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  Fire? There? Why were the trucks headed in the opposite direction? Why weren’t they fighting those flames? Flames that clung to the northwestern edge of campus close to Holmby Hills.

  He spun around, surveying his surroundings. He was alone as far as he could tell. Nobody else was out wandering the streets without purpose. He squeezed his eyes shut against the smoke. He took short, shallow breaths and pulled up his shirt over his nose and mouth.

  Barker thought about the stupid things he’d done in his young life. There were enough to count on both hands, both feet, and someone else’s hand too. None of them were as reckless as what he was doing right now.

  But he was too far into his quest now to abandon it. He was too close to Becca to go back without her at his side. He checked his phone. No signal. If he didn’t show up, he’d lose any chance he might have with her. Being the hormone-driven romantic that he was, Barker tucked his phone into his pocket and marched north toward her sorority house.

  When he reached the front porch of the grand Southern facade, he pushed the intercom button and stared into the round camera eye. He coughed twice, holding his balled fist to his mouth.

  “Who is it?” came a suspicious voice. “How can I help you?”

  “My name is Barker Mayfield,” he said. “I’m here to see Becca.”

  There was a pause. Then, “Becca?”

  “Yes,” he said, clearing his throat. “Becca.”

  “Which Becca?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Which Becca? There are four Beccas.”

  “Four?”

  “Yes,” the suspicious voice sounded irritated now. “There’s Becca Armstrong, Becca Anderson, Becca Ride, and Becky Grissom. There’s also Becca Stephens and Rebecca Cernan.”

  Barker had no idea what her last name was. He only knew her as Becca. That wasn’t good. He rubbed the top of his head and stared into the lens.

  “She’s the pretty one with—”

  “Seriously, dude?” interrupted the voice. “The pretty one?”

  “Sorry,” he said, his head down. “I don’t know her last name. She’s got brown hair. It’s cut short.”

  “A pixie cut?”

  He couldn’t tell if there was a camera in the speaker or not. He coughed and checked back over his shoulder. Now he was the one getting irritated. Did the women inside the house not know what was going on outside?

  “I don’t know. Just get all the Beccas in the lobby and let me in, please. It’s getting bad out here.”

  There was another pause. “You said your name was Barker?”

  “Yes.”

  From inside the house he could hear the bounding of feet down a staircase and the heavy plant on the floor. A series of clicks led to the door opening slowly. Becca, his Becca, was peering out at him with her big brown eyes. Her white teeth gleamed. Barker’s face flushed at the sight of her. An involuntary smile spread across his face.

  “You made it,” she said and opened the door wide. “C’mon in.”

  He stepped into the house and she closed the door behind her.

  “You stink,” she said, her face puckering. “You smell like a bonfire.”

  “I think he smells like a fart in a hot shower,” said a voice from behind him, the same voice from the intercom.

  Becca frowned. “You’re disgusting,” she said to the young woman in faded denim overall shorts and ridiculously deep dimples in her cheeks.

  The woman eyed Barker up and down. She pulled her dark hair into a ponytail and held it in place with a purple scrunchie from her wrist. She locked eyes with Becca.

  “I’m just kidding,” she said. She paused, leveled her gaze at Barker again, and waved her hand in front of her cherubic face. “A hot shower fart is more intoxicating than whatever it is you’ve got going on, dude.”

  Becca put her hand on the back of Barker’s bicep and squeezed gently. “Don’t mind her,” she said. “She’s an ass.”

  Barker nodded sheepishly and offered a weak smile in Overall’s direction. “It’s cool,” he said, chuckling nervously. “No worries.”

  The woman hooked her thumbs inside the straps of her overalls in an American Gothic sort of way and stepped toward Barker. She smelled like essential oils and wood.

  “I’m Gem,” she said.

  Barker stepped back, subconsciously separating himself from the space invader. “Gem?”

  “It’s short for Gemma. Family name. It’s awful, I know. I don’t need you to tell me.”

