Chapter 22 - The Red and Blue
The cabin was fully engulfed in flames now, casting a bright, violent orange glow over the clearing, melting the sleet before it could touch the ground.
Mark sat back in the mud, breathing heavily, holding his bleeding shoulder.
Ten feet away, Vance was crying silently, his hands tied behind his back with Sam’s belt. John lay motionless in the mud, his chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged gaps.
Sam walked down the steps, her clothes smelling of smoke, and sat down in the mud right beside Mark.
She didn't offer a bandage. She didn't say it was going to be okay. She just leaned her shoulder against his, staring into the burning fire of the cabin that Mark’s father had built forty years ago.
In the distance, down Route 4, the first sound of sirens cut through the noise of the storm—dozens of them, red and blue lights bouncing off the wet pine trees as the state convoy crested the final hill.
Sam pulled a damp, crumpled package of cigarettes from her pocket. She pulled one out, put it between her lips, and offered the pack to Mark.
Mark looked at the cigarettes. Then he looked at his hand—dirty, stained with his brother’s blood, devoid of his wedding ring.
He reached out, took one, and let Sam light it for him with the hot ember of a burning splinter from the porch.
Mark took a long pull, exhaling the gray smoke into the freezing air as the first state trooper cruiser pulled into the clearing, its spotlight pinning them both against the night.
"What now, Mark?" Sam asked softly, her voice barely audible over the roaring flames.
Mark flicked the ash into the mud.
"Now," Mark said, "we go to work."
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