Chapter 4

My face went hard.

I hadn't expected Taylor to be this vicious. He was using my wife and daughter to threaten me.

But then I glanced at the action camera hanging around my daughter's neck, and the anger cooled fast.

The fire had broken out so suddenly that the camera had been running the whole time.

Which meant everything Hugh had just said was recorded, all of it.

"I didn't use force. His arm isn't broken."

The crowd didn't believe a word of it.

"I've got it all on video. He won't save anyone, and he hits people too!"

"This piece of trash! I'm furious! I've got a hundred thousand followers on TikTok. I'm exposing what he did!"

I kept myself between them and my wife and daughter.

"I already told you, I'm not a firefighter. I'm an ordinary person, same as all of you. You can't just charge in blindly. You're standing here guilt-tripping me, so why don't you go in and save them yourselves?"

My explanation only made them angrier.

They stood there like a pack of saints on the moral high ground, using me as an outlet, pouring out the shame of their own refusal to go in.

People started hurling whatever was in their hands at me.

"If I had your training, I'd have run in there already. You think I'd be down here begging you?"

"You don't deserve to be called human, and you don't deserve to live! Right now I wish it were you burning in there!"

"Waah, waah…"

Right then, the sirens finally sounded outside the mall.

A crew of firefighters in orange came charging in.

Hugh, who had been lying on the ground working the crowd for all he was worth, suddenly went quiet.

The panic on his face vanished, replaced by a cold, thick cruelty.

"Joseph. If my wife and kid die, your whole family goes into the ground with them."

I said nothing, my fists clenched.

Hugh stepped up close and leaned in again, whispering, "Five million."

I stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

He kept his voice low.

"Don't think I don't know. The buyout on your family's place was well over ten million."

"I'm only asking for five. Half. That's not much."

"Give me the money and I'll let the whole thing go. I'll post online and clear your name myself."

Cold and flat, I said, "You set all of this up."

Hugh let out a soft laugh.

"So what if I did? Who's going to believe you?"

"Weren't they all right there with me a minute ago, pushing you to go in and die?"

"Heard you made junior supervisor after I got fired. Think your company's scared of a little bad press?"

I ground the words out through my teeth. "You bastard. And I actually thought of you as a friend."

Hugh's mood flared up again all at once, his whole body shaking.

"Because we were friends! Why do you get money and power and a happy family, and I don't even have enough for a pack of cigarettes?"

"Joseph! Think hard about what I just offered you. Otherwise…"

He didn't finish. He shot me one last vicious glare, then whipped around and threw himself flat on the ground, wailing.

"He let them die! He just let them die!"

The crowd inside the mall pulled out their phones and aimed them at me one after another.

The outrage spread faster than I ever imagined.

Before long my photo was on the local front pages.

【Firefighter refuses to save lives. Mother and daughter burn to death in nursing room.】

【Man kneels and begs for help. Firefighter says he's retired.】

【Begs for rescue, gets beaten instead. Firefighter's old friend says it's none of his business.】

In the video, Hugh kowtowed to me over and over while I stood in front of him, my face cold as ice.

The abuse and mockery online buried me in an instant.

I tried to explain that I wasn't a firefighter, but these people had already decided who I was and wouldn't hear a word of it.

Some of them even marched straight into my company to report me to my bosses.

I hadn't even left the mall with my wife and daughter when my supervisor called.

"Joseph, what's going on?"

I explained. "This whole thing is a setup."

"Now's not the time for that. This is doing real damage to the company. Take a few days off first."

His voice was heavy on the other end.

I froze for a few seconds, and chose not to argue with him.

"All right. Understood."

Holding my daughter, I waited while the firefighters carried two mannequins out of the nursing room, both burned out of shape.

When the onlookers realized they were only mannequins, they didn't say a thing. They just kept standing there, quietly watching for the show.

While no one was paying attention, I dug an audio device out of one of the charred mannequins, shoved it into my pocket, and turned to go.

Outside the mall, I told my wife to take our daughter to her parents' place for a few days.

She looked at me, worried. "Honey, please don't do anything stupid. Don't do anything you can't take back."

I patted her shoulder.

"You don't know your own husband by now? Relax. I'll have this handled soon."

I watched her leave, then dialed my childhood friend.

"Someone's framing me. I want to file a report."