Page 162 of Lady Killer

“It’s mine . . .” I stammered, looking at the three of them in a daze. “I mean, it was, my home in Oregon, the one Mami burned down, the night . . .” I trailed off.

“The night she killed your father and stepmother,” Alister finished for me as my phone buzzed again.

The killer had been there.

UNKNOWN: Ticktock, this offer expires in ten minutes.

I shoved my phone in my pocket, my mind made up. “Nixon, can you help me?”

“What? Yeah, I mean sure, but should we talk—‍”

“There’s nothing to be said. We already knew the killer knew about my father’s murder. This isn’t new information. But we are running out of time,” I snapped, marching toward the house.

Behind me, there was grumbling and then the sound of a fist hitting flesh before I could hear someone hurrying to catch up to me.

“Right, pet,” came Nixon’s slightly out of breath voice. “You ever burn down a house?”

“No, but how hard can it be? You do it.”

We approached the house together.

It was even creepier up close. Windows shattered and gutters hanging off the sides of the roof.

“It’s too wet out here,” Nixon declared. “We’ll need to get it started from the inside.”

He made some hand signals at Ever and Alister who were following in our wake, and they silently peeled off in either direction, circling the house.

Walking up to the faded, beige door, I went for the handle, only for Nixon to cut me off.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he said, waggling his finger in my face.

“Whatever,” I said, crossing my arms, “just hurry up.”

His lips turned down, and he looked genuinely offended before shrugging it off. “Stay behind me,” he said, then turned and kicked the door down with one swift kick, sending a plume of dust up.

“Was that really necessary?”

We stepped into the house.

Without any lights or furniture, it looked especially gloomy inside. Other than some random graffiti, the walls were bare, and leaves and detritus covered portions of the floor.

Nixon made a show of looking around, cracking his knuckles. “We can work with this.”

“Good, then tell me what to do, and let’s do it. We have less than seven minutes now.”

“Gather up anything dry into the corners so it can act as kindling. We’ll light it all up, creating multiple starting points for the fire, which should get it going big and hot as fast as we can without an accelerant.”

Heeding his instructions, I kicked, scraped, and collected everything dry and flammable that I could into all the dry corners I could find on the first floor. Nixon followed behind me making minor modifications to my work before setting the crude pyres alight.

Quickly, the house began to fill with the smell of burning leaves and twigs. We made it to the back door as the smoke began to change, growing acrid and heavy as the house itself began to burn.

“Should we—‍”

“Nope. Out now. Before the smoke gets us,” Nixon ordered, pushing me hard on the shoulders toward the door.

Throwing it open, we stumbled out into the rain, and I gulped in my first hit of fresh air while Nixon coughed behind me.

“You cut it close, brother.” Alister was next to me, hauling me up and off the ground before I knew what was happening, carrying me bridal-style away from the slow-burning house and into the woods.

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