Page 103 of Worse Than Wicked
I nod and climb unsteadily from the bed. Baron’s eyes are dry again, but mine are still streaming. He wraps an arm around me, throwing my arm over his shoulder and supporting my weight, and we start for the door.
twenty-five
Duke Dolce
“What if we make a spark?” I ask.
“Don’t trip, and don’t touch anything.” He half drags me down the hall, down the stairs.
“I need clothes,” I say. “I dumped gas on them.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Still, he lets me stop at the bottom of the stairs and pull on my wet jeans.
The door is standing open, so we don’t have to worry about it making a spark when it opens. He grabs me again anyway, and together, we stumble out onto the porch. The air tastes strange, empty, without the fumes. I trip on the stairs and pitch forward, but Baron grabs onto the railing, holding tight. He doesn’t let me go. He walks me out onto the lawn, where Mabel is standing, wringing her hands.
“Seeley’s in there,” she cries. “I have to go find him.”
“Fuck,” Baron mutters. “He probably ran out the door. It’s been open since we got here.”
“He didn’t,” she says. “I’ve been watching. I called, but he won’t come out when he’s scared. He’s hiding. I have to find him!”
Baron holds up a hand. “I’ll go get your fucking cat. Duke, stay here. Mabel, watch him. Don’t let him go back in.” He gives me a final look, then shakes his head and starts back for the house. “If I get blown up over a fucking cat…”
When he’s inside, we stand in silence a long minute, watching the house.
“We could do it, you know,” Mabel says at last.
I look at her. “What?”
“Strike a match. It would all be over. He’d be gone before he ever knew.”
“Why didn’t you do it when we were both inside?” I ask. “Is this part of your fucked up game? To make me do it, so I have to live with it?”
“He hurt you too,” she says. “You can’t tell me he hasn’t ruined your life. Maybe he didn’t force you to do things the way he did to me, but he still forced you. You were his first victim.”
“Fuck you, Mabel.”
“It might be our only chance,” she says, glancing up as a car turns onto the street. She turns her big, luminous eyes back to me. “We could make it on our own. Harley Quinn and the Joker. Just you and me. Forever.”
The car slows. I turn that way, distracted for a second.
I hear a series of loud cracks. I see flashes of fire in the car window, starbursts in the darkness. Mabel ducks, throwing her hands up and letting out a shriek of fear. They’re so beautiful I can’t look away, though, and then the car is speeding off, and heat is spreading through my chest, my stomach.
For a second, I think Mabel punched me. I stumble backwards, my gaze dropping. Mabel is crouched on the grass, covering her head. Baron is running out of the house. And hot, dark blood is throbbing out of a hole in my bare chest.
twenty-six
Baron Dolce
I’m almost to the door with the damn cat when I hear three cracks, rapid, loud, like firecrackers.
Like gunshots.
My heartrate spikes.
It must have been kids messing around. A car backfiring. People in the nicest suburb of Faulkner don’t shoot guns on the street.