  “I wasn’t going to—”

  Gem stepped forward again. “Yes, you were. Everybody does. It’s whatever. I don’t care. But it gets old.”

  Both women seemed oblivious to the encroaching danger. He scratched the top of his head and hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the door.

  “Are either of you aware of what’s going on out there?” he asked. “The world is on fire.”

  “That explains your funk,” said Gem.

  Barker didn’t like her. She was one of those people who immediately behaved too familiar. He pictured her in retail, selling something nobody needed.

  Becca’s cheery expression softened. She shot a glance at the door and then focused on Barker. Her stare sent an electrical spark down his spine.

  “It’s that bad?”

  Barker nodded emphatically. He coughed again and cleared his throat. “There’s a fire up the hill near Holmby Hills. Past the intersection with Sunset. There must be another one near Wilshire, probably toward Westwood. I saw fire trucks headed that way. Traffic on the roads is a mess. Campus is dead though, and—”

  Gem waved her hands in front of her face. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Pony Express, too much information. Slow down. You’re saying there are fires close to campus?”

  Barker bristled. “You living inside a rock, Gem? Didn’t you see the Bruin Alert?”

  Gem sneered.

  “Yes,” Becca answered. “But it didn’t say anything about campus being threatened. It only said classes were cancelled.”

  “I can tell you campus is threatened.”

  Gem had stepped back but was standing with her arms folded across her chest. Her jaw was tight and her face expressionless save one suspicious eyebrow arched slightly higher than the other. Barker could tell she didn’t like him either. That was fine.

  “So what do we do?” Becca asked. “I don’t think we can head back to the Hill, right?”

  Barker shook his head. Past Becca, there was a trio of coeds standing at the entry to the foyer. All three were varying degrees of blonde. They wore sweats and T-shirts with their sorority’s lettering on them.

  “What’s going on?” one of them called.

  “Who’s he?” asked another.

  Gem answered them without taking her eyes from Barker. She motioned toward him with her chin. It too was dimpled like her cheeks. “This is Douchebag McDoucherson, and he is the bearer of bad news.”

  “The fires?” one of the sorority sisters asked. “Is it about the fires?”

  “My name is Barker,” he said to the trio. “And yeah, it’s not good.”

  “Why are you here?” asked the tallest of the three blondes. “Are you, like, security or something?”

  “He’s visiting me,” Becca said. “We were going out, but—”

  “He’s a douche,” Gem cut in.

  The trio giggled. Becca shot Gem a nasty glare Barker hadn’t realized she was capable of firing, and she reached over to take his hand, lacing her fingers into his.

  Barker’s heart jumped, and his pulse quickened. He smiled at her. She smiled back.

  “Don’t mind Gem,” said one of the blonde coeds. “She likes drama.”

  “C’mon,” said Becca, “you can come into the parlor and chill until they get the fires under control.”

  “We have the news on,” said the tallest blonde. “The fires are on every channel.”

  Gem chortled. At what she was laughing, Barker couldn’t be sure. But she stalked her way up past the blon
des and around the corner.

  Becca put her free hand on Barker’s arm, giving him goose bumps. “Seriously,” she said, “don’t worry about her. She gives every guy a hard time.”

  She tugged on his hand, and he followed her toward the blondes, who were padding their way into the parlor. He was glad he’d risked his life to see her.

  “Does she have a boyfriend?” he asked.

  “That’s kind of the issue,” Becca said in a much lower volume. “She did. They broke up. She’s still not over it.”

  “So she takes it out on every guy who walks in the house.”

  “Bingo,” she said, squeezing his hand for effect.

  They entered a large room decorated in pastels. Barker plopped onto an overstuffed linen sofa next to Becca. She was still holding his hand.

  Two of the blondes were on a matching sofa opposite them. The third, the tall one, was sitting in an imitation Eames chair, her fuzzy-slippered feet crossed one over the other on the ottoman. Gem was on the Berber, lying on a large shaggy rug with her head on a big floor cushion. All of them had their attention on a wall-mounted flat-panel television.

