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I would’ve fucked you. The blood of your mother’s murderers runs in my veins, and I would’ve taken everything you offered me without saying a word about it. I am a monster, Allie.
I played his cruel words through my head on a loop, allowing the pain he’d inflicted to swallow me whole. The wrenching agony of his betrayal was the only thing that kept me grounded and prevented me from running after him.
My shoulders slumped, and I allowed my friends to steer me back in the direction of safety, of sanity.
I didn’t want Max. I couldn’t.
Smoke burned my lungs, smothering my ability to breathe. The familiar robin’s egg blue wallpaper of my childhood bedroom cracked and curled, burning to wispy embers. They floated around me like glowing snowflakes, falling so thickly that they clouded my vision. I choked on the ash, and terror burst through my entire body.
I flung my covers aside and dropped off the edge of my mattress, huddling close to the floor to get underneath the worst of the smoke that charred the inside of my chest. Blindly, I reached above me, and my fingers scrabbled over my nightstand. They closed around the too-hot gold of my locket. I ignored the way the metal burned my fingertips and clutched my treasure tightly.
The walls of my bedroom suddenly burst into flames, coalescing into an arched inferno that surrounded me. There was only one way forward, one way to escape.
“Allie!” My dad screamed for me, his voice echoing down the tunnel of fire.
My heart slammed against my singed ribs. My parents were somewhere in the house. They could be dying right now, while I huddled and choked in the husk of my bedroom.
Daddy screamed my name, over and over again.
I didn’t hear Mom at all.
My palm blistered beneath my locket, and my fingers pressed the burning metal tighter against my skin, not caring if it branded me. I needed my mom.
I crawled through the fiery tunnel, which had taken on the familiar path of the hallways in my home. All the walls had turned to flame. The fire licked at our family photos on either side of me. They crinkled at the edges, curling inward and crumbling to ash.
Daddy kept yelling for me, his voice growing louder as I neared what had once been our kitchen.
I still didn’t hear Mom.
My stomach twisted, and my burning lungs singed my heart.
Mom! I tried to call out for her, but the smoke had torn away my voice. I coughed on a mouthful of ash, and tears blinded my vision.
I blinked hard, and suddenly, I was huddled at the entrance to our kitchen. The flames were gone, but I still couldn’t breathe.
Mom lay sprawled on the floor, blood covering the white tiles beneath her in a growing crimson pool. Her familiar baby pink pajamas were torn and stained red, her chest a gory mess. Daddy crouched over her, pressing his hands into the deep wounds as though he could somehow keep the blood from flooding out of her body.
She stared at me, her peridot green eyes blank and cold.
Dead.
The distinctive scrape and sizzle of a match being struck grated down my spine. A tiny yellow flame danced between my father’s fingers. Tears glistened on his cheeks, his features twisted with anguish.
“No!” I tried to scream, but my throat had been burned raw by the smoke. I couldn’t make a sound. I couldn’t move.
All I could do was watch as he dropped the match onto my mother’s lifeless body. It burst into flames, immediately consumed by fire.
Gone. She was gone. Burned up to nothing.
Daddy’s hands closed around me, locking me against his chest as the entire kitchen blazed into another tunnel of fire. My dad’s hands were wet and slick against my skin. Horror turned my stomach when I saw the red bloodstains that seeped onto my white nightgown where he clutched me tight.
I silently screamed and flailed, clawing at his arms. I had to get free. I had to go back and save Mom.
But I couldn’t save her. She was already dead.
I twisted in my dad’s grasp, and suddenly, I was falling. My butt hit the floor, and I collapsed onto the cool hardwoods. I rested my cheek against them, gasping for breath. Fresh oxygen flooded my lungs. They weren’t burned. There was no smoke, no flames.
I was in my apartment. Alone. Safe.
I curled into a ball and sobbed, not caring that I’d fallen out of bed while thrashing from my nightmare. At least the fall had mercifully woken me up from the horrific scene of my mother lying dead and bloody on the kitchen floor. And my dad…
My dad had set the fire that destroyed our home. Covering up her murder, just like Max had said.
I buried my head in my hands. That wasn’t a real memory. On that awful night, smoke had barely trickled into my bedroom before Daddy had rushed in, scooped me up, and carried me outside to safety. My mother had been trapped in the burning house, but it was too dangerous for us to go back for her. The firefighters hadn’t gotten there in time to save her.
