Page 53 of Emma on Fire

But it was all such bullshit, wasn’t it?

Ridgemont Academy was Type A indoctrination. It didn’t teach math or biology so much as it taught students that being the best, no matter what that took, was the only thing that mattered. And if striving to be the best stressed you out, or made you unhappy, then you were weak. You didn’t deserve all that you’d been given. She could be asangry at her father as she wanted to be, but the truth is that she is a product of Ridgemont—and she is going to redefine success.

To evade detection by the school’s security cameras, Emma avoids the main entrance and doubles back, entering Beecher Forest on the north side of the campus. The woods are full of twisting, narrow paths. Some were made by white-tailed deer, others by students looking for secluded spots to drink contraband beer and make out with their crushes.

Twigs snap softly under her sneakered feet. The forest is spooky, but she clings to the safety of its cover for as long as possible.

She reaches the edge of the Ridgemont meadow just as the pink of dawn is climbing into the sky. On the other side is the cluster of buildings known as Art North; it includes the theater, the concert space, the ceramics studio, and Foster Hall, the media arts building—where the Wi-Fi is strongest.

A wave of relief washes over her. She’s so close. It can all end.

She walks across the dewy meadow, moving swiftly but casually—like she’s out for a morning stroll. A robin makes a warning call and flutters up from the grass.

She’s halfway to the other side when a voice calls out. “Emma? Emma Blake! Stop right there!”

CHAPTER 43

EMMA SPINS AROUND and sprints back toward the woods. She hasn’t done anything anyone at Ridgemont has told her to do for months. She sure as hell isn’t going to start now.

The gas canister in her JanSport crashes repeatedly against her kidneys as she runs. Wozniak, still shouting, is a hundred yards behind.

“Emma, wait, I just want to talk to you!”

The campus cop is in shape, and Emma gave up on sports a long time ago. She’s fifty feet from the woods, then twenty, ten, five. When she slams through the underbrush, the branches of Beecher Forest close behind her, but Wozniak crashes right through them.

“Beecher,” she hears Wozniak say into her walkie. “Northeast quadrant.”

“Roger,” says Jones.

There’s no way she can outrun both of them, not with a backpack and the weight of the gasoline canister … which gives Emma an idea. She comes to a screeching halt, leaves sliding out from under her feet. She turns around, drags the JanSport off her back, and yanks the gas can out. Wozniak is just coming around the bend in the path as Emma upends it all over herself.

Wozniak stops dead, hands out, eyes wide.

Jones’s staticky voice comes through the walkie. “Woz? You got a visual?”

“Yes,” Wozniak says slowly. “She just dumped a gallon of gasoline on herself. And she’s holding a lighter.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” comes Jones’s voice. “I’m coming!”

Emma manages a smile as she flicks open the Zippo, but she doesn’t draw the flame. She’s dripping gasoline, her clothes are stuck to her, the fumes in the air surrounding her are strong. If she strikes the Zippo, she’ll go up—and she can’t do that with an audience of one.

“Emma!” Wozniak shouts. “Please, listen to me…” She holds her hands out farther, like decreasing the distance between them will make a difference. “Just please, listen.”

“Words,” Emma gasps, the gas choking her throat. “None of them matter.”

CHAPTER 44

“TELL HIM TO stay away,” Emma says, motioning toward Wozniak’s walkie with the lighter. If he gets here, they’ll circle her, and she won’t be able to hold them both off. If he gets here, it will increase her audience to two—not nearly enough. If he gets here, she’s toast.

Emma giggles at the word choice her brain landed on, a bubble of hilarity rising in her throat, pushing aside the gasoline fumes. Wozniak takes a step toward her.

“Emma,” she says. “I know that you think—”

“You don’t know shit,” Emma screams, the hand with the lighter wobbling. “And if you don’t tell him to back off right now, I’ll do it, and you’ll watch it alone.”

Wozniak puts her hands down, reaches for her walkie. “Jones? Where are you? I’ve got a visual on her, northwest quadrant.”

Jones voice comes back, scratchy and confused. “You said northeast? I’m in the northeast.”

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