  “We’re watching this because our Wi-Fi isn’t working,” said the tall blonde. “No Netflix. No Hulu.”

  “Turn up the volume,” Gem demanded. “I can’t hear the reporter.”

  One of the blondes pointed the remote at the screen and pressed the volume button. The reporter’s voice grew louder, as did the ambient noise in the live report. What they heard and saw on that large flat-panel display sent a wave of nausea coursing through Barker’s body. He imagined it was equally as terrifying to Becca. She squeezed his hand tightly. It wasn’t an affectionate grip. It was one betraying fear.

  The reporter was standing amidst waves of smoke, her mouth and nose covered with a surgical mask. She was wearing a bright yellow jacket that appeared part parka and part raincoat. The ball cap atop her head was emblazoned with the television station’s call letters and channel number.

  She alternated between looking directly into the camera and over her shoulder to reference the inferno building behind her. The camera moved with her, sometimes drifting from her to focus on the hellscape that served as her backdrop.

  “I’m told the fire here is not contained yet,” she said breathlessly. “This one you see on your screen, which they’re calling the Canyon Fire, has merged with the Angeles Forest Fire. The winds are so extreme that on slopes the fire is racing downward at forty miles per hour. It’s burning everything in its path, and firefighters tell me that until the winds diminish, there is no chance of stopping the wall of flames that appears to be growing on all sides.”

  The news anchor, a young man with an abundance of product in his hair, appeared on the left half of the screen. He stared into the camera and spoke earnestly, his resonant voice amplifying the seriousness of his question. “What about fire breaks?” he asked. “Having been in similar situations myself, I can recall firefighters lighting smaller fires to contain large out-of-control fires. Have they considered that?”

  The reporter on the right side of the screen nodded. “Yes, they have. But it’s too dangerous right now with the winds.”

  “What about aerial assaults? I know they’ll use airplanes and even converted Black Hawk military helicopters to dump water or retardant. Any plans for those?”

  The reporter adjusted the mask on her face, pinching it at the bridge of her nose. She lifted the microphone closer to her mouth, and a wash of smoke drifted between her and the camera. “Again,” she stressed, “the winds are a problem.”

  She looked off camera and nodded. She appeared to be acknowledging someone to her left. Then she pointed at the camera or the photographer. Even with the mask covering half of her face, it was obvious to anyone watching her that she was suddenly frightened. Her posture had stiffened. Her face, what was visible, was ashen.

  “Lane,” she said to the anchor, “we’re being told we need to leave. They’re evacuating us from this spot here. It’s too dangerous, I’m told, and we need to move.”

  “Gotcha,” said the news anchor. “You get to safety, please. Check back with us when you get to a safer spot.”

  The reporter disappeared from the screen, and the news anchor, Lane Turner, was front and center. He occupied a sleek glass desk with a large wall of monitors behind him. On half of the monitors there was a singular looping image of flames. On the other half, over his right shoulder, were the words SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ON FIRE.

  “For those of you just joining us,” he said, twiddling a pen in between his fingers, “we’d like to update you on the severity of this fast-developing story. As you likely know, we are under a state of emergency. The mayor of Los Angeles and the governor of California have declared the emergency in order to expedite emergency help. We know that the governor has requested federal aid from the White House. That federal declaration has not come yet, as far as we know.”

  Across the bottom of the screen, facts about the emergency were scrolling from right to left. There was too much to absorb, to many locations on fire. Barker saw the blank expressions on the women’s faces. Even Gem was silent and still.

  Becca had curled her legs onto the sofa and was leaning into Barker. Fifteen minutes earlier he’d have been relishing the relative intimacy of the moment. Not now though. Not with SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ON FIRE.

