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Jet didn’t need to smell it; she could see it now, dancing in the beam of her flashlight. Smoke creeping out of the carpet beneath their feet and up, gathering into a dark cloud against the ceiling, skulking over them. ‘The building’s on fire!’ Billy screamed. ‘We need to leave!’ Jet’s feet wouldn’t move, rooted there, the floor growing warm through the soles of her shoes, warmer, into hot. They needed to leave, yes, she knew that, but for some reason she couldn’t make herself move, her brain left behind, back twenty seconds ago when it was still quiet, her heart seized in her chest, so fast, like it wasn’t even beating at all, erased by the blare of that alarm.
The building was on fire? How was the fucking building on fire? Her mind stuck on that part first. ‘Jet!’ Billy screamed over the alarm, in her face now. He grabbed her working arm, pulled her back into life. ‘Run!’ She finally moved, brain back in her body, moving with her, fear taking over. ‘Wait!’ Jet snatched her arm from Billy, doubled back toward Luke’s desk. ‘We need these!’ She grabbed the pile of papers Billy had found, scrunching them around the flashlight, holding it all in one hand.
‘Jet, let’s go!’
‘Right behind you!’
She ran to catch up. ‘No, you go first, I’ve got you!’ Billy caught her, pushed her ahead, his hand pressed to her back, the smoke thickening the darkness around them.
They moved together, past Angie Rice’s desk.
Darting around another.
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Steps faster than the repeating pattern of the alarm, racing it to the door.
Billy crashed into it first, grabbed the handle, hauled it open.
A wall of heat slammed into them, clawing at Jet’s eyes, too hot, too bright. ‘Oh my god,’ she said – not that she could hear herself, over the alarm or the growl of the flames.
It was all gone. Nothing but fire, licking up the walls, hungry, crackling, an angry laugh as it destroyed everything, screamed for more. Everywhere.
Reaching up toward them, claiming half the staircase. The metal steps screeched as they buckled and bent in the heat.
Not a corridor anymore, just a tunnel of flame, building, growing stronger as it bent around toward the warehouse. The deepest reds and the blackest smoke spilling out in a firestorm, faster, hungrier. Not a warehouse anymore, it was hell broken open, raging right beneath the office.
Jet coughed, the thick black smoke reaching them first, claiming them.
But it wasn’t just smoke she could smell. There was something sharper,
more acrid.
Gas.
Billy grabbed Jet by the shoulders, pulled her back, kicking the door shut.
The smoke found other ways in, through the cracks, through the floor. ‘Is there another way down?’ Billy screamed, scrabbling at Jet’s neck, pulling her shirt up over her nose. He coughed, then covered his own. ‘Another staircase at the back!’ Jet yelled through the fabric, holding it with her one hand, flashlight and papers still gripped in her fingers. ‘Go!’ Billy pushed her ahead, back through the office. The smoke hovered lower now, eye level, blinding them, stealing everything but each other.
Jet crashed into a desk, a sharp pain above her knee. Kept going.
She couldn’t see, she couldn’t see, the flashlight only found more whirls of smoke, lighting it from within. She wanted to take Billy’s hand, but she
couldn’t see it, had no hands to spare.
Couldn’t see, couldn’t see.
She planted her foot and the floor cracked beside it, a fault line of bright
glowing orange that she could see.
Could see.
The floor crumbled away, down, an earthquake groan as it ruptured, melting into the inferno below.
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Jet stumbled away from the hole, that widening mouth, falling back, crashing down.
She watched as it happened. She could see now, too much, the flames finding their way up here, clambering out of that hole down into hell.
With another groan, one of the desks tipped, lost its legs. It slid into that gaping mouth, lost to the flames below. Angie Rice’s desk, the photo frame tumbling in first.
Jet could see Billy now, on the other side of hell. ‘No, don’t!’ she screamed, too late.
Billy jumped clean over the chasm, crashing to his knees beside her.
He wrapped his arms under hers, dragged her to her feet. ‘This way!’ They ran to the other side, away from the flames chasing behind them, eating up the carpet in widening rings. Finding more to consume. The desks. The walls.
Heat like nothing Jet had ever felt before, bearing down against her skin, pushing from behind, a sharp stab of it against her fingers.
Jet glanced down.
She screamed.
The papers clutched in her hand were on fire.
She dropped them.
The flashlight falling too.
A little white glowing triangle, abandoned behind her.
The floor gave way and ate that too. ‘Run!’ she screamed as she and Billy barreled into the hall beyond, past Dad’s office and the filing room, past the kitchen on the left.
Jet’s dead arm thrashed as she sprinted, a puppet arm without a string,
unbalancing her, throwing her off. ‘That door, down the end!’ They were almost there, and Jet could hear herself now. The alarm wasn’t blaring anymore; must have burned, melted away with everything else.
