On Fire

by Nancy Holder

  Whoa. She liked his eyes. And she had spent a lot of time studying him. Tingles played at the small of his back and along his cheeks, and she smiled as if she knew how much her words had affected him.

  Then she fluttered her lashes and said, “Now tell me. What is your favorite color?”

  She held her head still, as if inviting him to look. Inviting him in. For a dizzying moment it seemed as if there was nothing in the world but her lovely, lovely eyes. That they were like moons for him to race beneath, proud, wild, free.

  “Your eyes are green, too,” he said.

  “Good answer.” She tore off a piece of her sandwich and popped it into his mouth like a piece of candy. Then she ate a little nibble, too, clearly enjoying the taste.

  “Do you believe in fate? That some things are just meant to happen?” she asked him.

  “I—I don’t know,” he answered. He wanted to tell her that he was pretty sure he believed in love at first sight. But maybe she would laugh and tell him that what he wasn’t feeling was love, but a stupid little teenage crush that meant nothing.

  No, he thought. Ms. Argent would never say something so cruel. And besides, maybe . . . maybe she believes in love at first sight, too.

  “So, have you been swimming long?” she asked him.

  He was grateful that she’d asked him another question. He needed something, anything to distract him from his thoughts. He was a little afraid he might blurt something out that would reveal how he felt, and it would turn out to be the wrong thing. He didn’t want to mess this up. But suddenly he was overcome with the idea that he would mess it up. He was so nervous even contemplating that that part of him wanted to run away now, before he could wreck it. But of course everything else urged him to stay, and never, ever leave.

  “Derek?” She peered at him. “Swimming?”

  “Most of my life,” he managed to answer.

  She ran her gaze up and down his body. He squeezed the edge of his plate hard. He pulled in his stomach and pushed back his shoulders as discreetly as he could. He wanted to look good for her.

  “It shows,” she said. And for a moment he couldn’t remember what she had asked him about. Swimming. Lap after lap, to burn off the excess energy. To be able to maintain in the human world. To stay disconnected from the ordinary humans who weren’t in his family.

  “You’ve got a great swimmer’s body and you really know your . . . strokes.” She rested her head on her arm, gazing at him. “You seem driven when you swim.”

  “There’s just so much pressure,” he blurted, and then he stopped, afraid he had just said the wrong thing. He could never talk about his double life with anyone outside the pack. And if he complained about typical kid stuff, she might think he wasn’t mature enough to handle an adult relationship.

  “The pressure can be enormous,” she agreed. She leaned forward, placing her forearms on her thighs. He was aware of how her sweater front bunched, and he could see her cleavage. He made himself let go of his plate so that he wouldn’t break it and clenched his left hand tightly against his own thigh.

  “I hated high school,” she said. “They tell you you’re responsible for your life and then you come home and find out your family’s moving. Or that your parents are getting divorced. And you have no say in any of it.”

  “I know,” he said, nodding. She got it—at least the human side of it.

  “It’s such a mishmash, and you have to deal with all of it,” she went on. “And the people you have to hang out with, day after day. Some kids in high school are babies and others are all grown up, ready for the real world. Like you.”

  Wow, could she really tell that? She was probably just flattering him.

  But you’re in her apartment, he reminded himself. She must like something about you. She’s risking her job just to be with you.

  With you.

  She leaned toward him and took a sip out of his wineglass. As she looked over the rim at him, he thought he would drown in her beautiful green eyes.

  “So let me ask you, Derek,” she said. “Are you ready?

  He set down his sandwich. His heart was about to burst out of his chest. His body was quivering and trembling. He felt as if he were burning up.

  “Yes,” he whispered. “I’m ready.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  In Jackson’s living room, Lydia sat tied to a Louis XIV gilt wooden chair while the two robbers—Ski Mask and Gravelly Voice—methodically went through each room of the Whittemores’ home. They knew their valuables, skipping the big plasma TV for the elegant, if plain, sterling silver tea set. They bypassed the matted prints Mr. Whittemore had given Mrs. Whittemore before they could afford fine art and took the original oils and acrylics. Sooner or later, they would take the chair she was sitting on. It was a valuable antique.

