Page 82 of Sparrow

The worst part is that I don’t know how long we have. I can hear the roar of the flames next door and the hiss that means they’re getting water on it, but fires don’t go down immediately, even with water, and that one was raging by the time we found it.

God, how the fuck did everything go sideways on us? One moment I was making Arden cocoa and the next...

The next I’m running through the house that felt like Heaven an hour ago, trying to figure out whether the girl is even still alive.

I spin through my bedroom, my eyes moving at the speed of light to try to find her, and then rush across the hall to my office.

And here she is.

Fuck’s sake, here she is.

She’s got a t-shirt wrapped around the bottom of her face and her eyes are streaming with tears at the heat. She’s pale as a ghost but I can see her skin blistering in some places, and in her arms...

In her arms, she has a box full of the pictures Mars keeps in his room of his mother, grandmother, and grandfather, plus his family. Some of those pictures are hundreds of years old, and I think Mars might be the only one who has copies. They’ve always been the pride of his life.

He wouldn’t be able to replace them if they burned.

She’s got a sling across her belly and she’s shoving my things into that sling. The tin box full of things I managed to take from my parent’s house. An old photo album. The first motorcycle helmet I ever managed to buy. She’s trying to shove them all into the sling, so focused on her work that she doesn’t realize it’s feels like a turned-on oven in here.

She’s putting her own life at risk to save the things she thinks Mars and I can’t live without.

But she’s never been more wrong in her life. Because those pictures and items mean a lot, yes. Those are our histories. But they’re no longer the things we care about most in this world.

Not since she arrived.

I run forward and grab her, jerk her around so she’s looking at me. She stares up, her eyes wild and unfocused, and I can feel her pulse hammering wildly in the wrist I’m holding.

God, she’s going to faint. I can’t believe she’s still on her feet, and I can’t believe she’s in here like some fucking hero, trying to save our things when it could cost her her own life.

This silly, stupid, insane girl with the heart too big for her body and a diabolical inability to believe in her own value.

I don’t wait.

I lean down, scoop her up–along with her stolen treasure–and turn and run for the door, screaming for Mars that I’ve got Arden and that we have to get out of here before we all die.

Mars

The next morning, I go outside the moment I’m awake to stare at the building that used to be my garage.

I can’t believe this happened. The house wasn’t touched, thank God, and we were able to sleep there last night, though none of us wanted to go to our rooms. We stayed up late talking about what had just happened–and doctoring Arden’s burns–and ended up sleeping in the living room, Arden on the couch and Orion and me in easy chairs.

I still don’t know how to feel about what Arden did. Orion told me when he found her she was gathering his things like a chipmunk collecting nuts, and she already had a box full of photographs she’d rescued from my room.

That crazy girl ran back into a burning building to save the things she thought Orion and I treasured most.

When I asked, she told me she didn’t take anything for herself because she already had exactly what she needed.

She evidently didn’t stop to consider that Orion and I did, too.

This morning, that move feels even more stupid. Because what’s the point in any of it if I don’t have the garage anymore? How am I going to support the house or the club? How are any of my men going to make money?

How long will I even be able to keep the club together without the garage that served as our hub of operations?

For the first time I can remember, I don’t have any ideas for how to fix this. I can’t get my brain to wrap around the fire itself, or how it might have happened, and my thoughts are even less useful when it comes to how to fix it. Insurance will pay for a lot of it, but that will take months, and I don’t have enough saved up to rebuild the whole place myself.

Arden appears at my side and hands me a cup of coffee, then slips her arm around my waist and looks at the garage. It’s not completely gone, but structurally, I’m guessing the remaining wall needs to come down so we can rebuild everything.

When I say as much, she tips her head.