Nothing Left to Burn (7 page)

“Oh, it’s my business when it clouds your judgment.”

“My judgment is fine, Gage. Back off. I promised the chief I’d help Logan learn the material, not have his babies.”

He rolled his eyes. “Be serious. Whatever’s between Reece and John needs to stay between
them
.”

“Yeah. Okay, got it.” I shoved out of the car and ignored the good night he called out. On my way up the walk to the front door, I suddenly froze.

Mrs. Beckett had planted flowers all along the front yard. Spring colors, lots of blue, white, purple, and pink, sweet smells filling up my nose. I didn’t know much about flowers. There was only one I recognized.

“Mandy, sweetie, hand me that trowel,” Mom had said, and I skipped over to her tools, grabbed the thing with the long curved blade.

“Good girl. Now it’s time to dig. See, flowers like to play in the dirt.”

“Me too!”

Mom touched a finger to my nose and laughed. “I know, and so does the bathtub. Let’s make a nice deep hole…that’s it…perfect. Now I’ll put the flower in, and you scoop some dirt all around it so it stands up.” I’d scooped and patted dirt all around the white flower with its yellow face. Mom grabbed a watering can and gave it a nice shower. We worked together, planting a long row of daisies, and then Mom said it was time to go in.

“But what about this one?”

Mom smiled and handed the last daisy to me. “That’s for you. You can put it in a little vase next to your bed.”

I did. Two days later, it was dead.

I turned and walked into the Becketts’ house. I’d been with the Becketts for a couple of years now—a record. Mrs. Beckett stayed home, and Mr. Beckett was a science teacher at my high school. I liked them both very much, and I liked Larry, another child they fostered. He was a year behind me in school. I hoped I’d get to stay here until I aged out of the system, but there were never any guarantees.

“Amanda. What’s up?” Larry greeted me from the den, surrounded by scraps of paper and poster board.

“Hey,” I replied. “How’s it going?”

“I finished my project. Want to see?”

“Um, yeah, sure.” We’d eaten a whole bushel of apples over the last month because Larry was trying to determine what makes apples turn brown, which had something to do with acids and bases, according to Mr. Beckett. Larry had treated apple slices with a bunch of different things like lemon juice to see if the rate of browning slowed down. “Very cool, Larry.”

“Yeah. Mr. Beckett helped.” He smoothed out a glue bubble under one of his photos. “So how did training go today?”

“Okay. We got a new cadet.”

“Sweet!”

“Amanda? That you?”

“Hi, Mr. Beckett.”

My foster father stood in the doorway, reading glasses perched on top of his head, which meant he was either planning next week’s lessons or grading lab reports.“How was your class today?”

“Good. We got a new instructor.”

Mr. Beckett winced. “Already? Who’d Chief Duffy pick?”

“John Logan.”

“Hey, did you see my project, Mr. Beckett? It’s done.”

Mr. Beckett turned to squint at Larry’s poster board and examined the research. “Nicely done, Larry. I see you took my advice and used the milk of magnesia solution too. Good man.”

Ugh. I hoped we didn’t eat those slices.

“Hey, Amanda.” Mrs. Beckett popped her head into the room, her dark hair pulled back in a messy bun. “Dinner in five, everybody. Get cleaned up.”

Larry dropped to the floor and began picking up scraps of paper.

“I’ll give you a hand.” I crouched, collected the marker pens, and replaced them in their case. “It looks really great, Larry. Hope you win.”

Larry shot me a hopeful grin and flipped hair out of his eyes. “You think it’s good enough?”

“Yeah. I really do.”

He put the board carefully on a side table, scooped the trash into the bin, and headed to the kitchen.

We sat around the round oak table tucked into the corner, pretending we were a real family. The Becketts had no kids of their own. Couldn’t. So they
rented
. That’s how I thought of it. Except instead of
paying
rent, they
got
paid—some for me, some for Larry. We never called them Mom and Dad or even by their first names. It was all very polite, like being invited over to somebody’s house, except you didn’t leave for a while.

We dug into Mrs. Beckett’s meatloaf, trading stories about our days. It wasn’t a real family, but I was warm, I had food to eat and clothes to wear and people who wanted to hear what I had to say. People who planted flowers in the yard.

