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Gray said something to him, but my gaze remained fixed on the fire. The battle against it had been joined, but a nagging feeling told me it wouldn’t be easy to control.
My feeling was confirmed when one of the firefighters approached us. He was carrying something in his hands but walked past us toward Sergeant Williams.
Wilder cursed. Apparently, he had caught a glimpse of it. Now he held my attention as he leaned closer to Gray.
"This was arson. I know these patterns. They're soaked with accelerants and placed at strategic points."
Which didn't require much ingenuity for cabins made primarily of wood and located in the middle of the forest.
"Of course, we can wait to see what Sergeant Williams says after the investigation, but if you ask me…"
That's why not just one cabin was burning.
By now, I couldn't even feel remorse. A fire was tragic when it happened without cause.
But if someone had set it deliberately, sadness wasn't the right emotion. Instead, anger spread through my stomach.
Who would want to destroy such an idyllic place? It was a positive spot. A little paradise. Important for the town. A project into which almost a decade of Gray's hard work had flowed.
To my anger were added tears of helplessness as everything was about to go up in flames.
Irreversibly.
I had lost all sense of time as one of the paramedics approached me. I couldn't tell if it had been seconds, minutes, or even hours since I had been standing close to Gray, just staring into the inferno. In the meantime, a paramedic had also examined Manon’s condition.
"Are you related to the young lady?"
He sounded so calm and matter-of-fact. The complete opposite of what was going on inside me. My eyes shifted to Gray—how must he be feeling?
I nodded alertly. If I denied it and told him I was just her best friend, he wouldn't give me any information.
"Is she all right?"
"I'd say she's doing okay, all things considered. She inhaled a lot of smoke and suffered some minor burns. It was really fortunate that the firefighter was able to get her out."
"Will you tell that to his supervisor as well?"
He looked at me, puzzled.
"I'm sorry. What happens to Manon now?"
"We need to take her to the hospital for monitoring. Unfortunately, there isn't one nearby, and the next is almost seventy kilometers away. We've requested helicopter transport for the other injured person. They will take her along."
"Declan?"
This time, his look was questioning. Of course he didn't know the names. I gestured toward him, and he shook his head.
"That young man over there was just as lucky as your relative. It's about the other man."
"Do you know why Declan didn't wake up?" I asked quickly before the paramedic could turn away and get back to his job.
"He's sleeping."
"What?"
"He's not unconscious. He's asleep—which probably suggests he took some pills. Otherwise, he would have definitely woken up… even now, during treatment." This fact seemed to bother the paramedic less than it did me.
Declan had just come of age, worked a physically demanding job outdoors, and still had trouble sleeping at night?