They reached the door together, Billy slamming down on the handle. ‘No!’ he screamed. ‘It’s stuck!’ Tried again, double-handed, rattling the handle up and down. ‘I’ll get this open. Stand back!’ Jet did, clearing the way, choking on the smoke, covering her nose to breathe her own air instead, watching as Billy backed up from the door.
He kicked off his heels and bounded toward the door in three fast strides.
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Rammed his shoulder into it, hard.
It jolted but didn’t open.
Billy drew back, three steps, threw himself at the door again.
It buckled, gave him a few inches, not enough.
Billy backed up again and Jet blinked and they weren’t here anymore, on the brink of hell, the world crumbling around them. Jet was behind a computer and Billy was on-screen, breaking down another door, ramming it with his shoulder. Screaming her name like if he screamed hard enough, it
could bring her back to life. ‘Jet!’ The same scream now.
Jet blinked, brought herself back to hell.
Billy had done it, tumbling through the open door into the stairwell.
No smoke swarming in this way, the stairs clear.
They were out.
Jet took a step forward and it all came undone.
The floor split in front of her with a deafening roar, a gorge opening up.
The wall, the one separating them from the office, folded over, caved in.
Shrieking as it fell to the flames, plugging the hole, bringing some of the roof down with it.
Jet looked up, could see the stars, before the smoke stole them away.
She couldn’t see Billy anymore, on the other side of all that rubble.
But she heard him. ‘Jet!’ he screamed. ‘Jet, are you OK?!’ Jet coughed, a hacking sound against her hand. ‘Billy, go!’ she yelled. ‘You’re out! Go!’
‘No, Jet! I’m not leaving without you!’
‘You have to!’ ‘No!’ Jet stepped back, the ground groaning beneath her. ‘Billy! Go, now! The whole thing is going to come down!’ ‘Not without you!’ Jet’s throat seized, a fist around her heart. ‘Go, Billy! You have to leave! You have to live!’
She stepped back again. ‘Not going without you!’ ‘Yes you are!’ she screamed, voice fighting the flames, the sigh of the dying building. ‘I have three days left! I’m already dead, Billy! You’re not,
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you have to live!’ ‘No!’ ‘Billy, you go! You leave or I will never fucking forgive you!’ Her voice cracked, not the ground. ‘And I will die hating you, I swear. Go! Please, Billy! For me!’ His voice wasn’t there anymore, just the sound of boots striking the metal
steps, doubled up, like a heartbeat.
Good, he was gone, he was safe.
Billy had to live.
But so did she.
Jet’s body absorbed the heat, used it, lit a fire in her gut.
Yes, she only had three days left to live. But those three days were hers, and she was not going to let hell take them from her. They were hers, and she was going to fucking live them, every small moment, stretch each
minute into a lifetime.
Jet had to live.
And the other side of that too came crashing in, her breath shuddering
with it.
She didn’t want to die.
She did not want to die.
Her heart screamed it and her head too, guiding her feet back.
She was scared to die.
She would not die.
All that fear she thought she’d lost, because the dying didn’t need fear but the living did, it all came rushing back, wearing her skin, roaring in her ears.
Jet flinched, jumping out of the way of a burning ceiling panel, and she ran.
Back down the corridor, charging through the door into her dad’s office.
Shutting the door like it could stand between her and hell, keep it at bay.
To the window at the back.
Jet slammed into it, staring down through the glass, blinking away the
smoke.
Yes, she was right.
About ten feet below the window was the tilted roof of a long, narrow lean-to. A covered storage area against the wall down there. Better than
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jumping out the second story of a burning building and hoping for the best, and that was Option B.
She just had to get the window open. A sash window, only two panes of glass between her and living.
Jet reached up, undid the catch in the middle, the smoke gathering around
her, forcing its way into her throat.
She coughed.
She choked.
She grabbed the handle on the lower half of the window and she pulled.
It didn’t move.
No, no, why wouldn’t it move?
The window was stuck, or her left arm was too weak.
She needed both arms, needed two hands. Fuck.
Jet pulled again, straining, through her fingers all the way up through her neck, screaming with the effort. ‘I am not going to die!’ she yelled at the window, at her own ghostly reflection.
She lifted one foot, drove it into the windowsill to give her left arm more
power, and she pulled.
The window didn’t move. ‘Fuck you!’ Jet coughed.
Smash the glass, smash the glass, she needed something to smash the
glass.
Not going to die, not going to die.
The computer on Dad’s desk? That was heavy. No, too heavy, Jet couldn’t pick it up with one hand. Something else, something else.
A large gold pot in the corner with a sad-looking palm plant inside, too green among all this smoke.
Jet picked it up and ran, ramming it into the window, the plant still inside.
