She was about a block away when someone stepped out of the dark into her path, and she yelped, flailed to a stop, and pulled the stake out of her pocket. The shadow stepped into the shallow pool of light from a streetlamp, and she recognized her own brother. “Jason! Jesus, what are you doing out here? Are you crazy?”
“Are you?” he asked. He seemed perfectly at home in the dark, all night-stalking black clothing and bad attitude. “I’m out here all the time. I know how to get around.”
“Are you insane? You’re too young to be out on your own—”
“You heading for the fire?” he interrupted, and she caught her breath and nodded. “Then stop wasting breath and come on.”
They jogged the rest of the way together, and Eve wanted to ask Jason why he went out at night, what he did when he was out here, but the answers sounded like something she really, really didn’t want to know. Besides, her stomach was all in knots thinking about Shane and his family, and as they came closer to the fire, it got worse. The stink of the smoke became horribly real, for one thing; it wasn’t like a pile of wood you burned in a fireplace. It had an acrid, searing stench to it. Burning plastics, cloth, foam, paint . . . all the things that made a building into a home, going up in black, bellowing clouds.
The Collins house was a total loss already. The fire department was really piling water on it to keep it from spreading to other nearby homes, and the heat was intense as Eve got closer. She could feel it battering at her skin like a physical force. The police had set up barriers, and she crowded up against one with a bunch of neighborhood people, some still in pajamas and bathrobes; she spotted the Montez family huddled together, watching in horrified fascination. There were some vampires lurking, but like the humans at the barricades, they were just gawking. Bloodsuckers liked to keep their distance from fire.
“What happened?” Eve asked Mrs. Montez. The older woman had her hair up in curlers under some kind of net bag, and a pink robe wrapped around her plump body. “Do you know?”
Mrs. Montez shook her head. “People say it was set, that fire. I don’t know.”
“Did everybody get out?” Eve was straining to see Shane, or his little sister, Alyssa, or their parents, but she couldn’t spot anybody.
“Not the little girl. She didn’t.” Mrs. Montez shook her head in somber regret, and Eve caught her breath. The night, for all the heat and cinders, felt suddenly very cold. Alyssa? No, that couldn’t be right. It just couldn’t. There was some mistake. Mrs. Montez just didn’t know, that was all. She was just . . . mistaken.
And then, on the other side of the barricades, Eve caught sight of a face she knew. Soot-stained, pale, but achingly familiar. Michael Glass. He was standing helplessly off to the side, watching the fire with wide, empty eyes. Nobody was paying him any mind, though a police officer was nearby. She supposed they were keeping him there as some kind of . . . witness?
Eve didn’t think about what she intended to do; she just ducked under the barricade and ran straight for Michael. He saw her coming at the last second, and somehow managed to get his arms out just in time for her to hit him in a fierce, full-bodied hug.
He held on to her just as tightly, and she breathed in the smell of the smoke that clung to him, the sweat, the electric burn of fear and grief. She knew, somehow. From the shaking strength of his arms around her, she knew Mrs. Montez hadn’t been wrong.
Alyssa Collins was dead.
“Shane?” She managed to mumble it out, and he heard her, even over the roar of the fire. She felt his face against her hair, and then his skin against her cheek as he turned his head. Incredibly warm. Scratchy, from the beard that was growing in a little. “Is Shane okay?”
“He made it out,” Michael said. She expected him to let go of her then, but he didn’t. Maybe they both needed the support. “His dad dragged him. Shane was still fighting to get—get to Alyssa.”
“But he couldn’t reach her?” Eve said, because she could tell it was hard for him to say it. “Oh my God, Michael. He couldn’t get to his little sister. He must be so wrecked. . . . Where is he?”
“With his parents,” Michael said. “I guess the cops wanted to talk to them about how the fire started. Not that there’s much doubt about it.”
There was a low, angry tone to that, and Eve pulled back a little and looked at him. “What?” she asked, and his blue eyes got very hard, very focused.
“Monica,” he said. “Shane told me he saw her out here with a lighter. The bitch burned his house. She killed Alyssa.”
“No!” Eve couldn’t help blurting it out. “She couldn’t have . . . Oh my God. I never thought—I mean, she’s a horrible, awful person, but . . .”