Through The Fire And The Flames, Part II

Participants:

dumortier_icon.gif geneva_icon.gif hailey_icon.gif noah_icon.gif tibby_icon.gif

Scene Title Through The Fire And The Flames, Part II
Synopsis It takes a unique combination of abilities from good samaritans and first responders to tagteam the rescue children trapped in a burning dormitory at Meredith Gordon Memorial Academy.
Date May 31, 2021

“We’re five minutes away!”

The Safe Zone whips by out the passenger windows of a Yamagato Altum. Beyond the tinted windows, the city skyline is coal black against an orange haze. Smoke hangs thick in the air as it has for the last month, but the plume of choking black rising up in the near distance is new. Sirens blare across the city and helicopters circle overhead in the smoke, trying to assess the damage of the inferno that has finally breached the city’s perimeter.

«NYPD and FDNY are requesting any assistance.»

Crackles the voice of a SESA dispatcher over the onboard speakers.

«We think there might be SCOUT on the scene, but the entire campus is compromised.»

Up ahead, a block of red brick apartment buildings come into view, framed by crowds of children and teenagers on the sidewalks looking up at roaring flames. Many of the onlookers are barefoot and in pajamas, cradling one-another or their worldly possessions they ran out the door with.

“I have Dumortier and Stevenson with me,” the driver says as he blows through a red light, swerving around oncoming traffic, hand-over-hand on the steering wheel. “We’ll update when we can!”


Meredith Gordon Memorial Academy
Phoenix Heights

May 31st
9:21 pm


There is a run-down tenement building across from the Meredith Gordon Memorial Academy, a four-story thing over a small bodega. It’s from this vantage point that Tibby Naidu watches the lives of hundreds of children go up in flames. The sound of sirens started just a handful of minutes ago, rousing her from an unplanned nap on her dilapidated couch. Now, from her apartment window, she can see the crowds of students gathered in fear. She can also see the sleek lines of a Yamagato Altum pulling up to the curb.

The SESA vehicle pulls up outside of Building 6 on the corner of Blake and Rockway. Noah Bennet pops out of the driver’s seat and onto the street, looking up at the flames that roar out of the third and fourth floor windows of the dormitory. “Jesus,” he says under his breath, looking wide-eyed at the fire. He casts a look up and down the street and there is no sign of any emergency response from here; no police, no fire department.

Fires burn across the city, sirens blare in the night, and for those on the scene of this disaster: they may be the only hope.

The doors to the building are kicked wide open

WHAM

and a wet blanket covering a few sets of legs come staggering out. Hailey Gerken pulls the sopping cloth away from herself and the kids and leads them across the street, safely away from the burning building. "Don't move, an ambulance will be here,” she orders them, between her own fits of coughing. “Don't go anywhere, you might be really hurt from all the smoke."

There are no police cars, because Hailey didn't arrive with one. After jumping off her horse, she set him loose to run back to the precinct rather than risk him to flames. From her experience, horses didn't have the best track record of staying calm around fires and Dayton was no exception. He did, however, know his way back to his stable.

She hacks, clearing her lungs as best she can. Then she wraps the blanket back around her and heads back toward the building.

"—equesting assist and I don't see a damn light," Rene Dumortier is half muffled by the car and ambient sound, but his bristling is visible and needs no cue as he slips out of the back seat. Hair pulled back, it shines platinum in the roar of firelight and his eyes reflect embers as he moves to survey the length of the street and the illuminated faces gathered along it. "How many other fires did they call, Bennet?" This was supposed to be the Place. And here they are.

As it appears that the young woman in the blanket knows what she's doing, Dumortier doesn't stop her; he does, however, start at a clip around the side of the dormitory to locate a fire escape; barring that, a large enough window.

"Don't matter. We’re here to deal with this one."

For the first time in far longer than she can remember, Geneva Stevenson is completely in her element. As she exits the vehicle behind Dumortier, the agent's blonde hair falls down her back in its long, loose stream of a ponytail, and self-assurance gleams hotly in her eyes alongside the ambient firelight.

Unlike the firefighters whom she can only presume are also on their way, she wears no protective environmental gear at all, for she needs none— neither mask nor coat nor gloves. Instead, the young woman has only the pinprick shine of the badge on her lapel to proclaim her purpose, as well as the lightly bulky outline of the specialized equipment she carries on her.

