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A jerrycan was tucked up against the wall next to the string trimmer. Jem sprinted over to it. He shook it, and gasoline sloshed inside. Unscrewing the cap, Jem carried it to the roll-up door. Then he laid the jerrycan on its side. As gasoline spilled out across the concrete, Jem gave the can a kick. It made a tinny noise of flexing metal as it slid across the slab toward the shooter.
The shotgun boomed again.
Jem spun to the side of the roll-up door, putting the wall between himself and the gun. Then he worked his lighter out of his pocket. He tried to roll a spark, but his hand was shaking. Adrenaline. Exhaustion. Fear.
Crouching next to him, Tean took the lighter. He ran the wheel once, and a flame danced. Without needing to be told, he bent and set the flame to the spilled gasoline.
Fire whooshed across the garage.
“Let’s get out of here,” Jem said, struggling to his feet. He and Tean ran, but Tean stopped after twenty paces, turned back, and watched.
Smoke drifted out of the garage. That much gas wouldn’t have been enough to start a real fire—Jem knew that, not poured on a concrete slab like that, not without fuel to keep it going. But the point wasn’t to burn down the club. The point was to—
John-Henry came first, emerging from the garage in a scuttling, crab-like movement that kept him low. Emery came next, a rearguard withdrawal, keeping his aim on the shooter inside the garage. Then both men seemed to recognize some kind of invisible signal, and they stood and sprinted.
“Now, dumbfucks,” Emery said. “Run now!”
Jem and Tean ran.
16
Tean started shaking after they’d gone a mile. He white-knuckled the steering wheel as the road curved and cut along the side of a bluff. The headlights pocked the sheer stone face with dimples, divets, shadows. It made Tean think of fungus, the lines where rock had been drilled and blasted like gills. The tires drifted across the yellow line. The light and shadows drifted with them.
“Easy.” Jem wrapped one hand around the wheel, and the Jetta slipped back into its lane. He smiled at Tean. “How’re you doing over there?”
“Terrible.”
For some reason, that made Jem’s smile broaden, exposing those slightly crooked front teeth. “You look pretty good to me.”
“I’m not. I’m dying. Probably.”
“We’re all technically dying. Dying is part of living.”
Tean sat up a little straighter. “I meant in a more immediate sense. I’m dying right now. From fear.”
“You? Nah.”
Elbowing Jem away from the wheel, Tean said, “I am. I’m having a heart attack.”
“Oh, ok.”
“That can happen. Fear produces adrenaline. Adrenaline causes the heart to beat faster. The strain on the heart becomes tremendous, and it becomes unable to pump blood efficiently.”
“Well, I mean, it’s not a real heart attack.”
“It can lead to death!”
“Ok, ok. It’s very scary. It’s a very scary heart attack. I mean, it’s not a heart attack, but it’s still very scary.”
“It’s terrifying!”
Aside from their headlights, the dark had closed around them completely. When they cleared the cut and left the shining walls of limestone behind, trees crouched at the shoulder of the road, branches plaited together overhead. There was no sign of Emery and John-Henry. No sign of anyone else following them. No sign of anyone anywhere.
“Are you dead yet?”
In spite of his best efforts, Tean gave up a smile. “How are you not...I don’t know, freaking out?”
“Well, I was, actually. Remember? A few minutes ago? When I wanted to run like hell and you insisted on staying to help those guys, and I thought you were going to get killed, and then I’d probably go crazy out of grief, and I’d end up living on the streets, and eventually a john would choke me to death or something and throw my body in a river, and as I decomposed, little particles of me would drift down to New Orleans, and I’d spend the rest of eternity getting puked on by frat boys.”
