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“Mom, you’re burning the toast again,” I mutter, wrinkling my nose against the acrid smell. A loud blaring alarm pierces my eardrums.
Pressing my hands against my ears, I scream over the noise to make myself heard.
“Grab a tea towel! Flap it to clear the smoke before you wake the neighbors! It’s the middle of the fucking night!”
But Mom stands there, staring at me, her eyes wide with fear, and I choke, the thick, heavy smoke curling into my nostrils and coating the back of my throat.
Coughing, I force my eyes open and realize I’m not watching my mother burn toast. I’m staring at my bedroom wall,a fucking inferno of flame.
“Holy fuck!” I screech, my screams tearing at my smoke-coated throat. My eyes are weeping from the smoke, and I roll onto the floor, scrambling as I make it through the bedroom door as it goes up in flames.
Adrenaline is pumping through my system, and I don’t bother stopping for fucking anything. Not shoes, not a coat, not anything. My purse is lying on the table beside the door, and I snatch it up, seizing the door handle.
“Fuck,fuck!” I screech, my hand burning against the heated metal. I don’t let go, even though I can feel my skin blistering. I wrench the door open, clutching my purse to my chest as I dash out of the apartment.
“Fucking hurry!” I hear a roar, and one of my neighbors has spotted me. Coughing, my chest feeling like it has a weight pressed against it, I run toward him, reaching out and letting his hand close around my burnt, blistered one.
I don’t even scream at the awful pain. I let him drag me down the stairs and onto the road. We make it across, collapsing onto the snow-covered dirt strip masquerading as a garden.
Around us, our other neighbors are coughing and spluttering, screaming and crying, in various states of undress. The cold swirling around us. I sit in the snow, wearing only a pair of panties and a T-shirt, but I’m in too much shock to feel frozen. I set my poor hand on the cold, sighing as the icy bite soothes it.
“Mrs. Holtman, on your other side?” My savior coughs, spitting out black salvia on the ground. Shit. Mrs. Holtman. My eyes fill with tears.
“Her bedroom shares a wall with mine. It was on fire,” I rasp out.
“Fucking A,” he groans, flopping back into the snow, his eyes closed. I dig through my purse, trying to find my phone so I can call Ronan. He’ll know what to do next.
It’s not there. Of course, it’s not there. I charge it on my nightstand. There’s screaming around us as the glass windows start blowing out, and part of the building collapses. The section with my phone in it.
I stare at it in shock, the cold finally seeping into my bones. My ass is numb. Oracle. I have clothes at Oracle. In my locker. Like, a pair of jeans. A sweater. Maybe two pairs of panties. I need them. Now.
Leaving my newly homeless neighbor, I stumble away from the crowds to the small strip of shops. There’s a liquor store and usually a cab or two.
I get lucky, and there are two cabs, and they’re all standing out on the street, hands shoved into their pockets to ward off the freezing night air, staring at the collapsing building with open mouths. When I limp up to them, they stare at me like I’m a fucking ghost.
“Jesus, love. Were you in that fucking thing?” one of them, a portly, older guy, maybe in his late fifties, breathes at me. Gritting my teeth, I nod.
“I need to get to Oracle in West Boston.”
“The Irish strip club?” He seems surprised, his eyes sliding down over my body. Shivering, I clench my teeth together so they don’t chatter. I’m acutely aware that all I’m wearing is an oversized T-shirt and cotton panties, clutching my purse.
“Well, since my home just fucking burned down, I’d like to go to work, yeah,” I snap at him, too cold and in shock to be polite.
He blinks for a moment until his brain processes my words. Jumping into action, he opens the back door of his cab for me. Huh. I guess Ronan was wrong. The Irish might not control this territory, but invoking their name will still get results.
Sliding in, I almost moan with relief as he cranks the heating up, turning the vents toward me in the backseat. As I warm up, tears prick at my eyes. Freezing was helping me not notice my hand. Or my feet. Shit. Did I burn them too? I turn my face to the window, not wanting to look at them. I have to walk on them when we get to Oracle. It’s better if I don’t know what they look like.
The driver starts to pull up at the curb in front of the club. Is he crazy?
“No. In the alley out the back, please.”
His eyes find mine in the rearview mirror. “That’s a bit dangerous, love.”
“Uh, I can’t walk in dressed like this!”
His eyes flicker over me again, and he nods, driving around the block and down the back alleyway. I dig through my purse, thankful my tips are still inside it. Holding out a twenty, I blink as the driver waves it away.
“You’ve had a hell of a night, love. It’s on the house.”