One of these items is a handheld infrared camera for registering trapped victims, which she first clicks on to validate its working condition. This confirmed, she uses it to perform a tiny exploratory sweep of the area immediately in front of Dumortier.

"Hey H, be careful," Stevenson urges while waiting for Dumortier to find a way in for them, glancing that direction with a sidelong flicker of concern from behind her camera when she sees her friend coughing from the smoke.

Of all the things that could possibly go wrong in this scenario (and there are many), she would rather treating their own people for smoke inhalation not be among them.

As the SESA agents move up on the building, Bennet affords Dumortier a side-long look. “Twelve, last I heard.” Then he turns an overwhelmed eye to the flames leaping out of the building’s windows. “Twelve fires like this.”

More than ever, he wishes Claire was here. This is precisely her kind of heroism.

Pulling his visored respirator mask down over his head, Bennet spots Hailey heading back into the building. He raises a hand, about to shout something, but then sees the gathering of young dormitory residents on the sidewalk staring up at their residence burning to the ground. Noah nods at Geneva, then toward Hailey’s retreating silhouette. “Stevenson, find out if she needs help.”

Then, turning to Dumortier, Noah asks, “How good are you with kids?”

Meanwhile, inside the ground floor of the dormitory, Hailey finds herself crouching low to stay under the carpet of black smoke rolling along the ceiling. Her eyes sting from the heat and the smoke, her skin prickles from the cold beads of water rolling down her back from the drenched blanket. There’s no immediate fires on the ground floor that she can see, but the smoke is overwhelming and caustic, stinking of burning plastic and paint. Distant shouting echoes from the upper floors where even younger residents and their live-in families are trapped.

Across the street and up a few floors, however, the situation is different:

Fucking bullshit.

Tibby continues to stare down at the people milling about and the fire and smoke ahead, wrinkling her nose and rolling her eyes. She had just moved in and settled her stuff. At that the South African's head whips around to survey the small amount she had actually gathered in this space.

Not much but there was money, guns and tech. The duffle would have to do. Hurriedly Tibby throws her things into the bag and swears as she knocks her elbow into a table. "Adze! Oya-" The names slip off of her tongue without much thought, makes sense seeing as she's running almost fully on autopilot but the misstep makes her pause. She's sweating from other things besides the gaining heat. That sad expression only stays on for so long before she glares and throws some hard drives into the black bag.

No time.

Back down on the street, using a bit of the wet blanket, Hailey covers her nose and mouth to filter most of the smoke. Tears blur her vision, not just because of the smoke but because she can still hear shrieks of terror and screams for help. Right now is not the time to turtle and cry.

Holding her breath, she squints her eyes and begins taking the steps two by two, just to reach the upper floors faster. She goes as high up as she can before shortness of breath and heat of fire catches up with her. She forgot how many steps and how many turns— things that might be important later on but that's a future Hailey problem.

Right now, she's focusing on getting closer to the shouting.

And wishing she had stopped long enough to bring Gene with her.

"Depends on the kid." Noah gets a lukewarm answer to this, but at least it's honest. Dumortier pulls his gaze from scanning the walls to scanning the grounds, catching sight of Hailey as she ducks back inside. He pulls on his own mask, a strangely familiar and stifling sensation that makes him just a touch more anxious as the heat rolls into him.

Cool it. There aren't scorpions and tigers here. Just people. Blue eyes turn up to Bennet, and again to the grounds to seek out the most pliable landscaping. "You want me to get up there, or make a crash pad? The emergency stairs have windows."

Whatever Dumortier chooses, he is left to do it alone: even as Noah's directive reaches her ears, Geneva can see that Hailey is the better candidate for her direct assistance right now.

And so the junior agent vanishes from her partner's side to begin the journey up into the flames from the other side, hauling her gear and her fears along behind her like twin sacks of potatoes.

Once she reaches the first, smoky stairwell inside the tenement building, she takes the rest of the route at a sprint; Hailey is still above her, but Gene's pounding footsteps rapidly close on what distance remains. Her infrared camera is still braced at the ready, the strap looped securely about her wrist— but her other hand has gone towards the swinging set of irons at her waist.

From these, Gene pulls out an eight-pound flathead ax. Any obstacles between her and the rescuees had better fucking get ready.