“Did that boy give you any more trouble?” Mr. Beckett asked, and Mrs. Beckett’s eyebrows shot up. I quickly shook my head.

“No, not at all.”

“Good.”

Mrs. Beckett cleared her throat. “So, Amanda. We’ve had a call from your social worker. Your mother’s requested a visit.”

The fork froze halfway to my mouth. “No.”

“Now, Amanda,” Mr. Beckett began, using his best sitcom-dad voice.

“No.”

“Amanda.” The fake voice was gone. In its place was Rental Dad, the voice that reminded me that even without breaking a rule, I could be shipped back at any time. I shut my eyes, but it didn’t help. I could see Mom’s face the night she was arrested. All she cared about was
him
. She never gave me a thought, and now she suddenly wanted to see me?

I would not let that happen.

Chapter 7

Reece

I should have done this years ago. If I had, would it have helped? I don’t know, and for that, I’m sorry.

“You should have been there, Alex. He was actually speechless.” I wadded up the cellophane wrapper around my sandwich and tossed it to my tray.

Alex looked up from his tablet and smiled. “Told you. Here.” He slid the tablet across the table. “Your move.”

I move a pawn ahead two spaces and gave him back the tablet. “We learned how to put on all the clothes. They’re called—”

“Turnout gear. I know.”

Of course he did. I rolled my eyes. “Sorry.” It was my turn again, so I moved a knight. “He didn’t teach much, just kind of demonstrated, but I was able to pick it up.”

“Go to YouTube, watch videos. And then read your text.”

“Done. I watched a dozen videos last night when I got home and—”

A throat cleared. I looked up and found Amanda Jamison standing next to me. My throat closed up. Under the table, Alex nudged my foot, and I jerked. “Oh, um, hey.”

“Hey.” She jerked her chin at me, then turned to Alex. “Hi, Alex.”

Wait, what?
“You know each other?”

She shrugged. “Same English class.”

Oh.

Amanda turned back to me. “So, listen, Logan. The squad sits over there.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder where Gage, Max, Bear, and Kevin sat. Bear waved. I waved back, wondering what the hell she expected me to do with this information.

Her hair was down today, long and smooth, tucked behind her ears. She wore no earrings. Every girl in the school had pierced ears—some wore multiple rings. She wore a pair of well-worn jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie.

So why did my heart speed up?

“Logan?”

“Uh, sorry. What?”

“I said we have a lot of work to do to get you caught up.”

“We?”

“All of us. The whole squad’s gonna help you. Last night…well, it was kind of a train wreck.”

“Caught that, huh?”

Her lip twitched, but she didn’t smile. I shifted and looked away.

“Look, we’re not doing this for you,” she snapped. “Squad’s important. Whatever’s going on between you and your dad stays home. And that means you need to step up. You have a lot to learn in a short time. Meet me after school at the track.”

“After—Alex and I were—”

“After school. Alex can come too if he wants,” she called out over her shoulder as she strode back to the squad table.

“Okay, then.” Alex angled his head. “I guess I won’t see you later.” He gathered his trash and his books and stood up.

“Oh, hey, I’m sorry about this.”

“No, no, it’s okay. This is important. You need to go.”

I stood too. “Thanks, man. Really.”

Alex left through the side door. I made my way to the squad table.

“Logan! Nice of you to join us.”

Join them? I must have missed that invitation. “So what are we doing after school?”

“Working out.”

Bear groaned, and I just blinked at Gage. “Sorry, what?”

“Logan, firefighting is physical, and no offense, but you look like a good gust of wind might knock you down, so we’re gonna help you get ripped.”

“Guys, I can handle it.”

Amanda snorted. “We’ll see.”

The bell rang, and there was no time to argue.

The afternoon’s classes went by way too fast, and by 2:45, I was behind the school, at the football field, where the lacrosse team was already practicing. A shrill whistle cut the air, and I found Max standing at the top of the bleachers. Gage and Kevin were there too.

But not Amanda.

I dropped my bag on one of the benches and jogged up the aisle to meet the guys at the top. Max and Gage exchanged a look.

“Not bad, Peanut,” Max said, scanning me up and down.

I froze in place. “Don’t call me that.”

“Cool it, Max.” Gage stepped in front of Max and put his hands on his hips. Max was incredibly well-built. It was steroids, I was sure of it. But then again, Gage was kind of broad too. “How much do you think bunker gear weighs?” he asked.

