“Lyss!” He banged on her closed door, yelling and coughing, then rose up to his knees to try to open it. He couldn’t. The knob burned his hand, and the paint on the door was blistering, smoke pouring out from underneath like water on a sinking ship. “Lyssa!”
He had to try. He had to save her.
Shane fell onto his back, gasping for air, coughing constantly, and pulled both his legs back for a last effort at a kick. He hit the doorknob, and the whole door shuddered, then flew back on its hinges.
A ball of flame erupted out at him, and he rolled, feeling his clothes catch fire. He had to keep rolling to put it out, and then he crawled back. Alyssa’s door was open. He had to get to—
Somebody grabbed him by the feet and started dragging him backward. “No!” he screamed, or tried to; he couldn’t breathe—it felt like his lungs were stuffed with wet cotton. “No, Lyssa—”
It was his father. Frank Collins dragged him out to the stairs, then collapsed in a coughing heap, sucking whatever air remained near the floor, and rolled Shane down the steps. Shane barely felt any of it. The world was taking on dark, glittering edges, and his chest hurt, and none of it meant anything because he had to get to his sister. . . .
His mother was there, too, grabbing his arms and dragging. His dad made it down and helped.
They dragged Shane outside, and suddenly there was all this air, and he began coughing and vomiting black stuff and shaking and crying, and oh my God, Lyssa. . . .
His dad grabbed him and shook him. “Why didn’t you get her?” he yelled, right in Shane’s face. “She was your responsibility!” He was slurring his words, so drunk he could hardly stand up.
Shane couldn’t help it. He laughed. There was something terrible about it. Something broken.
His mother was trying to go inside. The firefighters and cops were there now, and they stopped her and brought her back. She sat down on the wet grass with Shane and rocked him back and forth as their house turned into an orange, flickering bonfire against the cold black sky, as their Morganville neighbors—and even some of the vampires—came out to watch.
And then Shane looked up, and he saw Monica Morrell and her two BFFs, Gina and Jennifer. They were standing at the edge of the crowd, closest to where Shane sat, and Jennifer looked horrified and fascinated by the fire—but Gina and Monica were staring straight at Shane.
Monica held up her hand. She had a Bic lighter, and she flicked the wheel and showed him the flame. Then she made a little finger-and-thumb gun and shot it at him.
Shane heaved himself up off the grass and went for her, screaming, raving, crazy, and not caring at all about the rules, about whether she was a girl, about anything, because if she’d done this, if she’d . . .
Somebody stopped him. The face didn’t register with him for a long couple of seconds, but then he saw it was Michael, grabbing on, and then Monica’s brother, Richard, the cop.
“She killed her!” Shane screamed, and felt his knees go out from under him, because saying it had made something awful become horribly real. “She killed Alyssa!”
Michael hadn’t realized, Shane saw; his friend’s face went white, and he looked at the house, and whatever he said, Shane couldn’t hear it over the violent pounding of his heart. He tried to get up. Michael stepped back, but Richard Morrell kept him down.
“Shane!” Richard was yelling, and shaking him, but all Shane could see was Monica’s face over her brother’s shoulder. She wasn’t smiling anymore. In fact, she looked as pale as Michael, and now she was staring at the house, too.
Like she hadn’t known.
Like she hadn’t thought.
Shane kept screaming, and fighting, until Richard finally rolled him over and put him in handcuffs, but even then, Richard’s hand on his back was only there to keep him down.
To keep him from doing something insane.
Monica, you stupid bitch.
She hadn’t known. She hadn’t realized Alyssa was still in the house.
And Shane didn’t care. He didn’t really care about anything anymore.
By the time the fire was out, Monica was gone.
? ? ?
Time passed. Things happened. Shane didn’t much care, still; he felt numb, even days later. He felt numb when he picked through the wreckage of the house, looking for something that hadn’t been destroyed. Looking for something of his sister’s.
The cops brought him in, along with his parents, and gave them the dog and pony show. Terrible accident, faulty wiring, no reason to believe . . .
It was bullshit. Shane knew it. Big cover-up, because Mayor Morrell’s precious baby girl just couldn’t be a killer. Wouldn’t be right.