Luna half-snarled with rage, her chest rising and falling.
“You know what?” Wes said then, snapping his hands together. “I have a wonderful suggestion. I think all of you are really going to like this, especially you, hot-shot.”
My wrists strained at the ropes. Chester was now tying up my legs, leaving me standing up against the wall. If I made a single wrong move, I would fall on my face and bust my nose. Hank’s nose still bled freely, making a ketchup-like stain on his shirt.
“I say we start fresh, with a good old-fashioned burning,” Wes said, a smile stretching between his wide cheeks. “Hank, Chester, light up this piece of trash house. And don’t bother to take these hooligans away. They look like they could use a good cleansing. Don’t you think?”
Luna quaked within the confines of her ropes, trying to tear herself from the chair. I stared at her, shocked by the cruelty of this man. After months of running, was I really going to allow this slow-talking loan shark to tear me down?
“Gasoline’s in the car,” Hank said, speaking for the first time since arriving.
Crossing through the house, he left, creaking across the front porch and then back. He dragged two cans of gasoline in with him, each one stinking and thick with dust. Chester accepted one. In a fast motion, they clinked them together like a strange ceremony, a cheers. And then, without further ado, they poured the gasoline around our feet, making fast, squiggly lines around us.
“They’re artists,” Wes said, rubbing his palms together. “I always say, they make my career into a passion project, especially Hank there. He’s the most loyal of them all.”
With a flourish, Hank doused Luna’s left leg. Luna blinked down at her now-sopping dress as gasoline pooled at the edge of the chair.
“Wonderful,” Wes purred. With several clops of his boots, he left the house and stood on the porch, giving the broken porch swing a lazy kick. Drawing a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket, he placed one between his lips, lighting it and then allowing the smoke to filter through his browning teeth and into the air. “I think that’ll do, boys,” he said.
Chester and Hank dropped the gasoline tanks on the carpet and Hank drew out a pack of matches. Swiping one match along the matchbox, he brought a flickering, yellow flame into the air and then flung it between Luna and me, causing the carpet to catch immediately. Orange spikes of fire burned through the beige as Hank and Chester left the house.
“Fuck,” Luna murmured across from me.
Within seconds, Wes, Chester, and Hank had piled into their car and sped down the driveway, leaving us to become corpses.
As I glared at the flames, an image of Aaron flitted through my mind. Aaron, of all people, had grown so stupid, so greedy, he’d allowed us both to get murdered. I remembered him sitting in that armchair at my old place, burning the tips of the ropes his grandfather had given him. His grandfather had been a sailor, and had taught Aaron to tie various complex knots and tidy up the ends. But Aaron had just loved the smell of fire burning through the edges of the rope, crisping it.
Jumping forward, I allowed the fire to lick at the edges of the rope that held my ankles tight. That familiar smell met my nose as the orange and yellow bursts eased over the rope, eating into the core and then—finally—breaking the rope.
Luna gasped in delight. The fire had begun to surround her armchair, causing her to lift her tied legs as high as she could to get them away from the nibbling flames. “Colt! You’re incredible!” she cried out. “Try the arms! Be careful!”
My wrists, tied behind my back, proved more difficult. Dropping to my knees, I turned around quickly, leaning back and trying to keep control of my core. I allowed the fire to rip at my hands for a moment before finding the right groove. The rope tore into two pieces, falling to the carpet and immediately becoming engulfed in flames.
I was free.
“Come on, Colt!” Luna yelled.
Turning quickly, I found that the bottom of Luna’s chair was alight, crisping at the edges and then drawing upward, toward the armrests on which her arms were pinned. Leaping over the fire between us, I reached her, stepping gingerly from one flame-free spot to the next, inhaling the stench of burning gas.
My eyebrows pushing together low over my eyes, I began to untie her arms, releasing first the left, and then the right, in a flurry of confusion and panic. She knelt down and untied her ankles, singeing her hair slightly and crying out in alarm as the stench of it met her nose.
