Page 2 of BRATVA'S Avenging Bride
My throat goes tight. I nod. Knowing I probably won’t ever see her again. Her blue eyes look scared, but for the first time ever, I can see something that looks like hope in them.
She lets me go.
I move through the building like a ghost. Block the side exit in case Mira can’t. Prop the back door open with a brick. Knock on the girls' doors, three quick raps, our signal for danger. Get out. Now.
Nerves twist around my bones, and I begin to tremble.
The third floor is where Boris has his office. Where he counts the cash. Where they keep the records of who bought who, who owes what, who's too broken to be worth keeping, and the room where he takes too much pleasure in hurting the girls.
I pour the cleaner down the hallway. The fumes make my eyes water, my lungs burn. I splash it on the doors, the carpet, the walls. I empty both bottles until the chemical reek is so thick I can taste it.
Then I pull out the lighter.
It's cheap plastic. Red. I stole it from a customer's jacket two months ago and kept it like a talisman. Like a promise.
My thumb hovers over the spark wheel.
This is it. The moment where I choose. Where I stop being the girl who takes it, who survives it, who smiles through the pain.
I think about Lena's bruised cheek. Mira's broken ribs. The new girl who was brought in last week, crying for her mother.
I think about every hand that grabbed me without asking. Every door that locked behind me. Every time they made me feel like I was nothing.
The lights go out. Mira cut the electric.
I flick the lighter.
The flame catches immediately. A small thing. Delicate. Beautiful.
I drop it.
The fire doesn't hesitate.
It races down the hallway like it's been waiting for permission, hungry and vicious and exactly what this place deserves. The heat slams into me, and I stumble back, my heart suddenly pounding.
Oh god. Oh god, what did I do?
The smoke rises fast, thick and black, and somewhere below me I hear men shouting.
I should run. I should get out. I should follow my own advice and disappear into the night.
But my feet won't move.
I stand there, watching the flames devour the door to Boris's office, and I feel something I haven't felt in three years.
Power.
Then I hear her. "Help! Please, someone help!"
Lena.
My body moves before my brain catches up. I run toward the sound, toward the heat, toward the girl I was supposed to save.
I find her in Boris’s room, huddled on a mattress, fresh blood coming from wounds she didn’t have earlier tonight. She is coughing, her eyes are streaming. The smoke is so thick now that I can barely see.
"Come on!" I grab her wrist and drag her toward the window. It's old, painted shut, but I kick it until the glass shatters. "Jump!"
"I can't, I can't—"
