“I’M PREGNANT!”

“…What?”

“I’M PREGNANT! No one knows! And earlier today, Hunter said children are…a blight!”

So that’s what she’s been so weird about. “Oh, Lizzy. Oh man. This is big news! But it’ll be fine.” I rub her back as she sobs. “You’ll change his mind. He loves you and you’re getting married.”

“No we’re not! We can’t! I’ll be too fat to—” she hiccups— “I’ll be too fat to wear a dress!”

I pull her into my arms and hold her while she cries about stretch marks and pushing out a “ten pound vagina bomb” and try not to think about Marchant Radcliffe.

It’s going to be a long night.

* * *

MARCHANT

I’m in the kitchen, about to pop an Ativan, when I hear a knock on the back door. I know it’s Hawkins. I can feel it. And this time, I can shoot him, because he’s trespassing.

I run downstairs and punch the glass out of my gun cabinet, grab a .38 and load it quickly. By the time I get to the kitchen, I’ve stuck the gun inside the back of my jeans, because I’ve managed to convince myself it’s only Hunter. Or Rachelle. Or someone else coming to check on me.

But when I open the back door, I find myself staring at Hawkins—the little fuck.

He hits me in the face. Then two thugs grab me by the shoulders and haul me up against the stone wall of my house. I manage to reach my arm behind myself and dig my hand into the waist of my jeans. I work my sweaty fingers around the gun, and when I pull it free I point it toward Hawkins’ legs. I am stunned by the boom as the bullet hits him in the foot. Blood sprays like a fucking geyser.

He howls, and the goons rush to his aid. I dart back inside my kitchen, slamming the door behind me just in time for the bullet that punches through it to miss me.

I look out the square window, and I see one of the goons pointing a pistol at me. I’m slightly surprised to find that I’m not worried. Then I see Hawkins holding up his hand to them—a silent ‘stand down.’ He grimaces as Goon One helps him stand, and I see that my wild shot probably just grazed him. Pity.

Hawkins hobbles to the door and presses his face against the glass, and his panted breaths makes clouds of fog. “You’ll pay for this Radcliffe. I’ve given you more breaks…than I’d give my own damn cousin.”

And I realize for the first time that it’s not Monday. I don’t know what day it is, but I know I missed the deadline to pay Hawkins. I even had the money moved—but I lost track of time.

Fuck!

Hawkins spits on my door, and then he and his crew turn to go. I realize, belatedly, that they’re wearing dark clothes—hoods, even, unless my eyes are playing tricks on me.

It takes me a few minutes panting, chugging vodka from a bottle in my freezer, to calm down, and when I do, I realize I should call security. But as soon as I wrap my hand around my phone, someone bangs on my door. I mean really goes at it.

Shit. So the little bastard came back for another round. I chug some more Gray Goose and palm my gun. Then I pull the door open, stunned to see it’s Juniper, wearing nothing but thigh-highs, a thong, and a lacy dark blue bra.

Her eyes are wide, her hair a mess. She waves her arms and screams, “MARCHANT! COME NOW! THERE’S A FIRE!”

9

MARCHANT

I don’t need shoes or a shirt. I don’t need anything but my gun. I clutch the .38 as I dash behind Juniper, cutting through the grass beside my cottage and following her willowy form toward the pond. I can smell the smoke already. We come around a few oak trees and I see the flames. They’re bright—so bright they almost blind me. It’s surreal.

I feel nothing but the burning of my muscles as I run toward the main house—nothing but that and the determination to get everyone out.

By the time I get within ball-throwing distance, the fire has engulfed most of the back left side of the building, and people are pouring out two sets of rear doors toward the right, even though our fire plan directs them to the front. I don’t see Rachelle, and I feel a sick jolt of fear for her.

Where is Hunter?

Where is Suri Dalton?

Where is Hawkins?

My throat knots up as I realize this fire is his doing. My doing. If someone dies, it will be my fault.

I lean down in the bushes to be sick, then push through a frenzied group of escorts, clients, and staff, and run through one of the flame-framed doorways.

Heat engulfs me. My first breath burns my lungs, makes me cough on the exhale, makes my eyes tear.

Shit is falling from the walls and ceilings. Shit that’s burning. The damn black smoke clouds the place so thickly I can hardly see. As I move past the bar into the great hall, where the stairs are, I catch something hard and heavy on my shoulder. It erupts in searing pain that burns itself out as I dash around bookshelves, past couches, screaming, “IS ANYBODY IN HERE?”