Grabbing her hand, I led us toward the front door, and we bolted down the porch steps and held each other close on the sidewalk, watching as the entire living room filled with thick smoke and the carpet flooded with fire. The armchair split into pieces as the fire engulfed it completely, tearing into the very space in which Luna’s beautiful frame had been pinned moments before.
Luna began to quiver in my embrace. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, hoping I could be strong enough for both of us.
The house’s exterior began to falter then, as well. Fire spit out from the front foyer and onto the porch swing, dancing atop the armrests and causing the back support of the swing to crisp and then burn. Upstairs, the glass in the windows broke from the intense heat inside the house, and smoke began to billow high into the air. We could feel the heat on our faces, but we didn’t move back.
We shouldn’t have made it out alive, but there we were, poised on the brink of death. In those moments of panic, we just had to keep breathing. And we were grateful for each breath.
Chapter Fourteen
Luna
That bastard. Wes Kraemer didn’t have a good bone in his body. I could still smell him, that horrible, thick cologne simmering in the air around us, even as I watched my childhood home burn to the ground.
It had been the home into which my parents had moved after they’d first gotten married. It had been the home in which I’d first kissed a boy, first cried myself to sleep, first learned what it meant to grow up. And now it was mere splinters, falling down before me.
The sheer unfairness of it consumed me. I slipped from beneath Colt’s arms, falling to my knees on the ground. Bringing my hands before me, I let out a guttural scream that made my bones quake. Somewhere far in the distance, I heard the sirens as they barreled toward us.
They didn’t know yet that there would be nothing left to save, that the bones of the house were breaking before us, that the organs had already been destroyed.
As I watched my home burn, Colt bent down next to me, placing his firm hand on my shoulder.
“Baby, you’re not breathing,” he told me.
I forced myself to take a breath, coughing in the smoke-filled air.
“Talk to me,” Colt demanded. “Let me know you’re all right.”
I turned toward his handsome face, blinking. His eyes were just an inch away, glistening and reflecting the fire that grew before us. Soon, I thought, the fire could overtake the entire neighborhood. It could take over the entire world.
“Please, Luna. I don’t want you to go catatonic on me,” he said, giving me a wry smile. “We made it out of there alive, and that’s all that matters. And your father—he’s all right.”
I gave him a soft nod, my nostrils flaring in disbelief. What had been a fortuitous meeting with an attractive outlaw had grown into—what? The most dangerous day of my life? My heart hammered in my chest as I felt the urgency to wish this all away, every moment of it.
But going back to the past didn’t prove to be so easy.
“Listen, Luna,” Colt said, his voice growing lower. “If the cops find me here, I’m finished.”
Without thinking, I reached into my pocket and drew out the keys, my lifeless hand dropping them into Colt’s outstretched one. He clenched them, giving me a knowing look. The sirens grew louder and more insistent around us, the fire trucks and the ambulance halting in strange patterns outside the burning building.
“You’re going to be okay, right?” Colt asked me, as if I had any other cho
ice than to stay there, to observe the world as it shook before me.
“Go on,” I said, hardly able to hear my own voice. “Get out of here.”
Colt pulled his lips into a half-smile. “I’ll come back for you,” he called back.
My hands fell to my sides, my fingers tracing along the sidewalk. The firefighters around me began to holler at one another, yanking a hose from the fire hydrant down the road and toward the burning yellow house. Colt gave me a final nod and then raced toward my little red Chevy, hopping into the front seat and revving down the driveway.
As he drove away, I felt certain I would never see him again. With a quick leap, I rose to my feet and thrust a waving hand toward him, hopeful that he would remember me: the diner waitress with long, fire-tinged hair and bright green eyes. We’d had a connection. We’d almost died together.
