Page 236 of What We Burn

“You know what gets me? They brought beer. They brought a mattress. Nobody brought a tarp. First rule of group activities, Knox—somebody brings a tarp. That’s hospitality. That’s bare-minimum orgy etiquette.”

“Mm.”

“I’m serious, Knox. Write it down. These motherfuckers,” he mutters as he runs his knife along the plastic wrap. “We’ll burn it. We’ll burn it down. We’ll burn this whole place down and all these motherfuckers with it. Burn burn burn.”

I glance over, sealing the wrap around one of the bodies. “You good, Milo?”

“We killed them,” he whispers, tilting his head like he’s listening for something. “Kitten is safe. They’ll burn and kitten will be safe.”

I carry them out one at a time. Fourteen trips. Milo isn’t wrong about the burn. But the bodies come with us because fire leaves teeth and bone. The retort leaves nothing. I stack the bed crosswise, two deep, rails to cab, tight enough nothing shifts on the road. Thank God my truck has the biggest payload on the market or my suspension would be fucked.

Around body six, the music stops as Milo adds that phone to the garbage bag filling up beside him—wallets, phones, car keys, a money clip. He works through the piles of clothes with quick fingers, checking jeans, work pants, and a pair of khakis folded neatly over a chair, like the owner planned on wearing them home.

“Fenrir will want them,” he says, not looking up. “We need them to find the rest.”

A phone buzzes in his hand. He reads the screen and giggles, but he’s not amused.

“Every wallet’s a thread, Knox. I pull, the whole web lights up. Group chats. Payment apps. The deposits—they sent deposits through apps tied to their real names. I cannot—” He breaks off, shaking his head. “They’re going to hand me every name I missed tonight. It’s Christmas. It’s a Grim Reaper Christmas.”

I take the cans from the bed of my truck. Two five-gallons I keep on hand, plus a jerry can from a dead guy’s work van. Fifteen gallons. Enough, if I’m precise.

I’m precise.

The mattress. The chairs. The cooler. The blood trails, out the side door, under every car in the lot. I save the last gallon for the fuse—a thin line from the doorway across the gravel, ending four feet from my bumper.

Milo stands in the middle of the lot turning a slow circle, garbage bag hugged to his chest like a kid with a pillowcase full of Halloween candy.

“We should do this every year,” he says. “Like a retreat.”

“Get in the truck, Milo.”

He goes. I put him in the seat and pull the belt across him myself. Click. He’s still humming.

“Burn, burn, burn. Burn it all down.”

I walk around the hood. Stop at my door. The matchbook’s from the kit—some motel bar. Doesn’t matter.

One strike. I drop it on the line.

The fire takes off running. Across the gravel, under the cars, through the door. The warehouse lights from inside like a jack-o’-lantern. A tire bursts in the lot, sharp as a gunshot. Glass begins to crack.

I get in and start the engine. Back out slow. Turn for the road.

Milo twists around to watch, face lit orange.

“Say something cool,” he demands.

“No.”

“One line. ‘Clean burn.’ ‘Case closed.’ Anything. It’s a rule.”

In the mirror, the whole night is on fire.

“Done,” I say.

“‘Done?’ That’s terrible. I love it.”

Through the rear window, the whole lot stands up into the dark and spreads its arms.