Page 120 of Kings & Carnage

I would find her sooner rather than later.

Then a gust of cold wind blew through the kitchen and half the crowd halted their forward progress and turned toward the back of the room.

"There's another door!" someone shouted.

I'd never paid much attention to the layout of St. Andrew’s, other than knowing which room housed which proclivity, but clearly there was another exit and half the crowd was now pushing in the opposite direction, away from me, hoping to escape the smoke without having to push through to the front of the house.

I tried to tell myself it was a good thing. Willa had been closer to the back of the room with Mara — she would be one of the first ones out — but I shoved in that direction anyway because nothing was going to ease my mind except laying my eyes on her face.

I finally reached the door and emerged into the cold winter night, the other patrons of St. Andrew’s staggering around me, sucking in deep breaths of clean air, tearing off their masks, rubbing their eyes.

Angry flames licked from the second-floor windows and another slick of dread rolled through my body.

I shook it off. Neo and Rock could take care of themselves. Willa was my only responsibility.

I scanned the crowd frantically, disoriented by the costumes and looking for her fair hair.

I didn’t see her, but I spotted Mara, standing alone and looking dazed, and hurried toward her. “Where’s Willa?”

“Willa?” She looked around. “I don’t know. She was…”

I grabbed her arm and hauled her to the front of the house where I saw Claire standing with Erin and Quinn, all of them coughing.

“Watch her,” I said to Claire, giving Mara a push in their direction.

“Okay, but…”

I didn’t hear the rest of her words.

The scream of fire engines cut through the night and I hurried through groups of people, some of them naked and shivering, scanning every face for Willa.

I turned my attention back to the house, terrified that she'd slipped away into some other room and not made it out, and saw Neo and Rock come through the front door sans masks along with a couple of other stragglers.

The house was engulfed in flames. It was hard to imagine anyone left inside would make it out alive.

And still Willa was nowhere to be found.

"Where the fuck is she?" Neo roared. His face was darkened with soot, his eyes bloodshot from the smoke.

"We were separated," I said. "I thought she made it out ahead of me, but I can't find her.”

"Fuck," Rock said, turning in a circle and scanning the crowd.

"Split up," Neo said. "Find her.”

"I'll take the back," Rock said.

Neo pushed through me to the left of the house where people were still staggering from the back. I headed in the other direction, the only direction I hadn't been, trying to hurry as I scanned the faces of every person I passed.

I thought about the first hours Emma had been missing, the way the cops had told us all that the chance of finding her diminished with every minute.

I told myself this wasn't the same. Willa was just lost in the crowd, probably looking for us just as frantically as we were looking for her. but as I made my way to the back of the house where Rock was combing the tree line, I knew it was a lie.

I hurried toward him and was joined by Neo, jogging across the snowy lawn.

The firefighters and EMTs had arrived, their flashing lights casting an eerie red glow over the scene from the front of the house.

"She's not here," I said, reaching into the waistband of my boxer briefs where I’d stashed my phone.

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