The situation inside the building is rapidly getting worse. Half a flight of stairs ahead of Geneva, Hailey is trying to make it to the sounds of panicked shouting she’d heard when she grabbed the last group of kids. She knows there’s a brother and sister on the third floor where the fire is starting to tear through dormitories. The door to that floor has already been forced open from her last run, so when Hailey rushes through with the blanket over her head, she has a mental image of what should be going on in there. But the fire has become so much worse.

The walls are engulfed with flames, lapping up and over the ceiling. A thick carpet of smoke rolls along the roof and out toward the door at her back. Hailey can hear cries coming from the hallway to her right, shouts for help and the sound of splintering wood. But she can also hear footsteps thundering at her back.

Geneva reaches the second floor just in time to see Hailey recoiling from the fire on the walls of the hallway, trying to find a means to get through to the sound of a pair of voices raised in frightful cries for help.

Meanwhile, down on the street, Noah looks overwhelmed. “We’ve got a lot of scared kids out here,” he says to Dumortier, “but I’m open to suggestions if you have an idea how to tackle this.” He adds with a gesture to the fire. “Stevenson can handle the heat, but the kids still trapped in there…” he breathes in deeply, trying to put aside the ghost of parental concern, to draw back from the well of passive inspiration he had as an agent. But the cries echoing from the building of those still trapped make it hard.

Across the street, in the apartment overlooking the inferno, Tibby Naidu has a choice to make.

You don't help your neighbors, what sort of Naidu are you then?

"Not one at all." Echoing her bibi's words with a frustrated sound erupting from the back of her throat. Her bag was packed and sitting by the door but she didn't make a move for it. Someone like Tibby didn't leave all of their things in one place but that wasn't even the point for the young woman at the moment.

A gift from on high that is wasted, is no gift at all. Use your talents for the weak. Lend your strength to the many.

"Sod off," She swears and looks out of the window to the fire raging below. Emerald green eyes widen a touch as she scans the building and prepares to climb out onto the fire escape.

From her field of view, Tibby sees reticles forming over the building’s entrances and exits, cerebrally-linked software cross-references it with her previous memories of having walked past the building, composites a partially-complete exterior map from cognitive references, and identifies routes into the structure.

With eye-movement gestures, Tibby is able to select the routes, even as she swings a leg out her window and touches down on the fire escape. She’s able to rotate the partial map of the building in a picture-in-picture window that hovers in her upper left field of vision, and overlay a dotted green line along the ground indicating the route she’s chosen to take.

One more leg out the window, boots clang on metal. Tibby is on the move.

That Noah seems just as at odds as anyone isn't exactly reassuring. Dumortier doesn't stop to explain what he's thinking before trotting forward to the building's lawn. Ornamental trees are still trees. Manicured beds can get out of hand quickly. He's banking on that.

Blue eyes up on the windows and the lay of the flames, he touches down on the grass dotted with ash, weeds breaking up the shorn ground; Rene heads immediately for the clipped hedges at the building's feet and demolishes the hard work of the groundskeepers— the closely knit shrubbery unfurls from its moorings and sprawls up the stair-side of the building and across the ground below. In spite of the fire, Dumortier presses it on, searching out the paths of least resistance to finding the windows and the spaces inside.

Inside the building, shielded by the blanket and blinded by smoke, Hailey doesn’t see Geneva until she practically barrels over the other woman as she tries to get away from the flames. After a start of surprise, relief floods over the empath. At least if she’s going to die up here, it won’t be alone.

Misery does love company, afterall.

No time to worry about any of that though. The blond points toward the ceiling, then flashes a peace sign (or the number two, most likely the number two). Then quickly signs in cant, There’s more up there, at least two one floor up. More above that.

Then she falls into step beside her friend.

Geneva might be practically heat-proof, but she cannot magically see through smoke, and she has pointed difficulty discerning the flashes of Hailey's hands through the storm of fumes.

Still, she gets the basic gist. She thinks.

"Wait here. Be right back," Gene bids Hailey in a short bark, then turns to stride straight through the fire towards the closest place indicated for rescue, raising her infrared camera high above her head for that minute so as to be out of reach of hungry stalagmites of flame.

Fire presents little physical handicap to the young heat manipulator, as made obvious by the path she is tromping out directly from point A to point B— and she grasps her flathead axe in solid preparation to deal with any others.

Geneva scrambles across the tile floor, head down against the smoke as she moves from door to door, searching for the presence of people still trapped in the building. What is most worrying is that the screaming on this floor has stopped. But that isn’t what is gnawing at her, it’s the feeling that she’s missing something.