And now, watching him go, I knew our paths couldn’t cross again. We were too volatile, too alive for one another. Colt’s path was the open road, and mine was right here, standing on the sidewalk, watching my life burn to the ground. It was a metaphor. It was the reason I woke up and went to work and cared for my father. Somebody had to do it.
The water burst over the boards of yellow and through the shattered windows, making a brown, swampy soup of the house. The firefighters’ helmets reflected strangely in the late October sun.
As I stood, my arms pressed to my chest, a police officer approached me, placing a hand on my upper back and guiding me toward his squad car. He began to ask me questions, to demand things of me, but my ears had given up on hearing. I just shook my head at him, in shock, my eyes like saucers.
How did he expect me to know anything when, if it wasn’t for Colt, I would have been a pile of ashes the living room floor?
“Kraemer,” I whispered to the ground, unsure if the officer could hear me or not. My nose filled with the scent of smoke, making me unable to breathe correctly. I staggered into it. “He did this. Him and his men—to teach my father a lesson. They have guns.”
“Guns?” the officer repeated.
He motioned his partner over and whispered to him. They glanced at one another, and then me, incredulously. To them, this was merely an accident, as if houses just sprung up in flames overnight all the time. They couldn’t imagine the depth of what had happened over the past day.
My eyes flashed with anger. “Wes Kraemer. Make sure he pays.”
Putting me in the back of a squad car, they tried to drive me to the station, but I insisted they take me to my friend Donna’s apartment instead. They drove me with my lips pressed tightly together and my fingers against the windowpane. My eyes filled with tears.
As we drove past the diner, I caught a view of Marcia in the window, swiping a sponge over table six, her eyes glancing toward the black smoke in the distance. I hadn’t appeared at work that day. Now, at least, I had a pretty good reason why.
Chapter Fifteen
Colt
The little red Chevy served me well, revving down the highway at first 80 mph, and then 92. My fingers gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles white, and I turned up the radio as loud as I could stand it, screaming into the noise of a ’90s metal band and feeling my pulse rise.
I’d almost died back there. Both of us had. We were playing with extra time now, like we’d gotten a sequel to a movie that hadn’t been that great anyway. Where would the plot take us? Could we act it out?
A memory flashed through my mind, of Luna standing on the sidewalk, black tears coursing down her cheeks and that little yellow shack ablaze behind her. Jesus, she’d looked so broken and lost, terrified. God knows I didn’t want to leave her there, but what choice did I have? What kind of life could I offer a girl like her?
I’d been driving for about five minutes when I caught sight of cop cars in the distance, barreling toward me. Sensing a chase was on the cards, I forced the car into overdrive, blasting across the final stretch of the shitty Midwestern town, past abandoned houses and a deserted movie theatre, past the crooked cross on the Baptist church and the little ice cream shack that sold soft serve into November. Past Wes Kramer’s dilapidated offices.
The bastard loan shark was right there. Parked outside was the very same vehicle that had screeched away from the scene with Wes, Chester, and Hank inside, meaning they’d hightailed it back to the office to talk shop and gab about their victory. They were probably toasting to it at this very moment, clinking beer together and hailing Wes Kraemer, the man who delivered violence whenever necessary.
I only had a few minutes before the cops arrived. I could still see them barreling toward me in the distance. But I wanted to make my own mark, to ensure that Kraemer knew who’d brought about his downfall.
In a perfect world, I’d have given Kraemer what he deserved and gotten the hell out of there. But now, with flashing lights in the rearview, it was clear that would mean me going down too. I guess you can’t win them all.
Parking in the lot, I glanced at the fence I’d pushed in, smirking slightly as I placed a cigarette between my lips and lit it. Inhaling smoke once more, I strutted up the front steps, lifted my hand to the door, and then knocked properly, like my grandmother had taught me to.
“We’re closed!” Hank called from inside, chuckling.
I lifted my arm again, puffing away at my cigarette, feeling half-crazed. I knocked once more, knowing I was tapping the nails into my coffin.
“I said we’re closed!”
