by C. J. Lyons
I shake away my thoughts as I realize Miranda is asking me questions. She sounds so excited to help that I answer automatically, giving her his name, James Timothy Alexander, date of birth, hometown, and everything I can remember. I’m surprised at how much I can’t remember—like my life before my uncle was a dream that’s slipped away.
A dream I’d give anything to get back.
“Okay,” she finally says. “I can work with this. But we still need a safety plan for your mom and Janey. In case your uncle—well, what if he—”
“He’d never hurt them,” I jump in. “He loves them.” Then I remember earlier. The way he said King’s threat against them was my problem to solve.
“Love isn’t always enough, Griffin,” she says like she’s reading my mind. Again. “Some people only have enough love for themselves. I think your uncle might be like that.”
“And my father as well? That’s why he left?”
She hesitates. “Maybe. I don’t know. But we do know your uncle is willing to hurt you. And he’s working with King.”
She’s right.
“I can’t trust him.” Which means I’m in this all alone. With Janey and my mom’s lives in my hands. God, could they have found a worse person for the job?
“Griffin.” Miranda’s voice is clear, like the flames stretching toward my hand—bold and bright despite the surrounding darkness. “You’re not in this alone. Not anymore. We can do it.”
13
Miranda hated making promises she couldn’t keep. And she really, really wanted Jesse—Griffin—to get his life back. She hated that she had to lie to him. Although she’d help as best she could, he really was on his own when it came to facing King.
That’s why she’d chosen him, why she needed him: to be her arms and legs, to go where she couldn’t—to face King for her.
Maybe even kill him. An evil whisper circled through her brain. Griffin sounded like he might be the kind of guy who would do that, especially if he thought it was the only way to keep his family safe.
No. Catching King, exposing him for the creep he was, that was vengeance enough. There didn’t have to be bloodshed.
But there could be. She remembered the wild-animal expression her dad had had when he went after the two men who’d attacked her mom. That was why she couldn’t risk letting him know what she was doing—fear that he’d do something he couldn’t live with.
Yet, she was willing to risk Jesse.
She forced the awful truth back into the shadows, where it hid with the others: the black heaviness that made her feel helpless and alone, to the point where she didn’t even have the strength to climb out of bed. The clanging that rattled through her veins and compelled her to count and do things she knew made no sense, like flicking the light switch three times or circling her bed five laps before going to sleep. The pain she felt every time she saw the scars on her wrists and thought of freedom for herself and her parents. And the most evil four-letter word of all: hope. Hope that she could actually someday have a life again.
Griffin, despite everything that had happened to him, sounded, well, nice. A four-letter word. Okay, not nice. Normal. She could work with that. She hated to manipulate him, but she was out of time. This weekend was all she had left.
For almost a year she’d been planning for this, ever since her mom was attacked on Miranda’s last birthday. That’s when she’d realized the Creep would never stop.
The trap was set, now she needed to get Griffin there as bait.
• • •
“I have a plan,” Miranda says.
Of course she does. Just like King has a plan and my uncle has a plan. Everyone has plans for my life. Except me.
Miranda’s plan is simple: I ditch school tomorrow, pick up supplies she’s going to order online, prepay, and have ready for me. She says not to worry about the money and that she’ll walk me through how to use everything.
“Use how?” I ask.
I should be terrified, letting a total stranger—a girl even younger than me—take control of my life, involve me in a plan to take down King. Instead I feel stunned. Numb. Except for a warm spot buried deep in my gut—she treats me like I actually have what it takes to stop King. I don’t want to lose this feeling and the only way to keep it is to deny the fact that she’s wrong in trusting me. So very, very wrong. “What kind of equipment are we talking about?”
“Nothing fancy. A digital recorder. Audio and video. I found one that looks like a pen, you can stick it in your pocket and no one will ever know.”
“You want me to go undercover? Face King in person?” I shake my head even though I know she can’t see me. “Are you nuts? Besides, he could be anywhere in the world.”
I can hear her breathing; a little hoarse, like she’s got a cold or is scared herself. “I think I know where King lives, Griffin. It’s not far from you.”
“How do you know that?” She said she was good with computers, but no one can be as good as King. The way he’s everywhere, knows everything. I glance around as if expecting him to lunge from the shadows. The fire is dying. I feed it more kindling, wanting its light as much as I need to regain control over something, anything.
“He’s not perfect. If one of his so-called projects isn’t getting the attention he wants, especially if it’s someone he’s cybersmashing, he’ll assume an identity and go trolling, leaving nasty comments to jump-start the conversation. I’ve been collecting those identities, tracing them. Two came from the same IP address: Smithfield Telenet.”
“If you traced his email address, do you know his name?”
“No. Both email addresses were dead ends. One belonged to a guy who retired and moved to Florida years ago. The other belonged to a guy who died a while back. But it can’t be a coincidence that he used two from the same company. He must work there.”
“So do hundreds of people.” I know Smithfield Telenet. They’re the main employer in the valley—in fact, they’re sponsoring the car show Miranda sent me the T-shirt for. “Wait. You think he’ll be at the arena. At the car show.”
