“And they should rewrite the rules. Those stupid fucks didn’t know what they had when they kicked me out of fire academy.” Hespits the words with such violence that spittle hits me in the face, and I cringe, closing my eyes. “They said I was fucking unhinged. They don’t know unhinged. They have no idea. But I’m starting to show them.”
His fist hits the table next to my head, my whole body flinching as my nervous system screams “Danger!” at me.
“They don’t know half the fucking fires I’ve started, that’s how incompetent they are. But Station Nine started to figure it out. I heard them talking that night at the bar. Great place to hang out if you want to be around firefighters. Do you remember me before that night, Bryn?”
My forehead crinkles, eyes squinting at him, trying to place him before the moment his chair backed into me. But he’s not there.
“Doesn’t surprise me,” he says, reading the answer in my eyes. “I have one of those forgettable faces. But you’re not going to forget me now. For however long you survive.”
The drive to fight against the restraints surges through me, but I force the feeling back, trying to remain still so I can think. Think of a way out of this. Think of a way to get him to take the tape off my mouth so I can speak to him. Maybe I could talk him out of this.
Whateverthisis.
He drags a hand over his forehead, then through blond hair that falls into his eyes when he bends closer, his face next to mine. I can hear the way the air fills his nose and lungs as he draws in a breath beside me. “Can you smell it now? I bet your boyfriend would be able to smell it. That fucking prick.”
The faint smell of smoke is stronger now. Celeste or Susan must smell it. One of them will call 911. Wyatt will come. Wyatt will find me.
Wyatt. The back of my eyes sting when I picture his smiling face staring down at me beneath his cowboy hat. The cheerfulness that dances in every step.
“I was so fucking pissed at you that day. That was my ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend, and you made me look like an idiot,” he says, standing back up to resume the rest of what he was doing with the wire, now at my breasts. “Then your fucking boyfriend had to get in my face, and I decided right then that he had to pay. All of them had to fucking pay.”
He pulls the wire so tight across my chest that I cry out behind the tape, tears over Wyatt mingling together with tears from the pain lancing through me.
A scream rings out in the distance, pulling both our focus in the direction of the door. The man, whose name I don’t even know, gives a heinous smile as he turns back to me.
“Sounds like things are starting to heat up down the hall in the room you were supposed to be in. Aren’t you lucky you weren’t in there?” He tugs at the wire next to my ribs, ensuring it’s secure. “It won’t be long now.”
Tears leak from my eyes as I stare at him, pleading with him to let me go, untie me, stop this madness. Instead, he grabs a bag from the floor, dropping it on my stomach and stuffing the roll of tape he used over my mouth into it before pulling something else out. Going to the foot of the bed, he hoists himself up, between my legs, and gets to his feet. I don’t know what he’s doing, but I know it can’t be anything good, my breath hitching as I struggle to breathe through my nose without panic.
No longer am I hopeless. Only helpless.
Flicking his wrist, a long stick emerges from something in his hand, and he uses it to push a ceiling tile up and then over.
“There could be two reasons for that scream,” he says as heworks, pushing another tile. “The fire came through the wall, or it’s in the ceiling and burning hot enough to go through the tiles. But it’s not the fire you should worry about. It’s the smoke. It’ll kill you first.”
The door to the room flings open, Celeste bursting through the doorway. “Bryn! Wake—what the fuck?”
I scream behind the tape, my heart leaping into my throat as hope bursts through me. Someone sees me. Someone sees him. I’m okay. I’m going to survive—
“Reggie? Susan’s client…?” Celeste questions at the same moment the man jumps down.
“You weren’t supposed to see this,” he drawls.
Her eyes go wide, recognizing the danger for what it is. I don’t blame her when she doesn’t look at me again, turning to flee from the room. My hands strain against the cuffs, arms against the wires as I listen to her scream in the hallway, followed by a second scream that doesn’t belong to her.
Tears slide out the corner of my eyes, trailing down my temples and into my hairline. A loud thud has me closing my eyes, wishing I could do anything but sit here and listen to the horror beyond my sight. Another scream follows, a second thud, and then things are silent.
Except they aren’t. The sound of my breath fills the room, but there’s something else along with it. Something far more sinister. Something that has my hair standing up.
A crackle. A hiss. The echoes of destruction barreling forward from above. The roar is dull, but the longer I listen, the louder it seems to get. I don’t know whether it’s illusion or truth as my imagination runs away from me, seeing flames violently ripping through the rafters on the other side of the clinic, lighting up the darkness in my mind.
Smoke creeps through the hole in the ceiling like an animal in the night, stalking for the perfect path to find its prey. The ceiling flickers orange. Dim at first, but with every second that passes, it gets brighter. Closer. Heading towards the room I’m in.
Maniacal laughter draws my attention as he—Reggie—walks through the door. “Oh, this fire might be my best work yet. It’s rollin’ right into a rager.” He pauses for a moment, and I bring my head up to find him watching something above me. I look up at the hole he’s created and gasp through the tape as a glowing ember drifts down from the ceiling. “Mmm, would you look at that. Beautiful. And my cue to leave.”
I scream against the tape, thrashing against all the cable tying me to the bed. I know it’s no use. I know I’m not getting out of this. But my brain is screaming to do something, anything, that might save me from burning alive.
Or suffocating in the smoke.
