Fire with Fire

I DON’T KNOW HOW I MAKE MYSELF GET UP OFF THE ground and go to Rennie’s party. I’m in such a fog; I feel like I’m floating outside my body, watching myself move down the streets. Snow is falling in tiny gentle flakes, dusting the ground and the trees and the dead grass. I can’t even feel the cold. I try to swallow, but my throat is closed. What happened to my dad? Why didn’t my mom let me go with her?

My powers couldn’t stop them from leaving me.

When I get down to T-Town, I break into a run, all the way to the gallery. I need to find Lillia and Kat. They’ll help me. They’ll help me find my mom and Aunt Bette.

I reach the gallery door and come face-to-face with a bouncer in a black pinstripe suit and black fedora pulled low over his eyes. I think about trying to slip right past him, but he’s so big, he fills the door frame like a human wall. Just beyond him I hear music and laughter and merriment, and it makes my chest hurt, because I’m so far from any of that right now. I doubt I’ll ever laugh again.

“I need to find my friends,” I say, desperate. “They’re inside.”

He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even raise his chin so I can look him in the eyes.

Crap. The stupid speakeasy password. What was it? I had it written down, in my purse. I rack my brain, but I can’t hold on to any thought. It’s all a jumble. “Please, sir. Please. This is an emergency.”

Again the bouncer doesn’t say anything. I wonder how many kids he’s turned away tonight. People Rennie didn’t think belonged in her company. I pull on my hair, hard, but it doesn’t hurt, and I concentrate all my energy on willing myself to remember. “I know there’s a password to get in. My friend told me. I . . . I even know the special one where I don’t have to pay a cover charge. Rennie invited us herself. But I—I . . . My friend Kat, she’s definitely inside. She has short brown hair.” The bodyguard arches his back into a deep, long stretch, and then fishes a flask out of his jacket pocket.

I think about trying to ask for Rennie, but she probably wouldn’t let me in. Not after the way I acted when Aunt Bette came to the gallery to get her paintings back. I can’t even bribe my way in with money because I don’t have a red cent on me.

It finally comes to me. “Moonshine! Moonshine! Moonshine!” I shout it as loud as I can, but the bodyguard still pretends not to hear me. It’s like I’m not even standing in front of him. My lips quiver and the tears come. What’s happening? “Please,” I’m begging. “Please let me in.” Only it’s no use.

I stumble backward away from him and try peeking through the foggy glass in the front window. I don’t see Kat or Lillia inside, can’t make either of them out in the crowds of revelers. But I know they are here. I can feel it. I sit down on the curb and touch for my heartbeat, because it feels like it’s pounding in my chest, but I can’t feel a thing.

And then, suddenly, I turn my head back to the gallery door, and there’s Lillia standing out front on the curb. She’s shivering in a thin dress and her stockings. Is she looking for me? She must have felt that I needed her.

I step toward her, but then Reeve appears, carrying her coat. He wraps her in it. They run across the street together, and Reeve picks up Lillia and puts her inside the cab of his truck. They seem like they’re in a hurry.

They kiss on the lips before they drive away. A tender, slow, warm kiss.

Oh no. Oh no.

I turn around; I’m spinning. I sink to the ground. I don’t understand. How could she do this to me?

I’m still sitting on the curb when, from out of the back of the store, I see Rennie’s white Jeep go flying down the road in the other direction. Kat’s behind the wheel.

I lift a shaky hand and push my hair behind my ears. I’ve got nowhere to go, no idea what’s going on. My whole world is falling apart.

Maybe I can catch Mom and Aunt Bette before the ferry leaves. I can make them take me with them because I definitely cannot stay here. So I run. I run as fast as I can, my shoes slipping on the slick roads, and scream, “Wait for me! Wait for me!” until my throat is raw. I know they won’t hear me, I’m too far, but I have to do something.

I get to the ferry landing. Normally bright, tonight it’s cloaked in darkness. I search the parking lot, but it’s empty. A thick metal chain ropes off the entrance. All the white lights running along the planks are turned off. The ferry has stopped running. Mom and Aunt Bette must have boarded the last one.

They’re gone.

I drop to my knees and let out a wail that makes the trees tremble. I’m done. I’ve got nothing left inside. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t go on like this. I rise to my feet and head up the hill. I know what I need to do. I should have done it a long time ago. And this time, there’ll be no one to stop me.

A white Jeep pulls up beside me. Inside is Rennie. I can tell she’s been crying, the way her makeup raccoons around her eyes.

“Are you okay?”

I stumble up to the Jeep. I see myself reflected in the glass. I’m not in my party dress, but in a pair of still-damp jeans and a wet white T-shirt, speckled with gravel and dirt, clinging to my rolls of fat. I look down, and there are my old sneakers, soaked through with water.

I try to answer Rennie, but I can’t. I’m choking on my tears.

She tells me to get in. I don’t move. She opens the door for me and I finally climb in.

“Where do you live? Where are your parents?”

I try to answer her, to make words, but nothing comes out of my mouth. It’s like I’m choking. Like something is around my neck, squeezing it closed. I can feel my eyes bulge out of my head. My lungs burn for oxygen.

Rennie’s scared; I can tell she’s scared. “Just breathe. It’s going to be okay. Just breathe.”

“Breathe! Breathe!”

I want to. I want to suck in a deep, cool breath, but all I can feel is the burn of the rope around my neck. I’m dizzy from lack of oxygen. That and the way I’ve been swinging, to and fro from the beam in my ceiling, before she cut me down.

“My beautiful baby!” Mom sobs. She leans forward; she kisses my face. Hers is wet with tears. “Why? Why would you do this to yourself?”

I turn to Rennie and am finally able to choke out, in a strained whisper of a voice, “Reeve.” Rennie’s eyes go wide. “Reeve did this to me. This is his fault.”

I watch her hands tighten around the steering wheel. She can’t look at me; she’s too frightened. “I . . . I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“Hold on, baby!” Mom is screaming herself raw. “The ambulance is coming! Hold on. I’ve got you.”

I try to, but it’s hard. I feel myself slipping away. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. But that’s exactly what’s happening.

And then, with one last rush, I’m pulled out of my body and up to the ceiling. I can see my mom holding me as the ambulance arrives. I see them grab at me, but my mom won’t let me go. She knows. She already knows what I apparently didn’t.

I’m dead.

“What are you doing!” Rennie screams. She’s terrified. She’s scooting over as far as she can away from me. She’s not looking at the road, not looking at the turns.

I feel myself heat up, a fire. Hotter than any other time before. I close my eyes and everything goes white, like the center of the sun. I barely hear Rennie, because this is it. My chance to finally jump the scratch. It’s a relief, to do it. To finally let go.