“Hell, yeah!” He stomped, eyes wild. “They should’ve never kicked me out. And the one man who tried to help?” He lifted his palms toward the darkening sky. “Where’s he now, huh? Liars. Thieves. Traitors. Can you hear it calling, the fire that cries to be born? It alone speaks truth.”
“Come on, man,” Hernandez interjected. “Let us help you.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Flash spotted Agent Howard shimmying along the roofline behind Neel.
“That bitch dumped me by text, and then the same day, stupid ass work fired me for no good reason. Too much. I snapped,” Simon lamented. His lighter hand quivered. He flicked it, flame blazing to life. “See? See how beautiful and pure it is?”
“No, Simon,” Athena instructed like a mother would a child. “Close that back up so you don’t hurt yourself.”
“Huh?” His visage morphed into confusion. “I’m not gonna hurt myself.” Euphoria replaced hesitation. “I’ll free myself!” he proclaimed with glee.
Three addicts curled up under their shelters were oblivious to the danger. A pair of robins took to the air, leaving a withered crepe myrtle behind. The sky continued to blacken, echoing the storm rising in Simon’s mind.
“You won’t take me to prison,” he roared in newfound fury. His hand swung in an arc, a gust shimmying the flame. Flash slowly edged away from the agents, gradually picking a path toward the abandoned sleeping bag while Athena kept his attention on her.
“We can get professional help for you,” she promised. “You should have had help from a doctor years ago, only nobody took you.”
“You don’t care about me,” he blasted back. “And you don’t know. Fire is my friend.” A deranged smile filled his face. “It won’t hurt me. I can be one with the flames. Caressed, loved, joined. I want to know, to feel … tobethe flame. It’ll be glorious!”
“No!” Athena screamed. Simon pressed the lighter to his soaked shirt, making his twisted wish come true.
His wail of horrific ecstasy was excruciating but short-lived. Flash acted on instinct. Diving for the sleeping bag, she threw it over Simon’s burning clothes and dropped on top of him.
For an instant, Athena’s soundless world moved in slow motion as Flash covered the ravenous flames with her body. She couldn’t lose her, and surely not for a pyromaniac arsonist. The shop blast had been intense, gut-wrenching, but this—this was Flash rushing into danger on purpose. She was always doing that—and always would. Athena would have to accept it for their relationship to move forward. But she had no room to complain, considering she frequently put herself in the line of fire. It was just a hard pill to swallow.
Then she remembered—Flash’s gear, her training. She exhaled. Flash had it under control, smothering the last embers. Although it seemed ages, it only took seconds from the instant Neel lit himself up to the moment Flash suppressed the flames. She was OK. Everything would be OK.
Athena rushed to them, crouching on the pitted concrete beside them, Ice and Hernandez right behind. The strong, sickeningly sweet smell of burning flesh assaulted her nose as Neel’s screams battered her ears. The scene was pitiful enough to tug on her heartstrings. All she had to do was recall the three people who had burned to death in his fires to stiffen her resolve.
“No!” Simon cried, thrashing under the force of Flash’s hold. “What have you done? This isn’t how it was supposed to end? Betrayed! I was betrayed!”
Once the fire was completely out and Flash had control of the lighter, she stepped out of the way. Agents Ice and Hernandez hoisted Neel to his feet, followed by Athena reading him his rights. Part of her wanted to chastise him, to say she was glad he got a taste of his own medicine and hoped his scars would be a constant reminder of his crimes. The other part recognized the mental illness behind the destruction.
“Simon, you’ll get help with your emotional and mental health needs in prison, and, if you cooperate, we can make a deal that keeps you off death row. Even if unintentional, whenever someone dies in the commission of a felony, it’s treated as murder—not to mention the attempted murder of three FBI agents and a firefighter.”
“Why?” he whimpered, face slick with sweat and lighter fluid. He had suffered some burns and must be in pain, but it was mild compared to what it could have been. He shifted a confused expression to Flash. “Why’d she do that? I was ready to die. Why’d she have to go and save me?”
Athena secured his hands behind his back with restraints, the distinctive blare of an ambulance drawing near. “Because that’s what Firefighter Cash does. She saves people.”
Chapter 28
Thunder pealed across the sky. A powerful gust rocked the ambulance, but the driver kept it steady as it whizzed through city streets to Riverside General, mere blocks away. Athena sat on one side of her prisoner, now handcuffed to the gurney, while the EMT specialist applied salve, gauze, and cold packs to Neel’s burns. Flash was in the van with her team and would meet her at the hospital, mere blocks away.
The ambulance skidded to a halt on wet asphalt under the covered entrance to the emergency room. For Athena, who’d lived her whole life along the Gulf of Mexico, hurricanes and tropical storms were commonplace—a nuisance, not a monster to be feared unless they rose to the level of categories 4 or 5. She recalled the terror and devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina twenty years ago. While New Orleans received all the attention, her hometown of Port Allen sustained significant damage and widespread flooding. Hundreds, if not thousands, of residents were displaced, losing their homes and most of their possessions, when the mighty Mississippi breached its banks and levees failed. Nothing like that would come with this storm, and Houston needed the rain. Some trees would fall, taking down power lines and disrupting daily life. Some people would foolishly attempt to drive through flooded areas or play in rapidly receding water. Spin-off tornadoes were the major concern—that and the influx of vehicles fleeing the coast. None of it daunted Athena—just another late summer on the gulf.
Athena strode beside Neel, flashing her badge, as the ambulance attendants wheeled him into a private ER room. A doctor and nurse quickly took their places. Athena explainedthat Neel, an arsonist who’d tried to light himself on fire, was in her custody and couldn’t be allowed out of her sight until another FBI agent relieved her. They agreed she could stay if out of their way while they worked on him. Simon wavered between snarling obscenities and wailing cries of anguish. At one point, he begged for his mother.
“Special Agent Bouvier?” A staff member poked her head through the curtain with a questioning look. She glanced up in acknowledgement. “There are agents and a firefighter here for you.”
Agent Howard popped his head in above the shorter hospital staffer’s. “I can stand vigil. The desk clerk wants you to sign some papers.”
Athena gave a brisk nod and peered down at Simon. “Agent Howard will stay with you for a while. I’ll see about getting you a public defender. When the doctors are done treating you and you’ve rested a bit, I’ll be back to ask you some questions.”
Without waiting for a response, which would have probably been incoherent at best, she pivoted on her rubber boot heel and left. “He’s all yours, Agent Howard.”
Athena found her team—plus one brave, desirable addition—standing in a semicircle in the waiting area. After signing the papers that the desk clerk waved at her, she joined them. “He’s stable. Some burns to his right arm and torso, probably leave more scars, but the doc expects a full recovery—physically, that is. We’ll need to have a psych eval before determining if he’s fit to stand trial, but there’s a high bar to reach to find him too mentally incapacitated. Then again, with a full confession, we won’t need a trial. Either way, we must have him evaluated.”
Shoops, who’d been madly punching buttons on her phone, said, “I just contacted Dr. McFadden from the BAU, asking if he could swing by soon and do that for us. It’s one of his specialties with the FBI, and he’s done hundreds of psych evals.”
