Page 72 of Líadan's Code

An old fashioned Molotov cocktail is the culprit, but I unfortunately don’t think I’ll be able to put it out easily. The fire is racing through as it lights up the bedroom, and I reach for my pants, grunting as I pull them on and grab my gun where I left it on a low table. The bedspread and curtains are going up in flames as if whatever went through the window had an accelerant, the heat blistering.

Fuck.

“Lía,” I bark as I look over my shoulder and begin to army crawl toward them.

“We’re fine, Jordan was hit by some glass when it exploded. We really need to get the fuck out of here,” she says, knocking over a suitcase to pull out clothing to quickly dress.

Gunfire follows the fire through the window from the street, another reminder to stay low as we scramble to leave.

Jordan grunts as he pulls on whatever Lía hands him, forcing himself onto his knees to yank down his laptop bag and barely save his equipment.

“I can hear people yelling outside,” he says just loudly enough for me to hear as he gets to his feet, while hunching over.

Grabbing whatever towels I can reach from laundry that didn’t get put away before we left, we hold it over our faces as we begin to run together. Gunfire follows us through the house and someone fires a machine gun from the street. The once quiet street no longer is, and it seems we’ve brought our family bullshit home.

“Basement,” Lía yells over the noise as another fire bomb is launched into the guest room across the hallway from the room.

“More contingency plans?” Jordan asks wryly as he stumbles after us. There’s blood running down the side of his body and back, and his sweatpants are loosely slung over his hips.

It’s a good thing we aren’t going too far. None of us even were able to get shoes on.

For fuck’s sakes.

Wrapping my arm around Jordan’s waist, I bear some of his weight as I cover us. It looks as if they’re trying to get us out of the house to either take us or kill us. Either is up in the air at the moment.

“Come on, you bastards! The little queen will burn if you don’t leave the house,” Cormac yells. Why didn’t I kill him at the club?

“I’m adding him to my torture list,” Jordan growls viciously as we move quickly and carefully down the stairs.

“You have a list?” Lía asks as she hits the floor to begin army crawling toward the basement door.

There’s more smoke down here, and the men outside have been busy throwing in more flaming torches. I have no idea what they used as an accelerant because it’s moving too quickly to just be alcohol or gasoline.

Jordan crouches down with me as we race across the main floor, and the gunfire continues. I can already hear the wails of the fire trucks, and know that the police will be following soon. Cormac must either be stupid or desperate to attempt this in our neighborhood.

I don’t know who ratted us out or found us, but I’m really liking the sound of this list of Jordans.

“I was going to surprise you with it,” Jordan mutters.

The fire is getting worse around us as Lía opens the basement door and we pile onto the landing before she slams the door shut. Luckily it hasn’t reached the point where everything is pressurized, and all the handles are boiling hot.

…not that the basement door even has a handle to be worried about.

Fuck, there goes the damn house, because nothing can be saved. It’s a good thing Lía already was talking about leaving. While we’ve had good memories here and in the park across the street, we need to move on either way.

Somewhere we can make new memories with Jordan.

It’s already cooler in the basement as we drop the towels and take giant breaths of clean air. Lía and I bought this place from a doomsday prepper that gutted the basement and made sure the air vents in here weren’t the same as the rest of the house. It has its own backup generator too.

The plans for the basement aren’t on any of the city blueprints, and can’t be accessed by anyone other than Lía or I. She had to press on the right part of the wall to get the door to pop out, otherwise it appears to be a smooth surface.

“Keep going, baby, don’t think about it,” I tell Lía as she stops for a moment, inevitably thinking about the house. “You wanted to move anyway, remember?”

Lía snorts in amusement as she walks down the stairs and nods.

“I didn’t expect the house I’m currently living in to be set on fire while I was naked,” she grumbles as Jordan follows her.

His back has shards of glass all over it from when the window broke, and he appears twitchy.

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