Then someone noticed the man on the porch.
He wasn’t running away like everyone else. He wasn’t trapped either. He lay stretched across the front doorway as if he had deliberately chosen the most dangerous place possible. His boots rested against one side of the frame, shoulders pressed to the other, completely blocking the entrance. Heat shimmered around him, smoke washing over his body in slow waves, yet he barely reacted.
He looked like he belonged there.
Tall, heavily built, mid-forties maybe. Tattoos wrapped around his arms and climbed the side of his neck, faded ink blurred by years and sunlight. His leather vest was burned along one edge, and ash streaked across his face. In one hand he held a small object — a red plastic toy truck missing a wheel — turning it slowly as if the motion helped him think.
Captain Ryan Delgado stepped off Engine 6 and immediately shouted.
“Sir! Move away from the doorway right now!”
The biker didn’t even glance at him.