Fuck, it’s hot. My bare chest and back feel like they’re burning. I turn a circle in front of the elevator, struggling to get my bearings.

The ranch can’t be on fire. It can’t be burning. 

I’m on the move again a second later. I find one of the chef’s assistants covering her face with a towel in a downstairs hall and shove her out an emergency exit at the end of it. I find one of the newer girls—Bree—in a first-floor room, sobbing and screaming into her phone. I break the glass out of a window and send her out, shoving her a little as she crawls over the windowsill, into the grass, which is burning in some spots.

I’m coughing badly now. Every breath is more difficult to pull than the last. I’m dizzy—yeah. I realize that. I just don’t care.

Getting upstairs is surprisingly easy. There’s a hidden, staff stairwell near the exit door at the end of this first-floor hall that doesn’t seem to be burning yet, and that’s the route I take.

I catch a string of violent-sounding Spanish—one of the clients, I guess—behind me. I whirl, but no one is there. I take the rest of the stairs two at a time.  As I reach the door at the top of the two-floor stairwell, I think I hear Hawkins’ laughter. But I can’t be sure. I’m probably hallucinating.

I shudder through a coughing fit before I stick my head into the second-floor hallway and call, “Is anybody there?”

I call out several times before someone screams, “MARCHANT!”

I whirl, and there’s Rachelle, stomping toward me. Her blonde hair is sweat-plastered to her head; her eyes are wild. She grabs my arm—“Are you fucking crazy?”—and hauls me back down the stairs.

The place is going fast. I can’t believe it. The hall where the staff stairwell is, the one that leads to the great hall, is lined with fire along the baseboards. Fire writhes in patches on the ceiling. Beyond it, where the hallway meets the great room, I can’t see anything but light. I think I hear screaming from that direction, but Rachelle starts to choke and cough, and I know I need to get her outside. I tug her out the nearest exit, throw her over my shoulder, and rush around the inferno, cutting through the grass to get her to the front of the building.

I sling her down by a bush that’s not too close to the blaze and grab her face so I can see her eyes. They’re red, just like her cheeks and forehead. “You okay? You breathing okay?”

She nods, and tugs on my arm until I help her stubborn ass up, and together we go through the crowd, checking on people, trying to account for others, and asking if anyone saw where the fire started. For some fucked up reason all I can think about is Suri Dalton, and I don’t see her anywhere.

I see Libby DeVille—soot-smeared and crying—and I grab her arm. “Where is your friend?”

“Huh?”

“Where is Suri Dalton?”

Libby turns a circle, mouth agape. “Where is she? She was just here like one second ago!”

“I’ll go find her,” Hunter says.

“Oh my God, where’s Cross?” Libby’s eyes are huge. “I thought I saw him earlier, but—”

“I’ll find them.” I run around the house, dodging patches of fire on the lawn, focused on finding Carlson and Suri Dalton. I remember a foggy scene from the hospital hallway: me, dickishly asking if she had a thing for Carlson, but I push that aside as I round the house on the pool side. It’s covered tonight, and debris is raining down on the smooth cement. I want to push it back, because a pool is good in a fire, right? I don’t have time to waste, but still, I stop beside it. I’m dizzy as fuck and shaking with adrenaline and crazy, but I want to push the cement cover back. It’s not a huge pool, but it might do something.

I kneel down and push the leaves of a withered fern aside, finding the button that controls the cement pool cover, and sit there coughing and cursing as burning shit bounces off my back.

There’s something I’m supposed to do, but I can’t remember it anymore.

As I wrack my mind, one of the last remaining first-floor doors flies open, and several men run out. They toss a cursory glance my way but keep moving toward the garden. It looks like they’re—what the fuck? Are they packing AK-47s?

No way.

What the fuck?

I’m on my feet, ready to follow them, when someone grabs me by the waist. I whirl around, howling from the pain of grabbing hands on my sore skin—and find myself facing Suri Dalton. Her face is soot-smeared and red, her hazel eyes huge.

Relief washes through me. I grab her by the arms just to make sure she’s real.

“Marchant, look,” she cries, wriggling out of my grasp and whirling toward the house. She starts to cry, and without understanding what the fuck she’s rambling about, I shove her forward. “Go around to the front! Give this place a wide berth; shit is falling. Find Rachelle and Hunter. Tell Hunter I just saw a bunch of cartel thugs—”