“Telenet employees and their families get in free on Saturday.”
“That gives us less than two days to figure out who he is. How are we going to do that?” I don’t want to argue with her, but the idea of coming face-to-face with King in less than forty-eight hours? I’m not ready for that.
“I’m collecting more of his possible online IDs. With your help, I can narrow them down. Trust me. We can do this.”
I’m shaking my head again. No, no, no. How can she be asking me to face King? Doesn’t she know what I’d be risking? “Why do I have to meet him in person? If we figure out who he is, why can’t we just return the favor, cybersmash him ourselves? Or better yet, send everything to your dad’s police buddies or the FBI?”
“It won’t be enough evidence, not for the police or a court. He’s covered his tracks too well. We need to get him on tape, confessing.”
“To me?” Suddenly I have the urge to smother the fire, hide in the dark. I’ve exposed too much of myself. But not half as much as I’d be exposing—and risking—if I went through with her plan. “No. I can’t. There has to be another way. Why can’t you confront him? He’s hurt you as much as he’s hurt me.”
There is a long silence and I think maybe she’s hung up on me. “I wish I could, Griffin. But I can’t be there. I can guide you over the phone—you can send the recording to my computer, I can take it from there. I’ll be your eyes, watch your back. I promise. I won’t let him hurt you or your family. Can you trust me?”
There’s a knot in my throat as I fight to say yes. But of course, I can’t.
“I want to. I really do, Miranda. I just can’t. There’s too much at stake.” I’m ashamed of the words as soon as I say them. But I can’t risk Mom and Janey. I remember the man with the knife. On our doorstep. Only a few
feet away from Janey. This isn’t some kid’s game, running around playing spies. This is life or death.
“I know that,” she says as if she’s inside my head, knows all my thoughts and fears. “But isn’t that why we’re doing this? To save your family? And mine?”
Silence. The fire dies to sorry embers begging for fuel. I let it wither. Darkness gathers around me, bringing with it a cold that feels like it’s coming from somewhere inside me, not from the temperature outside.
Miranda waits. Sensing she’s pushed me as far as I can go tonight. I appreciate that. I pace the trailer, arms wrapped tightly around my chest, as if I need to hold on to something before I lose it. I feel the gun inside my jacket pocket. Hate its weight, the way it nudges me like it wants me to do something I don’t want to do.
Something I can’t do. It was stupid to take the damn gun in the first place. Not like I’d ever have the courage to pull the trigger. Even if we find King.
Finally her voice breaks the silence. “Would you at least think about it? Call me tomorrow and let me know? Whatever you decide, Griffin, it’s okay, really.”
She hangs up. And I’m left alone in the dark.
She’s wrong. It’s not going to be okay. If I decide not to help her, my life goes on the way it has been—and that’s not okay. If I decide to help her, King could destroy everything.
Or—my fingers go ice cold at the thought, too audacious to consider—we could win. Beat King. And I’d be free.
But at what price?
14
Sitting in the darkness of the cold trailer, it feels like my chest is being squeezed so hard my heart is about to burst. I can’t breathe and my fingers and lips have gone dead.
I run out the door, letting it slam behind me. I feel in my pocket for Miranda’s phone, but instead my hand emerges with my lighter. Burn it, is all I can think. Burn it all. It’s the only way you’ll feel better, feel less like a coward and more like a man. Do it! Take control. You have the power. Burn the world!
Racing through the trees between the trailer and my uncle’s property, I’m not sure what I’m running away from, but I think it’s myself.
Fury and fear dance through my insides like the flames I created earlier. My heart pounds so hard I practically collapse against the barn behind my uncle’s house. I slide down the splintered gray wood and end up sitting in the dirt, leaning against the scene of my first fire.
I hate the barn. It’s old and full of cobwebs and mouse turds and something must have crawled under it and died long ago, leaving behind a stink that makes you gag just opening the door.
That’s not why I hate it, not why I tried to burn it down.
Right around my thirteenth birthday, I’d stolen my uncle’s lighter—the same Zippo I carry now with its fire department emblem ruby red against the silver—and came out here to think, to cry, to feel sorry for myself, to escape, to make a plan, to die…I had no clue. But something about the lighter, the way it never surrendered, never betrayed, always had a flame…and those flames, so bright yet deadly. They mesmerized me.
Cowering in the barn on that summer day, about ready to pass out from the heat and stench of dead possum, I built my first fire. For tinder I used my uncle’s favorite T-shirt, some softball championship his department won. Soaked it in a bottle of his favorite booze—Old Grand-Dad, it tasted awful, burned all the way down—added my uncle’s tickets to an upcoming baseball game and a pile of his mail—hoped there was a check for a million dollars in there—and lit it all with his favorite lighter.
The booze must have been high test because the whole thing went up, whoosh, Aladdin’s genie roaring out of his bottle, ready to wreak havoc.
At first the destruction was delightful. Fit my mood perfectly, the way the flames devoured everything. They didn’t care who owned it. They just ate and ate and ate. And I controlled them.
Or thought I did. They quickly turned on me, spreading across the wood planks, seeking more fuel. I panicked and doused them, or at least thought I did, then ran, locking the door behind me to hide the evidence of my crime.