Another wall of flames fills the west end of the third-floor hall, the ceiling and walls completely engulfed. Portions of crumbling ceiling tiles collapse down to the floor, and when Geneva passes through the wall of heat the burning fragments leave scorch marks on her clothes, even though the woman beneath remains unharmed. Finding a locked door, Geneva realizes what’s happened to the occupants. It only takes two swings of the axe to lop the doorknob off entirely, and when she kicks the door open she immediately spots two small forms hunched over by a window, unconscious from smoke inhalation. A boy and a girl, maybe twelve years old each.

But what Geneva also sees is unexpected: flowering vines. Creeping in through the open window, flowering vines twist and insinuate themselves through the gap in the only partly-open window. They are joined by woody roots that intrude in the frame, push upward and force the stuck window further open, helping suck some of the smoke to vacate.

Back down the hallway, left to wait for the results of Geneva’s shouting, Hailey notices something. It’s what was nagging at the back of Geneva’s mind, even if she doesn’t realize it at the moment. The sprinklers, overhead, aren’t on. None of the fire-suppression systems are working.

Outside, Dumortier has found purchase in the grounds. Flowering vines—honeysuckle and rock trumpet—creep up the side of the building along with the sturdy and woody roots of arborvitae hedgerows. The smaller tendrils of the honeysuckle insinuates into gaps in closed windows, making small intrusions for the arborvitae roots to open them. The rapidly growing carpet of verdant matter forms a latticework like a trellis up one side of the building.

It’s this scene that Tibby Naidu arrives on after crossing the street, following her predictive path toward the building’s rear entrance. She encounters Dumortier here, hands outstretched, eyes up, and the natural world has come to life all around him. Grass grows up over his feet, plant matter spread out like a bristling carpet.

Tibby’s ocular implants assess the verdant growth up the side of the building. Her HUD updates:

CRITOSYS HUD v3.3
Alternate route found.

The HUD had almost finished its journey becoming just another sense for the woman to trust and follow. A weariness of it ever being tampered with stays in the back of her mind as well but in this instance the cybernetically enhanced woman trusts it like she trusts her own eyes.

This trust is rewarded.

"An upgrade."

Tibby murmurs in object approval as she comes to find Dumortier, the young man she hadn't seen since her outburst in Park Slope. Just as crafty as ever it would seem though. The woman's eyes track towards the predictive path and she races towards the ever growing foliage. "I'll help," said in her soft but raspy tone, she then leaps and begins her ascent. Muscles flex as she moves quickly trying to discern the next paths forward.

Hailey's been so busy that she never noticed. But now, given the moment of reprieve by Gene, she finally has the time to wonder. Why aren’t the sprinklers on? Is this building just a lost cause? Do they have time to get all of the kids out?

As it stands right now, the beatcop doesn't think so.

The voice stopped, which means Gene was too late or they're on their way. The blond really hopes for the latter. Sitting and waiting hasn't been her favorite thing to do since she was really young. Since before the war. Now the heat, the roar of the fire, and all the residual feelings she never dealt with from before have set her anxiety into overload. Luckily, there aren't any animals in the vicinity that she can feel. They fled a long, long time ago.

It's getting harder to breathe but Hailey gropes around the hall, searching for a pull alarm. She finds one, intact and too hot to the touch. So she wraps her hand in the quickly drying blanket, hooks her fingers behind the tab…

and pulls.

The only response that Tibby receives in her approach is a passingly alarmed exhale of air, Dumortier's expression screwed into a confused look. If she will help, let her. Plants writhe around his feet and down his arms.

"Good with me." Rene growls more for his own benefit, hairline already wet against his scalp. Those sprawling growths up the building thicken, a perfect foot and hand-hold. On the inside between window panes, stalks bloat their way through in bursts and pops. "Ally-oop, lady."

"Bennet?" Dumortier looks back to where he had left the senior agent behind, seeking a second eye even as his own eyes glint in a flicker of change, blue sharp and features finding harsher edges.

Up on the third floor, the unexpected silence is rapidly becoming unnerving to Geneva, who squints at the flowering vines snaking their way through the window a second before striding across the floor in that direction. Even as she fixates on the sight, she keeps her ears primed, ready to catch any hint of cries or screams/.

But, there are none that she can glean. Only these unconscious children: her most immediate concern. "Where the fuck are the sprinklers in this condemned fuckhole of a building?" Gene gripes as she awkwardly scoops the boy up into her arms, mentally assessing if there's some way she can get both children out at the same time and finding none. They're too cumbersome. She'll have to come back.

