Natalie holds Michael tight.
Keeping him warm.
Shielding him from the cold salt spray coming off the waves.
Evacuate, the voice had said. Evacuate, she remembered, meant to get out, so she grabbed Michael and got out of the house even before the fire had spread from the tree to the roof.
Out onto the lawn and then the street, and all the people were headed out toward the highway, the Pacific Coast Highway, but Natalie decided that all the people were wrong, because they seemed to be heading into the fire.
So Natalie stopped and thought about it for a few seconds and decided that the safest place to be in a fire would be by water, by the ocean, and that way even if the fire burned all the way down to the beach, they could always jump into the ocean and swim until the fire went out.
So she took Leo under her arm and Michael by the hand and led them down toward the beach. Down the steps toward Salt Creek Beach where Aunt Letty had taken them Boogie boarding and they had gone for picnics and looking for crabs and snails in the tidal pools.
Because Aunt Letty will be looking for us, Natalie thinks, and she will know to come here.
Jack's running along the beach, the bluffs above him on fire, the peninsula of Monarch Bay smoking, and the smoke is thickening. It's hard to see and he doesn't know how he's going to find Michael and Natalie and he's just hoping that they got out of there, and then he hears this dog yipping.
The kids recognize him.
Go to him because he's an adult they know here.
"Where's my daddy?" Michael asks.
Black eyes big and full of tears.
Natalie asks, "Where's Aunt Letty?"
"I don't know," Jack says. "Has she been here?"
Natalie does a little pirouette of anxiety.
Of course she's here, Jack thinks. She's here for the same reason I'm here. Oh, God, I hope she didn't go to the house.
"It's going to be all right," Jack says, holding them. "It's going to be all right."
Because people will lie.
Their mom is dead.
Their dad killed her.
And the last person who loved them is maybe looking for them where they aren't – namely, in another burning house.
And waiting in the wings is Mother Russia.
But Jack repeats, "It's going to be all right."
He heads up for the house.
It's on fire.
He goes in. Hard to see, hard to breathe. The house is filling with smoke.
"Letty! Letty!"
He makes his way up the stairs to the kids' room.
She's facedown on the bed.
"Oh, no. Oh, no."
He turns her over.
"Don't be dead. Please don't be dead."
She's unconscious but still breathing. He picks her up and carries her down the stairs.
Which are on fire.
Too many flames, too much smoke.
And she might not have the time.
So he plunges through it.
Comes out the other side, comes out the door into the smoky air and lays her down.
"Please don't die. Please don't die."
She starts to cough. Cough and then breathe and then her eyes open. When she can speak she asks about the kids.
He picks her up again and carries her down the point to the beach.
When they get there, Nicky is standing with his kids, his arms wrapped protectively around them.
Jack leans in to him, whispers something into his ear.
Let's do a deal.