She steadies herself, pistol tapping against her temple. “Well, sugar, I’dloveto stay and watch you go up close and personal, but I don’t feel like getting caught in the flames, y’know? I’m not stupid.” Her voice drips with venom and sugar-coated cruelty. “That’s my cue to leave.”
She raises the gun.
My blood freezes.
She’s not walking away—she’s going to shoot me.
Fuck.
I thrash harder, the car rattles. One cable tie snaps. Then another. Smoke and gas wrap around me like a noose, choking, blinding.
“Ohhh, but you’re a wriggler aren’t you?” she croons.
“Raawk, Polly want some good dicking.” a voice snaps from behind her, and then—CRACK.
Trey’s parrot, out of fucking nowhere, slams into Lola’s temple like a meteor. She drops like a puppet whose strings have been cut, crumpling out of view.
I stare, breathless. Shock and relief crash into me in equal measure.
Trey is suddenly at my side, hands already on the zip ties, blade flicking fast and clean.
“Fucking hell, Logan. Mac’s house...” His voice is tight, panicked.
The last binding falls. I rub my wrists, then my ankles—numb, shaking, but grateful. Trey hauls me out of the cramped boot of the car into the suffocating heat of the garage.
Smoke blankets everything now—black and alive. We rush toward the door, but the handles glowing red hot.
“How’d you get in?” I rasp.
“Kitchen side door.” Trey says, grimacing. “It’s—shit. Really bad. Flames everywhere. I don’t know if we can get out that way.”
The smoke claws down my throat. I drop low, trying to stay below the worst of it, but every breath feels like swallowing fire.
Trey grips my arm like a lifeline, steadying me as I stagger down the hallway. The heat presses against my skin like a living thing, relentless and unforgiving.
A lung full of something noxious winds me, burning my throat, I try to edge lower beneath the billowing black blanket, the acrid smoke burning through me.
“Come on, Logan,” Trey urges, pushing me forward.
We stumble down the hallway, my legs barely cooperating, every step heavier than the last. Through the smoke flashing lights flicker—sirens wail outside, shouts of orders, the hiss of water. Chaos.
Trey drags me toward the light.
Then—fresh air.
Cool, sharp, real air crashes into my lungs and I nearly collapse as we stumble out into the open night.
“Logan!?” a voice screams.
I turn—too slow.
Lola.
Her face—her fucking face is smoldering. One side is red, raw and blistered. She raises her gun with a shaky, blistered hand.
It’s aimed right at us.
Trey’s closer.