"Hailey," Gene buzzes in one heavy breath into her radio once she gets to the top of the landing, depositing her burden onto a space on the floor that seems slightly less obstructed with smoke. "There are two kids up here. Meet me partway— I've got one that I’m leaving, about to go back in for the other."

On the vines outside the building, up Tibby goes. Each handhold is a precarious thing, but she's nimble and fast. Above her, through the windows opened by vines, smoke belches out into the air sill by sill— save for one higher where the room actively burns.

She makes it quickly to the third floor, and is reaching for the next handhold to continue up to where it's most dangerous when her HUD starts rapidly scanning a glint of something in the dark of the room she's passing by. It's not much save for a catching of the lights outside, reflected back in widened eyes.

A small girl holds a tiny stuffed animal, crouched beside her bed in a way that suggests she's just climbed out from under it. Tibby's HUD finishes the scan of the girl and deems her not a threat.

"Are you Spider-Gwen?" the young girl asks in a stage whisper, equal parts terror and wonder.

"…"

Tibby blinks at the girl and narrows her eyes. "No." is said direct enough as her eyes take on the surroundings and the next possible exits. "Come." The slender woman's hand is now outstretched, the white scars alone her arms shine by the light of her phone, used for the girl's benefit more than her own. The tips of Tibby's fingers flutter as she gestures for the girl to come to her.

"…more like Catwoman." The young woman smirks and cants her head, "Now come, unless you'd like your feet to be barbeque'd, goose."

Having a tag along… was the plan, Tibby guesses, but she would have to make sure the little girl wasn't harmed as they made the way to safety.

Best possible route. If only the tech inside of her could be directed by her thoughts.

"I'm not a silly goose," the girl insists quickly and haughtily, rushing to the window where Catwoman waits with her hand outstretched. She climbs up onto the windowsill stomach first, still holding her stuffed animal pinched to her with one arm while she holds onto Tibby with the other.

The sight of the new vine passenger emerging is plainly visible to Dumortier below. Noah's head lifts to the movement, his calm and affable demeanor shifting to something more serious yet. "Hang on, kids," he directs the students nearest him, one hand held back to hold them at bay with will alone. "Let my friend here," Dumortier, naturally, "do his work. I'll be right back."

There was a little girl in danger, after all.

Noah runs to the building, less nimble than Tibby is, but without hesitation in leaping in. "Hey," he calls up, no nicknames. "Get her to me and I'll get her the rest of the way down." He climbs a ways up and stretches out his arm to offer his help, light glinting off the edge of his glasses. It's easy for Dumortier to see his footing isn't the best, for all that Noah exudes confidence in his position.

Thankfully, doing his thing is just what Dumortier does best; Bennet doesn't need to focus on directing him. Fingers and cheekbones have scaled over with green as Rene works, the skin toughening while the growths he controls do the same. He looks after where Tibby has corralled one child, glancing across the yard to others in quick assessment.

The best that Dumortier can give Noah is a little more to stand on before he angles to move down the perimeter and closer to where an ornamental tree is fitfully reacting to his nearness; with starts and stops it inches higher and rounder, roots pulling out dirt and sod in what appears to be a concerted effort to get closer to the building, beckoned by the kinetic's outstretched hand.

The roots rip and crawl, moving in jerks of motions, propelled by Dumortier's exertion over his ability. Slowly they go toward the brick, closing in on it.

Inside, Hailey has to check twice to make sure she pulled the alarm. She felt it give way, but nothing happened. The blanket is stained in ink where she pulled, demonstrating it should have gone off and activated any of the preventative controls in the building… but no sprinklers activate, no alarm rings fill the hall.

The only thing she hears is Geneva's voice on the radio, telling her someone needs her. There's no one else to come to the rescue right now.

The only heroes in the building are them.

Shit.

It's times like these when Hailey wishes her ability was more useful, like Joe, or Geneva, or Lance. All the animals in the area have long since fled, so there are none to imbue with the bravado that captures her now. With no hesitation, she leaps up the stairs two by two in answer to her friend's call.

She reaches the unconscious child just in time to see Geneva's retreating back through the smoke.

"Come on kid," she grunts, while hefting the unconscious lump over her shoulder. "Let's get you out of here."

Going down, she's more careful.