The pot shattered but the window did not, dirt and leaves scattering over
her feet. ‘Fuck!’ she roared.
The door behind her was on fire now, the wall too, the flames finding her,
closing in.
Trapped inside her dad’s office.
Not going to die here; she was not going to die.
Something else.
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On the desk, beside the computer, was a large photo frame. It looked heavy, the frame made of marble or something close to it.
A photo of the Masons. Jet just a squinting red-faced kid, probably thinking about frogs. Mom, Dad, Emily, Luke. That final summer, before five Masons became four.
Jet grabbed it because she was not going to die.
She stumbled through the smoke, back to the window, raised her good arm, and struck.
The corner of the stone frame smacked into the window. Glass broke, not from the window, from the photo, one shard still covering Luke, the rest breaking away, glitters of glass catching in the folds of Jet’s jacket.
She struck again, harder, and the window cracked, a spiderweb in a split second, spreading, anchoring itself.
Jet pulled back, aimed for the middle of the web.
She drove the corner through and the window shattered, giving way to
the outside world.
Air.
It rushed inside and Jet sucked at it, the cold breeze finding her red-raw face.
The smoke pushed her out of the way, rolling out to claim the sky.
The carpet on fire behind her.
No time, no time to breathe.
Jet smashed the rest of the glass, punching it out with the frame, clearing the bottom ledge.
Then she dropped the photo, wrapped her left hand around the sill.
Pulled herself up onto the ledge, one leg, then two, sitting on the edge.
No time for second thoughts, not even first thoughts.
Jet rolled forward and let go.
She fell, long enough to think, I’m falling.
Hit the roof of the lean-to feetfirst, then her back, winded, all the air
forced out of her, the smoke too.
She was still moving, rolling.
Going to roll right off the edge, she couldn’t stop herself, not with one arm and – Two hands caught her, appearing out of the dark night, strong against the shoulder she could feel, and the one she couldn’t.
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Billy pulled her to her feet, standing on the roof of the lean-to, his face dirty from ash, a cut on his neck, trickle of blood, even brighter against the grime. ‘You came back,’ Jet said, voice ragged. ‘You got out,’ Billy said, wiping his eyes. ‘Don’t make me do that again, OK?’ The words shook in his throat. ‘Don’t make me leave you. I was going up inside that window if you didn’t come out of it. That’s not fair, Jet.
Not fair.’ A thunderous creak behind them as something collapsed inside the building, whining, crying, feeding the fire. ‘Got to get out of here.’ Billy took her good hand, led her along the lean- to. ‘There’s a dumpster over here with pallets inside, that’s how I climbed up.’ Billy went first, jumping down. Then he turned back, standing on the edge of the yellow dumpster. ‘Sit on the edge and drop down. I can catch you.’ He did catch her, but he lost his footing, stepping back on the shifting pallets, falling over. Jet landed on Billy, head on his chest, rolled off, a corner of a wooden pallet sticking into her lower back.
She didn’t move. Billy didn’t either.
They lay there for a stolen moment, staring up at the burning building.
At the window Jet had just come out of, angry flames licked at the frame,
escaping outside and up the bricks.
‘We almost died,’ Billy said quietly.
‘We’re alive,’ Jet said instead. ‘I smelled gas.’ ‘Me too.’ Jet coughed. ‘Someone set fire to it.’ ‘While we were inside,’ Billy added.
Jet looked over at him. ‘Because we were inside?’ A new sound joined the roar of the flames, fighting it, not winning yet, too far away. A high-pitched whine, keening up and down. ‘Sirens.’ Jet sat up. ‘We need to go before they get here.’ She groaned, picking herself up from the pallets one-handed, jumping down to the grass, Billy behind her.
Through the parking lot, around the vans, a loud crash behind them as half a wall caved in, scattering bricks, dragging a section of the upper floor down with it. Sparks as it landed, a snowfall of dark ash.
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Billy pressed his lips together. ‘We weren’t supposed to break anything.’ ‘We didn’t,’ Jet told him.
They walked back through the main gate, the sensor opening it for them, sirens getting louder, closer, a werewolf howl at a not-full moon. ‘Should we uncover the security cameras?’ Billy asked, pointing to the taped-up camera, the one they’d danced in front of only an hour ago. ‘Hmm, I think they’ll probably be able to tell someone’s been here,’ Jet said, another crash behind, another wall collapsing.
They followed the drive around, Jet’s blue truck there, waiting for them.
Jet hesitated, looked back.
Mason Construction was gone – everything her dad had built. Didn’t look like a building anymore, folding in around the inferno. Its death throes were loud, almost human, the hiss of things burning not far from a scream. The moon above blocked out by a roiling column of black smoke.
