Chapter 9 - THE SECOND FIRE
Arthur lunged at his own son. Without thinking, I stepped between them. I didn't fire the gun—I swung it, the heavy metal butt connecting squarely with Arthur's jaw. He stumbled backward, crashing into a shelf of liquid communion candles.
The glass shattered. The flammable oil spilled across the floor, and a single lit candle ignited the pool.
Fire.
The flames roared up the wall instantly, casting a terrifying, familiar orange glow over the room. The heat washed over my face, and for a terrifying second, I was thirteen years old again, trapped in a burning kitchen, waiting to die. I froze, paralyzed by a panic so deep it robbed me of oxygen.
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"Merritt!" Callahan screamed over the crackle of the flames. He didn't run away. He ran toward the heat. He found me, wrapping his arms around my waist, lifting me off my feet. "I've got you! I'm not letting you burn!"
He carried me up the stairs, bursting through the church doors into the cool, wet night air just as police sirens, triggered by the church's smoke alarms, wailed in the distance.