  Lydia had found out there was a third thief, one she had nicknamed Worker Bee, because his entire job consisted of loading the Whittemores’ belongings into whatever enormous vehicle they had brought with them. She hadn’t seen him at all, and she hadn’t seen the faces of Ski Mask and Gravelly Voice. She was praying that meant that she would come out of this alive.

  She had no idea how much time had passed. It seemed like a lifetime ago since they had hit her and threatened her with a gun. They’d asked her over and over and over again if she was alone in the house. And despite the fact that there were two cars in the driveway, they believed her. Either they hadn’t seen Danny’s Lexus behind her car or they had discounted it for some reason. She told them that she was Jackson’s girlfriend—true—and that she didn’t know where he was, so she had come to his house to look for him—also true.

  At first she kept expecting to hear police sirens. Surely Damon or Danny would call 911. Then it dawned on her that the boys must be able to see or hear inside, because Ski Mask had told her that that they had accomplices planted in cars along the route to the sheriff’s station, and they would get plenty of warning before the cops arrived—enough time to blow her away. So Danny and Damon must have been afraid to call for help.

  Call anyway. Just explain, she thought, trying to transmit her thoughts to them via ESP or something. But in reality, she doubted she would call the police, either. Look how long it had taken to find one maniac mountain lion that had been killing people all over Beacon Hills. And the sheriff hadn’t killed it. Allison’s father had.

  She still remembered the day Jackson had shown her every piece of the house’s state-of-the-art security system. These guys seemed to know about it, too. So she doubted there was some superhero or private security guard just waiting for the right moment to crash through the skylight above Lydia’s head and save her.

  She swallowed hard and glanced up at said skylight . . .

  . . . and, framed by moonlight, Danny and Damon stared back down at her.

  She nearly fell over backward in the chair, but somehow the thieves didn’t notice her shock. Ski Mask was busily going through the kitchen drawers while Gravelly Voice carried an enameled Chinese vase to the garage loading area. She composed herself, then peered upward, having no clue whatsoever about what they were trying to tell her. They kept gesturing and opening their mouths very wide as if they wanted to communicate something to her. Were they going to go for help? That would mean leaving her here alone. Tied up. With criminals who had threatened to kill her. What if one of their accomplices saw the boys on the roof?

  Then both boys disappeared. She braced herself—for what, she didn’t know—and realized the situation was changing. Forcing her emotions at bay, her logical mathematician’s mind formed a decision tree of actions, reactions, and outcomes. She tried to think about what she knew about Danny and Damon. Danny was Jackson’s best friend, which meant that he wasn’t a loser. He was smart, and strong. He was the lacrosse team’s goalie, which meant he was willing to deliberately stand in the path of a hard rubber ball going a hundred miles an hour. She knew the scary stats: in the last twenty-five years, almost two dozen lacrosse players ha
d died of cardiac arrest from taking balls to the chest. There were few people in the world tougher than lacrosse goalies—and Danny was the toughest. Danny put the M in macho, that was for sure.

  So in a situation like this, what would a guy like that do?

  He’s going to take them on.

  She didn’t know if she should cheer or scream. It was one thing to take a ball to the chest, quite another to take a bullet.

  But she was absolutely positive that was what they were trying to tell her. What did they want her to do? Sit tight?

  I don’t think so.

  It was one thing to sit quietly and observantly because it had seemed like her best option, but it was quite another thing to be a sitting duck. If the guys launched an offensive, the first thing she would do to stop them if she were a thief was put a gun to the head of the pretty strawberry blonde.

  So I have to make sure that doesn’t happen, she decided.

  So, decision tree: if she wanted to get herself free, what should she do?

