The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)(17)

The lid lifted up easily after the third twist, and I pulled it, and the lighter, back slightly. The warden pulled the bottle toward herself—to her nose or her mouth, I had no idea. In that moment, I seized the opportunity.

My left hand flashed out, quicker than I could ever imagine, pressing forward on her hand and upturning the bottle, while my casted hand lashed out at the pistol in hers, connecting awkwardly, the gun pointed at me flying out of her hand as the woman gave an ‘oof.’ The liquid sloshed out of the bottle in an arcing spray, splashing down on her mouth, chin, and chest.

The warden had a moment to shout. Then I was pressing forward with my left hand, using my thumb to slide the lighter up into my fingers and flipping open the lid. It was already coming down on the spark wheel, my hand pressing in close to her chest, when I fully registered what I was about to do.

And then it was too late. My thumb hit the spark wheel, viciously spinning it around. There was a whoosh of noise as the kerosene ignited, and then the woman before me was burning, fire licking up her torso and head in blue and orange flames. I saw her eyes widen above the flames around her mouth, which was opening to scream, but nothing came out save a harsh, brittle whoosh of air.

I took a step back, the lighter slipping from my fingers and onto the floor as the flames began to spread, the heat from it causing my eyes to sting. The woman tried to bat at the flames on her chest, but her shoulders were already beginning to burn. And the smell… The smell of burnt hair began to flood the hall.

I covered my mouth with my hand, recoiling at what I had just done as I watched her race away. I noticed the gun still lying where I’d thrown it on the floor. I bent down to grab it, a roar of panic sounding in my head. Levelling it at her, I squeezed the trigger until she dropped.

I moved over her and put one more in her head, just to be sure.

Then I tossed the gun to the side, stumbled away a few steps, and very noisily emptied the scant contents of my stomach onto the floor, next to a small table, while the woman’s body still burned next to me.

I took several calming breaths and sat there, shaking, waiting for the relief that it was over to come. But it just… wouldn’t. That was probably the most gruesome, most hideous death I had ever been a part of. I hadn’t known myself capable of that level of… If I could kill someone with that much unnecessary pain and suffering, what was I fighting for? What had happened to the days when Viggo and I had tried to take everyone down nonlethally, promising the guards that we didn’t kill? And over those thoughts, the sight of the woman’s face, the noise of the oxygen getting sucked out of her lungs by the fire, played through my head, over and over—

I shook my head and stopped myself. This train of thought would get me killed. Just sitting here trying to process it all would get me killed. It was survival. I’d acted on instinct, like I had always done in my life when I was in danger, but this time… I had stopped it. I had ended her life before she could suffer any more. I had done what I could. I had…

Desmond. I couldn’t keep wasting time. I had to deal with what I had just done later. I looked up and down the hall, half expecting my enemy to be standing there, watching me. She wasn’t, but she could be anywhere. Wiping the back of my hand over my mouth, I stumbled over to the gun I had tossed aside and picked it back up. Resting against the wall another moment, I looked at the body still burning on the floor, forcing myself to witness the horror of it.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to her. Not that it would help now. The flames on her body were consuming her quickly, but they didn’t seem to be dying down. Grimacing, I ripped off some curtains from the nearest window and threw them over her body, then went back and tore down another set, waiting until I was sure I’d smothered the fire before I could go on my way. As much as my skin crawled standing here, vulnerable in the open, with the horrible sight of the woman I’d killed obscured by ruined curtains, I needed to make sure the fire didn’t spread.

Then I staggered back down the hall, heading deeper into the house. I carefully picked my way through the traps that hadn’t yet been sprung, looking to see whether any had been tampered with. They hadn’t, but the emptiness in the house was eerie. I had no idea where Desmond was. Every corner I turned, I half expected to see her looming in front of me. I checked behind me at every tiny noise.

As I crept into the foyer over the main stairwell, I hesitated, my mind noticing the discrepancy before I could even register it. A foggy haze seemed to be filling up the room, permeating it with the scent of something burning. I turned back toward where I had come from, almost expecting the still burning woman to be crawling her way toward me, but the hallway was deserted. Had I missed something about the fire? Had it caught anyway?

Coming around the banister, I saw that the room beneath me was lit up with a red glow in the area just under the place I’d emerged from, casting long, dark shadows that seemed to twist and writhe in the presence of a moving light source. I took a few steps down the staircase, my heart in my mouth. Then my blood ran cold when I saw the bright orange flames spreading through the left side of the house. Through Tim’s side of the house.

This wasn’t the fire I had put out. This had Desmond written all over it—she had to have set the fire. Probably as soon as everyone had raced upstairs. She hadn’t waited to see if her people had been successful; she clearly wanted me too badly for that.

The fire in front of me roared and crackled, the flames seeming to grow with every second that passed. I thought fast, but each thought felt as though it was coming too slowly. How I could get to my brother and Owen? Desmond knew I wouldn’t leave them if they were still alive. Which meant she had set the place on fire to get me to show my hand—show where I’d been hiding.