Only I hadn’t realized I wasn’t alone. Janey, just turned five, had followed me into the barn while I was gathering all my uncle’s stuff to burn. Hidden in one of the stalls, I hadn’t known she was there until I heard her screaming.
I ran back, smoke seeping between the cracks in the barn’s siding, panic making me want to vomit as I pried at the door until my mind caught up with my fingers and remembered how to undo the latch. I ran inside. There were no flames, only a few smoldering embers in a pile of straw, but the smoke was thick enough to choke me. Janey stopped screaming and that’s when I got scared, battling blind through the smoke, her racking coughs and wheezes guiding me. Finally, I found her, carried her out.
If I’d been a few seconds slower in getting the door open, a few seconds faster running back inside the house where I wouldn’t have heard her screams, she could have died.
I’m her big brother. It’s my job to protect her. No matter what.
As I lean against the barn, remembering that awful day, tears slip past my guard. I can’t feel them. My face is numb and so are my hands, so I wipe them dry on my shoulder. Despite the memories, all I see are flames. All I want is to burn, burn, burn…
Maybe that’s my way out, not trusting some girl I’ve never met who calls out of the blue with a crazy scheme.
I could burn it down, tell them I was responsible for the other fires plaguing Smithfield as well. Haul me away, lock me up, keep me behind bars. I’d be safe. I could trade my silence for Janey and Mom’s safety, and King could go to hell along with my uncle.
It takes me two tries with my numb fingers to flick the lighter open. Flame dances in my palm.
I could do it. End it all. Burn it down. Go out with a blaze of glory.
God, how I want to. I can’t blink or look away, my entire world consumed by the flame in my hand. I have the power. I am in control.
Do it! A voice whispers in my head. Set it free. Burn it all.
The flame dances in time with my breath. My chest is tight, my heart beating so hard my vision spirals red.
Burn it all…I could, I should…I close my eyes, my hand flipping the cover onto the lighter, the flame winking away. Swallow hard, try to breathe, shove my hands, shaking uncontrollably, deep into my pockets.
Miranda’s right. I’ve known it all along, just didn’t want to face up to it. I climb to my feet and trudge through the darkness, past the barn to the house and the door at the rear of the garage. I reach it but don’t open it. I can hear my uncle talking to someone on the other side.
“You’ve made out good on this deal. We can’t push it.”
I don’t hear anyone answer; he must be on his cell. Is he talking to King? Maybe my uncle is telling King to stop pushing me so hard, to let me off the hook. I press my ear against the crack between the hinges and strain to hear more.
“No, I told you. Last night was the last time.”
King had me do a private show last night. Hope surges through me, a bright flame. My uncle does care after all.
But then he says, “At least until things cool down.”
Maybe he can’t solve everything with King. But if he buys me some time, it would help. I hear his boots on the cement floor as he paces. The garage is filled with stuff from our old apartment and my dad’s things plus everything my uncle has in there, so there’s no room for a car, barely room to walk.
The light comes on. I press myself against the outside wall, so he can’t see me through the window in the door. From my angle, I can see him. He has a bag open on the floor—a big canvas bag like the ones he carries his turnout gear in. Only it’s not a coat or pants that he’s taking out of this bag.
It’s a Halligan—a pry bar firemen use to open doors and windows. Then he takes out some cans and bottles of chemicals. I
recognize a few—have even used some of them to start fires. The last thing he pulls out is a container of the highly concentrated chlorine used in swimming pools.
We don’t have a swimming pool. But now I know not to waste energy on hope. He’s not helping me. He’s not talking to King.
Because one of the best fire starters around is concentrated chlorine combined with petroleum. I often carry a small film container of the stuff myself—it’s quick and easy, gives you a hot fire with a bit of a delay.
It’s also what started all the fires in town. The arsonist’s signature.
15
Miranda hung up with Griffin. She stared at the phone a long, long time. It wasn’t that late, only nine o’clock or so, but it felt like 3 a.m., locked in her room in the hospital, walls crowding in as the drugs wore off, taking with them the gentle clouds that fogged her brain, leaving behind terror spiking her veins with broken glass and razor blades.
She closed her eyes. Focused on her breathing just like Dr. Patterson had taught her. Griffin was the one, he was the one, he had to be the one, he was her last chance, her final chance…and time was running out.
The sound of the apartment door opening interrupted her mantra. She leapt from her chair by the window and shoved the phone beneath her pillow, beside her suicide note.
“Sweetheart, I’m home!” her father called out.
Miranda couldn’t help her smile as she ran from her room and leapt into his arms. He wasn’t that tall—not quite six feet—but he was strong, strong enough to lift her off her feet with a hug.
Her dad was one of those guys born a couple of generations too late. He belonged in a different time, one where cops on the beat knew everyone and were greeted with homemade doughnuts and cupcakes when they stopped by. Back then, her dad would have been the kind of man that other men would tip their hats to as he strode past, and his kids would have called him “Pops” as they played catch with him on a manicured lawn beneath a sprawling maple tree.