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parade.
    Lauren watched Reid move toward the men storming through brush.
    “We’re all right,” he shouted. “I got Lauren out, but Lucas and Tim are still in the house. I was going in after them next.” When he spotted the sheriff in the half dozen flashlights surrounding him, he added, “I tried to tell them this was a bad idea, sir, but thank God I went in to help Lauren, just in case she got into trouble.”
    The first men hurried past Reid, ignoring him, but finally Sheriff Brigman and an EMT stopped.
    Men with bright flashlights moved into the house with ropes and a portable stretcher. She could hear Lucas yelling for them to be careful and guiding their steps. Tim was somewhere below, still crying.
    Her father shone his light along her body. She could feel warm blood trickling down her face, and more blood dripped down from a gash on her thigh. “I’ll take her from here, son,” he said to Reid as if she were a puppy found in the road. “You all right to walk, Reid?”
    “I can make it, sir.” Reid limped, making a show of soldiering through great pain.
    “We’ve got the boy,” someone yelled from inside the house. “He’s breathing, but we’ll need the stretcher to get him out. Looks like his leg is broken in more than one place.”
    Her father never let go his hold of her as they watched Tim being lifted out of the house. One of the EMTs said that, besides the broken leg, the boy probably had broken ribs. The sound of Tim’s crying was shrill now, like that of a wounded animal.
    She listened as her father instructed the ambulance driver to take Reid and Tim. They needed care on the way to the hospital. He picked up Lauren and carried her to his car as if she were still his little girl. “I’ll transport her to the emergency room. She’s got wounds, but she’s not losing much blood.”
    “Lucas is hurt, too,” she said as the boy who’d saved her life was helped down from the second floor window. Lucas was the last to leave the haunted house. He’d made sure everyone got out first.
    The sheriff nodded. “Make sure he’s stable and put him in my car, too. I can get them both there faster than the ambulance can.”
    Two firemen followed his orders.
    Lauren looked over her father’s shoulder as Lucas moved clear of the shadow of the house. She’d had far more than the little adventure she’d wanted tonight. When her father set her in the back of his cruiser, she wondered at what point she’d gone wrong and swore for the rest of her life she’d never do something so dumb again.
    One of the men from the volunteer fire department bandaged up Lucas’s arm and wrapped something around her leg. The sheriff oversaw the loading of the other two injured, then returned. She could almost feel anger coming off him like steam, but he wouldn’t step out of his role here. Here he was the sheriff. Later he’d be one outraged father.
    Wrapped in blankets, she sat in the backseat of her father’s cruiser with Lucas and watched everyone load up like a small army. Mrs. Patterson had tripped in the darkness, and two firemen were taking her home for treatment.
    She looked over at Lucas sitting a foot away. He was leaning his head back, not seeming to notice that his forehead dripped blood. He’d saved her and helped bring out Tim. She realized he’d passed her to Reid so he could go back for Tim. No one was patting him on the back and saying things like “great job” as they were to Reid.
    Lauren seemed to have been labeled “poor victim” and Lucas was invisible.
    “You saved me tonight,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you tell my dad? He thinks this whole thing was your fault, thanks to Reid.”
    “The truth isn’t worth crossing Reid. Let him play the hero. All I care about is that you’re all right. If I spoke up, I might not have a job tomorrow. One word from Reid and the foreman will take me off the list of extras hires, or worse, tell my father to find another job.”
    “We’re alive,