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“No,” I gasp, watching Joi crumple to the ground in right in front of me.
“Too bad. I hoped she’d do it to keep my hands clean. She’s been such a good little helper these past few years. All you Loves are so eager to be loved. You’ll do anything. Like marry a man who wouldn’t even acknowledge your dumbass for years. Not even as a friend. You’re so fucking stupid.” She leans down at me, hatred bracketing her beautiful face, her mask of smooth sophistication slipping, revealing the true evil beneath. “He was so mad to even acknowledge you, to marry you, yet you stayed. I thought you’d have some self-respect, but no. You let him fuck you silly and dog you out. I could never.” She stands to her full almost-six-foot height. “But I will be there for him when he grieves. Then we will get married as planned, and I will be his wife, creating policy to better people’s lives. After I make him president, I will run for senate and win and eventually be president, or maybe I can become a widow after his first term. I owe him for the disrespect he showed me giving me this fake and keeping the real one. He didn’t think I knew.” She flashes the ring, the sapphire Mathias told me his mom made him promise to only give the woman he loves.
“He—he doesn’t l-love me.” I gasp, my heart pounding so hard in my ears, harder than a drum, harder than bombs going off. I can barely make out her next words.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re dead.” She drops the gun beside Joi before leaving in a swish of red tailored pantsuit.
I don’t knowhow long I lie there. I probably black out for a time, but a tight grating and painful pressure around my middle wakes me.
“Argh,” I scream, but it’s pitiful.
“I’m so sorry, Nikki.” Joi kisses my forehead. “We have got to go. Like right now.”
She doesn’t wait, pulling me to my feet. “We have to get the fuck out of here.” She nods to the back of the building that’s already up in flames.
My natural survival instinct must be kicking in because a surge of energy seizes me. I scan upward, knowing Natalie locked all the lower exits. “There’s no point in trying to get out here.” I nod to the rickety staircase to the far right where they pull bales of hay in and out.
Hobbling over seems like it takes precious minutes we don’t have.
When we finally reach the steps, I make her stop. “We aren’t going to make it to the top.” There are too many steps we have to traverse.
“I want you to know I love you no matter what,” I tell her. Tears fill my eyes. My heart breaks for the pain and sorrow I see in her eyes. The fifteen-year-old girl who is still there, hoping for love that never was true. I realize now how blessed I was to find a Mathias and not a Natalie. Someone who protected me when he could have easily used my naiveté against me.
“I love you too. No matter what.” She flips up my skirts, tearing the cotton into strips, covering our faces with the makeshift handkerchiefs.
Once she wraps our faces, we make a slow upward climb of what feels like an eternity of steps. Joi is squeezing the hell out of me as we near the top. Flames are eating up the stairs like kindling. “You don’t have to hold me so tight.” My fucking side is killing me, and she’s not making it any better by taking every ounce of my breath with her hold on me.
“Confession: I’m scared of heights,” she deadpans.
I look around the top level.
“There’s no other way out if here,” she says, resigned.
“There is—it’s just behind one of these towers,” I assure her. “Let me go. And check that side. You’ll see a beam of light.” I limp to the other side.
“Okay,” she says, jogging to the left, not sounding confident.
“How do I know more about barns than you and you were born down here?” I ask over my shoulder. I can barely see; it’s so dark and the smoke is rising so fast. I can hear Joi coughing hard on the other the side. And no sooner than the sound registers, I am coughing too.
I double over in a fit of coughing. Tears spring into my eyes, and my lungs burn, suffocated by the black smoke from the fire. I hear a crash, and there is an empty space where the front of the barn was, but it’s all blaze. The stairs are going to be next.
I never told Mathias that I love him.The thought blazes in my mind. It doesn’t inspire me or provoke action. It’s a lament. Despair. An indictment.
My head hangs. A glow, almost a sparkle catches my attention.
“Joi.” She must have already gone down her side and, seeing nothing, came over to mine. I point a shaky finger. “There.”
She pulls me to my feet and carry-drags me down the tight space of the bales of hay.
The window is made of wood and latched from the inside. When we push it open, heat and flames explode up through the barn. Simultaneously the stairs and the top portion of the barn fall away and the force of the heat pushes Joi out the window. Casting a glance over my shoulder, I see the flames licking up the walls, eating their way toward me.
In a whoosh the flames consume the hay. The bottom of my feet heat like I’ve been cast into the bowels of hell. I know the barn is going to fall away just as I take flight, using all my circus knowledge and the last reserves of my strength to tuck my body into a tight ball. As I hit the air, the concussive force of the collapsing structure hurtles me harder than I intended. Losing all control, I do my best to prepare for the impact. Then there’s nothing.
ChapterTwenty-Six
Mathias ~ (A week later)
When Mimi comesinto the waiting room of the Shelby-Love Medical Center, her white coat flaps behind her like an angel’s wings. She walks to our small group and says, “They’re going to bring her out of the coma today.”
