder. Numb, startled, Kay held her while she cried wrenching sobs.