The Fire was devastating. Most of the school was collapsed inwards on itself, but the trees a few yards from the building barely had singed leaves.
"Odd," a fireman commented of Nathan we he got there "all this happened in less than five minutes – I've never seen anything like it! Amazing. . ."
"I have," grunted Nathan to himself, striding away.
"Nathan!" a deep voice boomed across what was left of the High School campus.
"Not now, Duke." Nathan growled back when duke reached him, puffing and panting like he'd just sprinted a marathon.
"You're gunna wanna hear this, Nathan." He warned.
"I said not now!" Nathan yelled, walking away.
"It's about Audrey." Nathan stopped. Damn – he know how to get my attention, he thought sourly. He turned.
"Is she ok?" he called back urgently. Duke shrugged.
"She's the same – her vitals are steadily declining, but we still have time. But that's not the thing. She's been muttering."
"So she's not in a coma anymore?" Nathan asked hopefully. It was a good sign, a very, very good sign!
"No, the Doctors say she's still in a coma, and all the equipment says she's pretty much brain-dead, but she's still muttering. Keeps saying things like 'blonde hair' and 'hereditary' and 'need help'."
"What? That doesn't make sense." Nathan stepped forwards.
"I tried telling her that, but she, urm, she didn't listen." He shot back mockingly. Nathan clenched his fist – now was not the time.
"Fine, but why couldn't you have called me?" Nathan snapped angrily.
"Your phone isn't on, Tin Man." Duke said in a duh-you're-an-idiot kind of way. Nathan clenched his fists tighter. But Nathan didn't know what to reply, so he just strode off to where three teenagers were huddled in foil blankets, their faces darkened with smoke with pale streaks down their cheeks where tears had washed the dirt away.
"Hello, I'm Officer Nathan Wuornos from Haven P.D – could I ask you some questions?" Nathan introduced briskly to the kids. They looked at one another before nodding slowly. Nathan sat down on the back of the ambulance that was facing them.
"Am I right I hearing you were witnesses to the fire?" all three nodded mutely "Can you tell me if you saw anything unusual before or after the fire started? Even the silliest of things, I need to hear them." Silence. Then a pretty blonde girl with a burn on her forehead spoke.
"I was in the art room when the fire started. The art room is a separate building to the main school, but everything seemed to catch alight at the same time." She paused before looking Nathan straight in the eye "I don't think it was an accident. I think it was deliberate."
"Did you see anyone acting suspicious around the time of the fire?" Nathan questioned.
"Nope – but I was concentrating on my work." She said, then started tearing up, apparently over the loss of her art. Nathan fought off rolling his eyes.
"Actually, I saw someone run out of the building just before the fire started," a tiny Indian girl said shyly. Half of her hair had been burnt off and the smell of burning hair still surrounded her; even from where Nathan sat he could smell it.
"What did this person look like?" he asked quickly. The girl scrunched up her nose distastefully.
"Tall – a boy – with dark hair and wearing a green shirt and plain jeans. I couldn't see his face, but I'd bet my house that it was Jason Barnes."
"Jason Barnes, who's Jason Barnes?" Nathan pressed. The boy, who had stayed silent until then, snorted.
"A freak." He said rudely "He hangs out with animals more than humans – total tree-hugger. He stood outside school with a bunch of other hippies protesting against experimentation on animals and trying to convince every person who can hear him to 'save lives – go vegan'." The boy snorted again.
"Can you remember anything else about Jason? Where he lives, who his parents are?"
"His Mum's a doctor in the vet's surgery near the docks – he hangs out there allot after school, taking care of the animals." The blonde girl said, wrapping the foil sheet tighter around her.
"Can you remember who he was with in the protest?"
"Ummm," the Indian girl said "Maya Wilson, Jeremy Jones, Anna Priestfield, Samantha Kyle, Liddy Hamilton. I can't remember anyone else."
"Right, good," Nathan wrote down the names.
"Wait," said the boy "you're forgetting that girl, you know the weird one. She had that brother that died." Nathan paled before the boy even finished.
"Ah!" the boy snapped his fingers as he remembered "Laura West! That was her. Her brother was Matt West."