Something else hovered in the sky too, near the smoke: a little red light winking, a dark mechanical shadow against the darker sky. ‘Is that … is that a drone over there?’ Jet squinted. ‘Come on.’ Billy opened the truck door. ‘They’re almost here. We have to go.’ Jet could see them now too, red and blue flashes in the trees, right the way down the dark road, speeding toward them.
She opened the passenger door, dropped inside as Billy started the
engine. ‘Go, go, go!’
Jet dipped her head under the stream of water. Reached out, turned the shower colder, colder still. Her skin felt too hot, like the fire had infected her, made itself at home, reminding her how close she’d come, a bit of hell that stayed behind.
The water soaked through her bandages, but she didn’t care. Needed that smell of smoke out of her hair.
A burn on her left index finger that she could feel.
A burn on her right arm that she couldn’t. A big one, above the elbow, bits of melted fabric from her jacket stuck in the wound, fused with it.
A cut on her knee, a nebula of bruised skin already forming around it.
A gash on her left palm, from the broken window.
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But the worst of it was this feeling in her chest. Too tight, squeezing her heart out of place, into the base of her throat.
And those words she still couldn’t let go of, even though the danger had
passed.
Her lip quivered and her eyes stung.
She pressed them shut and wished it away, this feeling. It couldn’t help her.
Turned the shower even colder, her skin ridging with goosebumps.
Her chest tightened the more she pretended to ignore it, couldn’t swallow past her stupid heart.
Jet turned the shower off, had been in here long enough, and the water couldn’t wash that feeling away.
Pushed the door open with her good elbow.
Grabbed the towel with her good hand.
How could you … how could you wrap a towel around you with only one
hand?
Fuck.
That almost did it, broke her in half, but Jet held herself together, even though she only had one hand to do it.
She stood there, naked, dripping, a puddle on the tiles.
Pinched her dead arm, because how dare it leave her to die like that?
Tried something else.
Stuffed one corner of the towel in the gap in the radiator, enough to hold it firm.
Bent down and tried to wrap herself into it, holding the other side.
The towel came free, dropped to the floor.
A frustrated growl that made Jet’s eyes sting harder, made them swim.
She blinked them back, tried again.
Stuffed the corner in farther, so it wouldn’t tug free. Held the other side in her left hand, wrapped herself inside it, knees bent, spinning, awkward.
She just about made it, catching the other corner half a second before it
made a break for it.
Both corners in one hand.
She tightened her fist, holding the towel together under her right armpit,
covering herself.
She turned.
Stopped.
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Stared at the closed bathroom door, no hands to open it.
That almost did it too, pressing her lips together to stop them from shaking, her chin buckling, ready to go, to take her down with it.
No. Jet refused. She raised her foot, pressed her toes against the metal
handle, pushed down.
The door opened and she stumbled out.
Billy was sitting on the couch, Jet’s notebook open in his lap. ‘Oh good, you’re out.’ He glanced up, then back down at the page. ‘So, I’ve been thinking. If we think the person who started the fire did it because they were trying to kill you, and it’s likely the same person who attacked you on Halloween, then that means we –’ Something about Billy’s face did it, took Jet all the way down, no hope of
coming back up, of stopping it.
She started to cry.
The tears hot and fast, chest seizing around them.
Billy’s eyes stretched too wide, hurting to see her hurt. He put the notebook down, stood up. ‘What’s wrong?’ he said, voice soft. Not prying, just asking. Poor, sweet Billy.
Jet sniffed, tears pooling at the crack in her lips as they parted. ‘I … I can’t hold my towel up with one hand,’ she cried.
Billy stepped closer. ‘Is that really why?’ he asked, even softer. ‘No.’ Jet shook her head, snatching her breath between, building up to it.
Those words. ‘Billy,’ she said, little more than a wet whisper. ‘I don’t want
to die.’ That did it, broke her all the way.
Not just tears anymore, a howl in the back of her throat, breaking into sad little couplets as she tried to breathe through it. She couldn’t. The air
couldn’t get past her heart. ‘I don’t want to die.’ Billy closed the distance between them in two strides, wrapping his arms around a wet and shivering Jet.
He took the towel ends out of Jet’s hand, and she let him.
He crossed his arms around her back and held the towel up for her. ‘I’m scared,’ Jet cried, her arm free, hand pressing up against Billy’s chest, her forehead joining it, the tip of her nose. ‘I don’t want to die.’
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She cried.
Her wet hair dripped and her nose streamed, and the tears doubled up, chasing each other but there were no winners, all soaking into Billy. Her sobs shook both of them, but Billy stood firm, his hands strong and warm against her damp, exposed back.
Jet cried, balling her fist, a handful of his shirt.
Billy bent down, resting his chin against the top of her broken head.
Then his nose.
Then his lips, pressing one kiss into her hair, staying there, his hot breath
down her cold neck.
Jet cried.
And Billy stood there and took them all, holding up her towel.
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