“No,” Brent said. “I’m the only one who knew. Caleb is super-freaking-paranoid. That was his backup plan to get revenge on anyone who might turn on him. I’m probably still alive only because I stalled on making the remote trigger. No way Talbot knows about it.”
“Talbot!” I grabbed my phone and dialed Talbot’s number. It rang six times and then went to voice mail. I left a message of warning and then dialed the number over and over again. “Why aren’t you picking up?!”
Slade swerved the car between two semis and then jutted in front of one of them, cutting it off. Perhaps Caleb had chosen him for his special skills, too. I clutched at my stomach as the car took a hard right turn onto the exit. But we were still a good five minutes from the warehouse. I opened my phone with the intention of sending a couple dozen texts to Talbot—anything to get his attention—when my phone suddenly rang in my hand.
It was Talbot’s number. Relief gripped me so hard I almost missed answering it in time.
“Talbot!” I said into my phone. “Thank heaven—”
“Wow. Twenty missed calls? And you claim not to like me—”
“Shut up,” I said. “I need to tell you, don’t go to the warehouse. You can’t go—”
“We’re already here. I’m keeping watch while the others head inside.”
“No! There’s a bomb. Whatever you do, don’t let them go inside.”
“There’s a what? Sorry, you cut out. I’m in the underground corridor between … Depot and … warehouse. Just a sec.”
I could tell from the distance in his voice that he’d lowered the phone from his ear before he’d finished talking. I shouted as loud as I could so he might still hear me, “No! Listen to me—”
“Go ahead. It’s just Grace,” I heard Talbot’s voice call to someone on his end of the line.
“There’s a—” But I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence. I didn’t need to. Because I heard what had happened: a horrible explosive crescendo mixed with a sound so terrible it could only be a human scream before the line went completely silent.
TWO HORRIFYING MINUTES LATER
I saw the smoke almost immediately, billowing from a few blocks away. Slade hit the gas, and the car practically flew through the few remaining streets. To me, it felt like we couldn’t possibly move any slower.
I don’t know how I did what I did next. I don’t know how I had the presence of mind to call 911, but I did. I wasn’t sure if they understood anything that I’d said—that there had been an explosion at the warehouse next to the old train station on Murphy Street, and there were people inside—but I shouted it out before the phone fell from my shaking fingers.
I was out of the car before Slade had swerved to a stop half a block from the flaming warehouse. Onlookers stood in the street, all staring at what I could barely stand to witness. The building that had once been the warehouse was now mostly a crumbled mass of burning rubble. Debris from the explosion littered the street, and tongues of flame lapped up at the sky from what remained of the building. Even from this far away, the black smoke and ash made me cough.
How could anyone have survived this?
“Dad!” I screamed, scanning every face in the small crowd of spectators. “Talbot!”
Where were they?
“Come on,” I cried to Brent and Slade. “Let’s go, we have to find them.” I started toward the warehouse, expecting the boys to follow, but when I turned back to say something, I realized that neither of them had moved from the car.
I pulled open Slade’s door. “I said come on, and that’s an order.”
“I can’t,” Slade said. He gripped the steering wheel like he was afraid I was going to try to physically pull him out of the car—and he was holding on for dear life. He stared at the flames, as if entranced by their deadly dance.