Even the first floor is hazed with smoke, lungs burning as Hailey once more emerges from the building with the unconscious child over her shoulder. Moving at the pace she is, she can't properly assess if he's breathing still or not yet. But out here, there's a chance for him. Out here, his fate isn't sealed. Several worried children break ranks on the sidewalk from where they were ordered to drift in her direction. "Hey, is that Alex?" one of them asks another with worry.

On the side of the burning building, position suddenly reinforced by the help that Dumortier's provided him, Noah extends his hand upward higher to Tibby and the small girl she's retrieved. "Here," he says with a touch of strain.

Noah Bennett is famous enough to have info, the public kind displayed in Tibby's sight as she takes in the man. A man she didn't want to know. Or to know her. A brief look over to the growing roots, the roaring fire. The little girl. There is hardly worry on the Catwoman's face as she ushers the little girl forward with a gentle nudge, "Go ahead goose."

She'd follow after.

What a fucking day.

Heat and stress has already soaked Dumortier's hair against his head at the root, though he is clearly no stranger to labor. He shifts from expanding the plant system at his fingers to using what he's already made; a few moments are spared to catch his breath, eyes roaming up walls and to windows, darting away when he spies orange flame. The less he looks at it the less he is reminded of burning. He can't really fault fire for being fire, yeah? There's no robot here this time either.

Makes it easier to jump after his tree to better direct it, leaving the rest rooted as his ability reaches into the core of long limbs and limber trunk. When the renegade sapling meets the wall under the hallway windows, Rene has an arm hooked around one branch as the tree slows and decompresses, leaning headlong into the building and coming to a quaking halt at an angle.

"Do me a solid… and don't break, chere." Hand brushing over treebark, Dumortier's shaky voice is only for his own sake, ability reeling back entirely after the blood in his ears becomes too much. As for his purpose, he's motioning for one sooty face that he sees to come out the window into the canopy of the cockeyed tree.

Hailey doesn't have the strength to answer the children as she slowly eases the unconscious boy down to the ground. She arranges his arms to this sides and then lowers her head down so her ear is near his nose and mouth, her eyes looking toward his chest to see if there is even the slightest rise and fall of breath. Unable to see much of anything, she begins compressions.

"I need a little help over here!!" She yells toward Noah and Tibby. She can't waste time on the ground, there are other people inside. She gives an uptick of a nod to one of the children gathered around her, "You, see the radio on my belt? I need you to get it for me and say exactly this into the radio. Officer Hailey Gerken calling in a Ten-Fifty Two on my last position. Got it?"

There's so much happening, and the flames just keep getting higher. The two children nearest Hailey look at her with widened eyes, but it's the girl who crouches to get the radio from Hailey, understanding the urgency. Also immediately understanding that this is a once in a lifetime experience. But it's definitely important, too.

Noah is jumping to the ground with the younger girl, eyes squinting as his knees protest the additional weight, but he hurries away from the building before setting her down— just in time to hear Hailey's call for help. "Stay back on the sidewalk," he tells the kids, then rushes to the young officer's side to help administer CPR and keep onlookers back.

The magic act that Dumortier has pulled off in bringing the tree to become a slide-ladder down from the window is met with an owlish look from the child within before they begin to clamber out. They seize for a moment in fear, making an uncertain note as their feet touch the branch, and then they continue on. "I-I'm coming!" they shout down to Dumortier.

Meanwhile, Tibby's climb back up, aided by her head-installed tech, doesn't reveal other remaining in the blooming smoke. No— the only ones she's seen on her way up are those already making their escape. And moments later, Geneva exits the front of the building, eyes stinging from the smoke almost as much as her lungs are, not immune to those effects even if the rest of her is fine from the heat.

A horrendous crack and collapse sounds from within the building as the floor surrounding where Geneva and Hailey had pulled those very kids from succumbs to the lack of support around it from the burn. But that they can tell— and Tibby knows— all the kids and adults are safely evacuated now, including the child that jumps the last few feet down to a weary, overtaxed Dumortier.

When Noah looks up again to find the mysterious wall-climbing samaritan, Tibby's already out of sight, and sirens are finally closing in on their location. While the threat of the fire soon stands to be contained, once the health of the unconscious children are seen to, Hailey and Geneva share a look as they reflect on what they saw inside the burning building.

Everything that wasn't right. All the safety measures which should have been in place that systematically failed.

They know even once the fire is out, the threat of this happening again is far from extinguished.


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