“Important business,” I said, standing stock still, my feet shoulder’s width apart. I could feel my pulse in my shoulders, ready to push forward, to attack.
I listened to the gorgeous twinkling of someone unlocking the door’s many bolts. After ripping it open, Hank stood in his stubby glory, a beer sweating in his hand, his cheeks bright red from the fast ride back. The moment he saw me, his jaw nearly dropped from his face.
“What—” he stuttered.
I thrust myself forward, punching him square in the nose and causing blood to pour onto his lips and down to his chest for the second time that day. He howled in pain, falling against the wall, leaving me a clear path to Chester, who I punched first in the nose and then in the jaw before sidelining the tall man. He dropped his beer, causing it to spill all over the beige carpet.
Wes stood frozen in the corner, the foam of his beer still atop his lips. I glared at him, cracking my knuckles, my cigarette half-smoked in my mouth. I puffed smoke toward him, sensing he felt the fear of God for the first time in years.
“Don’t suppose you expected me?” I asked, wanting to play with him the same way he’d played with Luna and me.
As I spoke, Hank attempted to barrel toward me, but I pushed my knee up, knocking him in the chest and hearing a mighty crack.
“You’re stronger than I gave you credit for. I’ll say that,” Wes said, his eyes twinkling. “But don’t count your blessings quite yet, kid. This is a long road you’re on, and if you walk out that door right now, I think I’ll find a way to forgive you and let bygones be bygones.”
“After lighting us on fire, you expect me to ‘let bygones be bygones?’” I yelled. “You’ve got another thing coming, asshole.”
In a flash, I rushed forward, preparing to deliver a punch to his cheek. But, in the commotion, he grabbed his gun from his holster, lifted it, and smacked it across my face. My bones cracked, not breaking, but seeming to grow loose against my tongue.
“Jesus,” I cried out, bringing my hand to my cheek.
Without another lost moment, I shoved myself, bear-like, at Wes’s chest, slamming him against the wall and knocking the rusted-out safe to the ground. Money fell to the floor around us while we rolled wildly, beginning to tussle. He’d lost the gun. It glinted in the far corner as we flung our fists against one another. As he was a much older man, his muscles strained. He was no match for me.
“You gangster—you fucking—” he began.
But I punched his mouth again, finding my rage taking over. I couldn’t c
ontrol it. In that moment, all my anger over Aaron’s murder, over being on the run, and all the horrible decisions I’d made in the past year rolled together, giving me a momentum I couldn’t comprehend.
But just as I was sure I would punch Wes Kraemer into a bloody pile of pulp, the cops ripped through the doorway, drawing their weapons and pointing them at all four of us, forcing my hands into the air as I blinked with wild eyes.
“What in the living Christ?” one of the cops boomed, glancing from the bleeding Chester, Hank, and Wes, to me, red-cheeked and crazed-looking, on top of the loan shark, poised to strike again.
“You Wes Kraemer?” another cop demanded, pointing his gun at Wes.
“This man is trying to kill me,” Wes mumbled, unable to speak correctly. I realized then, with a bit of sick satisfaction, that I’d busted his jaw.
“And who are you?” one of the cops demanded, drawing closer to me. Another wrapped his hands around my biceps, lifting me from Wes’s crooked body and locking my wrists into handcuffs.
“I know I don’t have to tell you anything until my lawyer’s around,” I said back, my heart still thumping against my ribcage. “But this man right here, he started the fire back at Luna’s place. He left us to die.”
“And this monster’s been robbing people like me all over the state. Even his car’s stolen,” Wes stuttered, pointing wildly at me.
The cops paid no attention to our words. They put us all in handcuffs and guided us toward the squad cars. Blue and red lights flashed in my eyes. I blinked quickly, sensing an onslaught of emotion.
Everything was over. It was finished. I was going to go to jail for a long, long time—for stealing the car, for stealing the money, for being involved with the Detroit Seven.
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