Page 71 of Dance with the Devil

CROSS

A WEEK LATER

Ismell smoke.

The instant the tell-tale aroma hits my nostrils, I’m already wide awake. I never thought I’d be grateful for a lifetime of insomnia and shitty sleeping habits, but though I only went down about an hour ago, sleeping fitfully at best, I smell smoke and I’mup.

Where is it? I breathe in, trying to make sure that I’m not imagining it. I cough, and I know I’m not. That this isn’t just the remnants of a lifetime of remorse over surviving a fire by constantly dreaming that I’m in one.

Then my fire alarm starts to blare, the high-pitch nearly deafening me, and I know then that this isn’t my nightmare come true. This is happening, and I need to get out.

I fell asleep in my t-shirt and jeans. With Genevieve staying at her brother’s house last night because she’s going to meet with a new company in the morning, there was no reason to stripdown, especially when I doubted I’d get any sleep at all. I need to be holding onto my butterfly for any peace, but as the alarm seems to quiet in my frantic mind, I’m so fucking grateful that I slept alone.

When I look at Genevieve, I see flames, but I never, ever want her to experience fire.

I don’t have any shoes. There’s no time to grab them. I don’t even think about necessities like keys or my phone or ID or any of that shit. It’s only about getting out before the fire findsme.

My apartment is on the second floor. I never minded the cramped space because I knew for sure that there was a window off my bedroom that led right to a fire escape, and to me, that was more important than more square footage. If my family had one, they might have survived, and in any place I lived after that, I always needed a way out.

Now I race for it, grabbing the edge of the window.

Shit. Whether it’s my fear spiking and my anxiety making my hands worthless, I can’t get a grip on the window. It’s like someone glued it down or something, and no matter how much effort I put into it, I can’t get it up.

Okay.Okay. The fire alarm is still blaring, the smoke is getting thicker, and since the upstairs consists of my sleeping ahead, my bathroom, and the kitchen, I can sweep my gaze over the entire space and see that there’s no fire up here.

That means the fire is downstairs—and so is my only other means of escape.

Hoping that the fire is mainly contained so I can get the hell out of here, I take the stairs three at a time. The doorknob that separates my studio from the stairwell is warm, not scorching, so I think… maybe. Maybe it’s a small electrical fire that’s only so bad because of the smoke.

The smoke is definitely something. As I pull open the door, I throw my hand up over my face, choking on the thick, black smoke.

The fire iseverywhere. It looks like someone flitted around my space, leaving a trail behind them, and the fire is following that exact path. It hasn’t consumed everything yet, but give it a few more minutes, and the entire place will be engulfed in flames.

That means I have one shot to get out of here, and I’d feel a whole better if most of the fire cut me off from the front door.

The window, I think, stumbling toward it. There’s a clearer path to the shop’s glass window, and I’m thinking of ways to break it when I see the familiar face staring back at me through it.

For a heartbeat, I’m back in Hamilton. There’s the thick glass wall of our cage, and the leering bastard on the other side.

Only I’m in Springfield again, and someone is standing in front of my window, mesmerized by the flames.

Mickey fucking Kelly.

Oh, hell, no.

He sees me. He sees me bursting out of the smoke, trying my best to avoid the fire as I move toward him. He sees me, and hewaves.

Later, I’ll realize that I never even thought about what I was going to do. As if on instinct, I whirled around, searching for the rolling stool I used for tattooing my clients. It has a leather, padded seat—and thick metal legs that end in wheels.

Grabbing it by the seat, avoiding the scorching metal legs, I start hitting the glass window as hard as I can.

The fire must’ve done enough damage to weaken the structure of the glass. After three hits, it splinters. Mickey’s amused expression dies, and the prick takes off down the street before the fourth strike has the glass raining down on me. I don’teven hesitate. Closing my eyes only long enough to make sure I don’t get any glass shards in them, I shake the glittering glass off the best I can, toss the seat behind me, and climb through the open frame.

I’ve inhaled smoke. I don’t know where the flames touched me, only that the adrenaline coursing through me is enough to postpone the pain wherever they licked at my skin. The glass could’ve torn my flesh to ribbons and it doesn’t matter. I take off running the second my feet hit the sidewalk.

Mickey had a head start. No doubt about that. But this is my turf, I’m at least a decade younger, and I’mfurious. I catch up to him in no time, throwing all of my weight at him to tackle him to the sidewalk.

He’s gotta weigh at least two hundred pounds, but when he face-plants on the rough ground with me on top of him, I roll off, then flip him over before straddling his gut.

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