She hesitated at the entrance, a huge, uneven hole gaping where the sliding door used to be. The flames roared as the fire eagerly consumed the old wood, so loud that Jules could hear it even over her thundering heart. With the too-bright flames and rolling smoke, it was impossible to see anything—anyone.
Taking a deep breath of roasting, smoky air, Jules held in a cough and stepped into the burning barn.
She barely made it a step before she was falling backward. Something had grabbed her arm, pulling her to the ground. Jules tumbled down, her numb body not feeling any pain as her back and then her head connected with the ground. All she knew was that she needed to get up, to get to the kids, to get them out, but something was still holding onto her arm.
Turning her head, she saw Viggy had her forearm caught in his jaws. She vaguely felt betrayed, but her urgency to get back up and to the barn overrode everything else. Before she could try to pull free, there were human hands on her, pulling her back, dragging her away from the barn. With a boom that felt and sounded almost as loud as the original explosion, the roof caved in, sending flaming beams and shake shingles crashing down, burying the spot where Jules had just stood. Hopelessness flooded her, and Jules started to cry.
“Viggy, release!” It was Theo. Theo was the one keeping her from saving her family. She barely noticed that her arm was suddenly free. “Good boy. Jules! Talk to me. Where are the kids?” His hands were turning her over and pulling her into a sitting position. “Jules!”
“In there!” she sobbed, renewing her struggles. Maybe it wasn’t too late. If she told him, maybe he’d understand she needed to get into the barn to save them. “They’re in there!”
“Jules, no.” His voice had changed, the urgency shifting to shock.
“Let me up,” she demanded, trying to pull away from the gentle, yet relentless hands holding her. “I need to get them out!”
His grip didn’t ease. “There’s nothing left.” He pulled her against his chest, wrapping his arms around her, even as she still fought to get free. “The building’s gone, Jules. There’s nothing left of it.”
He was wrong. He had to be wrong. If the building was gone, then her family was gone, and she couldn’t allow herself to believe that. Shoving at his chest with both hands, she managed to wrench herself out of his hold, only to be caught again.
“J-J-J-Ju!”
The stuttering shout made her freeze, terrified to hope she hadn’t imagined it, until it came again.
“J-Ju! W-w-we’re h-here!”
Her head whipped around, following that wonderful, wonderful yell, and she saw Sam and Ty and Tio and then finally Dee running out of the trees. She pulled away from Theo’s slackened hold and ran, not toward the burning skeleton of the barn, but toward her sister and brothers, her beautiful, living, not-burned, not-dead, not-even-hurt family.
They crashed together, falling as they collided, each one joining until they were in a five-way hug. Jules clutched them to her, her hands running over each precious head and back, pressing kisses on any place she could reach, letting her touch reassure her that they were truly alive and in her arms.
“That’s it!” she cried, her voice thick with tears. “I’m never letting y’all out of my sight ever again. Forget school. Forget going to the bathroom by yourselves. Y’all will be within reach and in view at all times, got that?”
“I like the no school part,” Ty said. “But hell no on the supervised showers.”
Jules gave a soggy, shaky laugh and kissed the top of Dee’s head. “Language.”
“Your arm is bleeding,” Tio said, and they all looked at it.
“Oh, right.” She wiped at the small trickle of blood. “That’s just where Viggy bit me.”
“He bit you?” Dee repeated, her eyes wide. “Why? What did you do?”
Her laugh came a tiny bit easier that time, although she couldn’t stop patting and squeezing the kids. “Why do you think I did something?”
“Because he wouldn’t bite you for no reason.”
Not really wanting to explain that she’d tried to run into the burning barn, Jules changed the subject. “Are y’all okay? No one’s hurt, are you?”
“W-w-we’re f-f-fine,” Sam said.
“We were far enough away to be out of the blast radius.” Tio sounded calm enough, but he leaned against her side like he used to when he was eight years younger and needed comfort. He lowered his voice so only she could hear. “We waited for you for fifteen minutes, and then we took the emergency money and started walking through the woods toward our meet-up spot, like we planned. We heard the explosion, though, and were worried that it was the house, so we ran back here.” His even tone shook slightly on the last word.