Page 82 of Stay in Your Lane!

Colin pulled himself together fast. He looked over at me and Kyle, eyes lingering on my hand for a second, then said, “You two, stay here and stay down. Let me handle this, but when I tell you to come out, come out, okay? I swear, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

You swore that the last time.

Our entire move to the safehouse had been predicated on the idea that we’d be safer there than staying at home. That hadn’t worked out, and while I was sure it wasn’t something Colin had done on purpose, the truth was he couldn’t sayhe was trustworthy because he wasn’t being given trustworthy information.

I opened my mouth to tell him as much, but Colin was already stepping outside. Kyle sat down, pulling me with him, and we watched as his brother moved slowly but confidently across the lot toward the Chief of Police and Reardon, his hands visible. Once he reached the nearest patrol car and greeted the officer standing behind it, a breath of relief left Kyle with a lurch.

“He’s okay,” he whispered.

“Yeah.” That was good—great even. Colin would be able to advocate for us a lot better out there, and—“Oh shit!”

“Colin!” Kyle pressed both his hands to the glass, eyes wide as his brother was tackled from behind, rolled onto the ground face-down, and cuffed in seconds. Neither of us could hear what he was saying, or shouting rather, but the guy on top of him clearly meant business.

I squinted at the cop’s shoes. They were black, with a familiar silhouette.Air Force 1s again.How many people were in on this conspiracy?

“They took out the cop!” one of the Goth kids shrieked.

“Pigs eating pigs!”

“Shit, we’re gonna die in here!”

“Nobody’s taking me without a fight!” That was Chet, charging out of the back again, this time holding a flaming bottle in one hand. “Open the goddamn door, Carol!”

She rounded on him, scowling. “Are you insane? Put that down!”

Things were spiraling faster than I could track. Chet charged, Carol shouted, and then, like it was slow motion, a series of shots rang out—bang, bang, bang.The glass panels in the front doors shattered, one of the overhead lights went out, and Chet went down like a ton of bricks. On pure instinct I fell backwards too, hauling Kyle down onto the bench seat with me until wewere both prone. It was totally unnecessary, since no one was shooting atus, and yet?—

Bang bang!

The glass window right behind our table broke into thousands of pieces, and at least half of them rained down on us a second later. I rolled again, pulling both of us on the floor—right onto some of the shards of glass,ow—but the tabletop protected us from the worst of it.

I looked to make sure Kyle was okay. He seemed to be fine, apart from the glass in his hair, a cut on his lip, and damn, speaking of glasses, his were missing. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“No. Yes. I’m…yeah, I’m all right. I just…” He stared up at the broken window. “Why did they shoot at us? We’re nowhere near where Chet was standing.” And he was the only person who’d behaved threateningly in here.

That led to the very unhappy conclusion that someone out there didn’tcareabout who was actually a threat and who wasn’t, but instead had taken advantage of the situation to try to silence us before we could talk. That was awful, but also kind of a good thing. If Reardon and his boss werethatanxious to silence us, then they had to know their case wasn’t strong. If the two of us were enough to spur them into behaving like idiots, then it wouldn’t take much for Theo to be able to find evidence to that effect.

I just hoped he wasn’t going to prove us innocent posthumously. Shit, if I died, would I be sent to Mulligan’s Mortuary? Would my own dad have to work on me? That didn’t seem fair, not after he had to handle Mom too. Of course, she’d been cremated, but it was still a fucked up thing to have to do for a family member. But?—

“Hey! I need some help over here!”

That was Carol. Kyle started to crawl out from under the table, then turned around, grabbed me by the face, and kissedme hard enough that I could taste the blood from where he’d hurt his lip. I didn’t care. I leaned into the kiss, not wanting to let him go, not for any reason. But when he pulled away, I didn’t stop him. I followed him instead, and we duck-walked across the glass-covered floor to where Carol was pressing her wadded-up apron to a groaning Chet’s shoulder.

“Damn fool,” she said, half to us and half to herself as she pulled off her jacket and ripped one of the sleeves from it. “Long as he’s stable, he can get through a shift okay, but throw a surprise at him and his common sense goes out the window faster than a cheating husband. You shoulda seen him when we changed the menu up for Valentine’s Day. Everything came out of the kitchen drenched in red food coloring thanks to the flashbacks.”

Kyle helped roll Chet so Carol could tie her apron to his wound with the jacket sleeve. He was bleeding pretty badly, but it seemed like the pressure was helping. I glanced over at the Goth kids, who had massed around the cat carriers like they were life jackets in the middle of a stormy sea. All of them were silent, even more so than when Carol scolded them.

“I’m sure an ambulance is coming,” Kyle said. “Don’t worry, Chet, you’ll be okay.”

I was going to nod encouragingly, but a sharp scent caught my attention. It smelled rank, like burning plastic. What…

Oh, fuck.

Chet had been carrying a Molotov cocktail, or something like it. He’d dropped it when he was shot, and it had rolled somewhere.

Oh,fuck. It had rolled back into the kitchen. A kitchen that was full of flammable things, not that it mattered, because from where I was crouched right now it looked like it wasn’t a bunch of oil or a hanging rag that had caught on fire. It was the floor.

The ancient linoleum floor thatshouldn’tbe flammable, but was coated with years’ of grease and foot traffic and probably didn’t even get glanced at by a mop more than once a decade. The floor was on fire, and it was spreading fast.

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