  Lydia glanced back up at the skylight, wishing she could have understood what Damon and Danny were trying to tell her.

  “We should get cracking,” Gravelly Voice said as he returned from the garage.

  Ski Mask came out of the kitchen with the large silver platter with the rosettes that Jackson’s mother had served the Thanksgiving turkey on. The two men stood facing each other. They lowered their voices to near-whispers. Gravelly Voice looked over his shoulder at her, then muttered something to Ski Mask.

  They’re trying to decide what to do with me, Lydia realized. Her fear level shot sky-high. It was time to solve her problem. What kind of men were they? What was her best option at getting them to untie her without hurting her?

  She did the math:

  Question: What kind of men did these guys think they were?

  Factors:

  1. They planned the robbery in advance.

  2. They had the security alarm codes.

  3. They lured Jackson away with some scam about his birth parents. But Jackson was smart and suspicious. They’d have had to plead their case pretty well.

  4. They knew what to steal and what to leave.

  Conclusion: They were thorough.

  Factors:

  5. They had been surprised to see her, but had taken swift action.

  6. They had been careful to keep their faces concealed so they wouldn’t have to kill her.

  But now they were muttering about her.

  Conclusion one: They were having second thoughts about leaving her alive, but they were discussing it calmly.

  Conclusion two: They were smart and ruthless. But they also didn’t act rashly. So flirting, asking to go to the bathroom, or offering to help probably wouldn’t work.

  So Lydia took action. Summoning her best acting skills—and Lydia had put on some stellar performances in her day, acting like an airhead for Jackson’s sake—she smiled to herself. She made it a secretive, sly smile, holding it just long enough so that when Gravelly Voice looked at her, he saw it. Then she made a show of letting it slip.

  She was absolutely terrified, but she pretended not to realize that Gravelly Voice had seen her smile.

  “Hey,” he said, stomping over to her, “what’s the big joke?”

  “Oh.” She made her eyes big and round, and swallowed hard. “Um. Nothing.” She fluttered her lashes, hoping that wasn’t laying it on too thick.

  He gestured to Ski Mask, who came over.

  “She was smiling,” Gravelly Voice reported.

  They both stared down at her through their ski masks, and she made herself keep her head. She would not panic. She would play this out.

  “Why?” Ski Mask demanded. He pointed his gun at her. “Tell me.”

  She focused on data collection. Ski Mask was the boss. Ski Mask was the one who was armed. She couldn’t believe it had taken her this long to realize that Gravelly Voice didn’t have a gun.

  Ski Mask bent over and put the gun against her head, like before, and it terrified her just as badly as before. All he had to do was pull the trigger. If Damon and Danny chose this moment to attack, she would be dead.

  “You can’t blame me for forgetting,” she said in a high, little-girl voice. Her heart was pounding so hard she was afraid she would faint. She had to keep it together, play this through. She remembered days driving the golf cart at the country club for her father while he selected the proper club and took his time lining up his shot.

  “Always play it through,” her father said.

  “What did you forget?” Ski Mask asked, looming over her. “Tell me now, or I’ll kill you.”

  But he wouldn’t. She knew it. Because while he was ruthless, he was not impulsive. They hadn’t killed her when they’d first invaded the house, and they had a reason to keep her alive right now: they had to know the secret she was convincing them she had.

  “Promise not to hurt me if I tell you,” she said.

  “No,” the guy said, pushing the gun against her forehead.

  She shut her eyes against a disabling stab of panic. It was all right to let them know that she was afraid, but not okay to lose control. She had to stay in control.

  “Okay. Well, Jackson thought it would be funny to spy on his parents. So he installed a Web cam.”

  The guy slapped her with his free hand and she gasped, shocked. She burst into real tears.

  “Where is it?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I know he watches them on his computer.”

  “So it’s not running right now,” Gravelly Voice said, but he sounded uncertain. “Right?”