  “Here is a map of the remarkable scale of this unfolding catastrophe,” said Lane Turner. “You can see much of our viewing area is threatened. The red is what is currently burning. The orange is what is under immediate danger and likely cannot be saved. You’ll see the yellow is the evacuation area. If you are in the yellow, you need to turn off your television and leave. You can listen to us on our free news app as you evacuate to safety. We already have evacuation routes and road closures on that app. Download it now if you haven’t already.”

  “Is he really pimping their app?” asked Gem. “Shameless. Freaking shameless.”

  “Shhh,” said the tall blonde. “I want to listen. We’re on the edge of the yellow.”

  The map filled the display. “If you are not in the evacuation zone,” said Lane, “authorities are asking that you still consider leaving. Make your plans now so that if and when the evacuation zone expands, you’ll be ready to go. Joining me now on the phone is Oscar Robles. He is the public information officer for the LA County Office of Emergency Management. Oscar, thanks for being with us.”

  A graphic filled half the screen, displaying Robles’s photograph and his name. The other half of the screen now showed aerial shots of a hillside fire. It didn’t identify where exactly it was.

  “Thanks, Lane,” said Robles. “We appreciate the opportunity to talk to your viewers.”

  “So, Oscar, what’s your best advice for people who are trying to decide whether or not they should leave their homes or businesses?”

  “That’s a difficult question to answer, Lane,” Robles replied. “But I can tell you that you never know if you’ve evacuated too early. You always know if you’ve evacuated too late. To that end, it’s an individual decision, a personal choice about what a resident thinks is best for his or her family.”

  “Understood, Oscar,” said Lane, “but are there specific things our viewers should look for? Is there a list of things they can check off and then decide, ‘Yep, I need to bug out’?”

  “Certainly,” said Robles. “There are a host of things residents can do to prepare for evacuation. First, they should shut all of their windows and doors but leave them unlocked. Remove anything flammable from the windows, including window shades or curtains. Move furniture to the centers of rooms, and leave lights on in every room. That will make it easier for firefighters to see the house in heavy smoke. Also, shut off the air-conditioning.”

  “Should we shut off the air-conditioning?” asked the tall blonde. “Should we ask Zagrecki?”

  “Who’s Zagrecki?” Barker asked Becca.

  “Our house mom,” she answ
ered.

  Gem stood up and adjusted her overalls, tugging on the bottom hem of her shorts. “I’ll go ask her,” she said. “I can’t handle this right now anyway. It’s too much.”

  She stepped over the floor pillow and stomped out of the parlor. Barker watched her for a moment and turned his attention back to the television. Oscar Robles was still explaining what potential evacuees should do.

  “…what’s called an emergency supply kit. Some people call them bug-out bags or go bags. Regardless of the nomenclature, we recommend that kit include a three-day supply of nonperishable food, three gallons of water per person, any medications you regularly take, a paper map in case GPS fails, credit cards, cash, a first aid kit, a battery-powered radio—”

  “That’s all great information,” Lane interrupted. “We do have a link to those necessities on our website and app. But what I asked you was to provide the signs that a family needs to be looking for so that they know when it’s time to evacuate.”

  “Again,” said Robles, “that is a personal decision. I can tell you that when we, and our partner agencies, make the decision to order an evacuation, we’ve done so because the time is right. We don’t wait too long. We don’t jump the gun. It’s a thoughtful process.”

  Lane Turner’s eyes narrowed. He pointed his pen at the camera. “So are you saying that residents shouldn’t evacuate until you order it?”

  Robles exhaled audibly. He rubbed his chin. “No, I’m not saying that. What I am saying is that residents need to pay attention. If they feel as though they need to evacuate, they don’t need to wait for us. They know their home, their neighborhood, the best routes to take when leaving. But I can’t tell them to leave. Too many circumstances go into what is a personal decision, up until the point we order people to leave their homes. It’s emotional, it’s—”

  Lane Turner pointed the pen at the lens again. “What if people get trapped?”