I went through the list—boots, pants, coat, helmet, tank. “About fifty pounds.”

“You’re right. Now, add in the weight of tools like a hose or a Halligan bar and an ax, and we’re talking about seventy-five pounds, give or take. You need to be able to carry that much weight without panting, or you’ll suck down an oxygen tank before you make it to the fire.”

Made sense. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”

“Meet us out here every day. We’re gonna run the bleachers, and every day, you’re gonna add more weight until you can do it with seventy-five pounds.”

Jesus H. Kristofferson, they were going to kill me.

Max stood at the top of the aisle. “Ready?”

Not even a little bit. I followed behind him at an easy jog, down the steps and back up. On the second lap, I noticed Gage wasn’t running. And where was the rest of the squad? Shouldn’t they all be conditioning?

“Hold up.” Gage put up a hand to stop us on the third circuit. “How do your lungs feel, Reece?”

“Okay…I guess.”

“Tell me your address.”

“One twen…twenty-two…Heatherwood Lane.” I was gasping for air, pressure building around my lungs.

“You’re breathing too deeply. You need to control that,” Amanda said. I whipped around and found her on the bleachers behind me. “Breathe in. Hold it for three…two…one. Let go.”

I followed her instructions and felt the pressure in my chest fade.

“Again,” she ordered.

I jogged down the steps, concentrating on controlling my breathing as I did. I did two more circuits, and my thighs were on fire.

“How many?” she asked Gage.

“Six.”

“Okay, that’s good for today. Tomorrow, add five pounds. Rope next.”

Oh God. I thought
good
for
today
meant done for the day. When she passed me on the steps and waved a hand, indicating I should follow her, I lost all hope. Amanda led me around the bleachers to a grassy section underneath them and picked up the end of a thick coil of rope tied to a cinder block.

“Take this. Run relay-style from here to there.” She pointed to the gate that led to the field. “Turn around, repeat, but reverse arms.”

I took the rope and took a step.

“No. Stop.” She adjusted the rope so that the length of it—and its weight—was over my shoulder. “Lean down. Grip it tight. Now go.”

I ran, tugging the weighted rope behind me. When I reached the gate, I turned, switched shoulders, and ran back.

“Control your breathing.”

Oh Christ. I did it again, holding my breath for a few seconds before letting it out. It definitely helped. But it was a lot to think about.

“Okay, stop.”

With pleasure. I dropped the rope, leaned over my knees, and wished desperately for a bottle of water to materialize in my hand, but the only things there were rope burns. “What next?” I managed to croak out.

Amanda tucked her hair behind her ears. I didn’t know why, but it made my fingers itch. She didn’t answer me. Instead, she just angled her head and looked me up and down the way Gage had a little while ago. “You got any weights at home?”

I thought about Matt’s stuff. He had gym equipment in the basement. A bench and a set of barbells. I think there were even some dumbbells still in his room. “Yeah. Why?”

“Tomorrow, get up early and start lifting. You’ve got broad shoulders, but you need to build the muscles here and here,” she said with a hand to my back and my arms. “Do a set of ten with light weight. Increase the reps the next day. Next week, go heavier. Got it?”

“Sure. What else?”

“Run the bleachers every day. Weights in the morning, running in the afternoon. Now, head over to the library. Bear’s waiting for you.”

I held back the groan and just nodded. I went back inside the gate and grabbed my bag from the low bleacher, but when I got back outside, Amanda was gone.

***

The next day, I woke up an hour early and did presses, rows, and curls with Matt’s barbells. In the afternoon, I ran the bleachers.

I couldn’t raise my hand without coming dangerously close to sobbing.

“You have to give your muscles time to heal,” Alex reminded me on Friday as we walked out of the school’s main entrance.

I rolled my eyes. My drill sergeants didn’t believe in time off. I’d already gotten texts from Max about doing more step runs after school and from Bear about reading another topic in the textbook and even from Ty about showing me what
firefighter’s irons
were. “Yeah, well, time is apparently something I don’t have a lot of. Squad has this field trip coming up. Once a month, they go out to Yaphank where there’s a huge training facility, and they physically practice everything they’ve been studying in the classroom.”