  “I told you to tell me everything,” Ski Mask said. He threw back his hand to slap her again, then seemed to think the better of it and lowered his arm to his side. “You kept this from us. Lied to us.” He was indignant.

  “I forgot about it. Really,” she said, as tears tumbled down her cheeks. “I swear I did.”

  “We need to check it out,” Ski Mask said. “Go into his room and turn on his computer. See if you can see it.”

  Gravelly Voice didn’t move.

  Ski Mask stared at him. “Well?”

  “Um,” Gravelly Voice said, “I’m not sure how.”

  “You’re useless,” Ski Mask barked at him. But he made no move to go into Jackson’s room, either.

  “Do you know how to see it on his computer?” Ski Mask asked her.

  This was the moment when she had to put on the best performance of her life. She lowered her head and moved her shoulders.

  “I . . . guess,” she said reluctantly. As if not every single part of her was screaming at him to untie her. “If you go into his room, I could call out to you how to look at it.”

  “Okay—” Gravelly Voice said, but Ski Mask cut him off.

  “No yelling,” he said.

  But they had yelled earlier. He had shouted at her that he was going to kill her if she moved a muscle. So maybe things were changing for them, too. They were getting cautious. It was possible—no, probable—they had timed the robbery, and they had been there too long. So maybe they were starting to get desperate.

  “I’m going to untie you,” Ski Mask said. She kept her face blank. “This is real life. This is not the movies. You don’t know kung fu and I’ve got a gun. I don’t know how much you know about guns, but this one has a silencer on it. No one will hear it go off. The next sound will be the cracking of your skull just before it enters your brain. Got it?”

  Lydia bit her lip. She was almost afraid to be untied, to walk with this man holding a weapon. She tried not to stare at the gun as Gravelly Voice went behind the chair and untied her hands, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t equipped with a silencer. It didn’t look long enough. But on the other hand, despite all the hundreds of hours she had spent watching cop shows and action movies, she couldn’t bring to mind exactly what a silencer looked like.

  After Gravelly Voice finished untying her, her hands stung like crazy. That was the blood
rushing back into them. She stood, feeling incredibly dizzy, and the room seemed to tilt to the side as Ski Mask stepped away from her and she shuffled away from the chair.

  Now what? Now what? she thought, flush with victory but trying to work out the next step in her mind. We’re going to Jackson’s room. What’s in his room that I could use to defend myself? He has trophies. Could I smash a trophy in this guy’s face? Is that just wishful thinking? Could I send a message when I turn on Jackson’s computer? Activate his Face Talk?

  She had to think on her feet, literally, as she stood on the threshold of Jackson’s room. She saw it almost the way a stranger would, and fresh panic surged through her. She had to make this work. Had to make it count.

  Ski Mask turned off the light that she herself had turned on. The three stood in darkness . . . except that Jackson’s curtains were open. Maybe she could signal where she was to Danny and Damon.

  And then what?

  “Don’t try anything,” Ski Mask ordered her. Then he gripped her arm tightly. “No heroics. I’ll shoot you. Now walk to his desk, sit down, and turn on his computer.”

  She thought about pretending to stumble and asking him to turn on a light. But she remembered her logical conclusions: this guy was smart. She didn’t want to find herself being harmed because he saw through her charade. So she swayed nervously through Jackson’s room, felt for the chair—had a wild, insane moment were she fantasized about grabbing it and whirling in a half circle, knocking both of them over like bowling pins—and then pulled out the chair and sat down. Her hands found the keyboard, and she knew the on button was the upper right key.

  Still in the dark, just before she turned it on, she pulled the monitor sideways as quickly and as discreetly as she could, angling it toward the window, and prayed that the light would reveal what was going on inside. Or at the very least, serve as a signal to Danny and Damon about where she was.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Ski Mask said, and she was afraid he’d caught her moving the monitor. “Turn it on now.”