The Black Coats(82)

“The house is collapsing!” screamed Drew. “Thea!” He reached out for her with a look she knew she would never forget: the hard resignation that they would both be burned alive, that there was no escape for them.

Thea gritted her teeth. “No. We are not dying here today. I owe you a date.”

Even here, in this hell, a small smile. “You owe me more than that.”

Even as the ground beneath her feet was burning the rubber of her soles, Thea carefully unlocked the large window and stepped back. It was crazy, but it was their only chance. She looked at Drew. “Ready?”

He nodded. “Together.”

There was no time. Thea backed up and laced her hand through his, and then they were running for the window. They threw their bodies straight into the panes. The window bounced open and the first thing she felt was cool, clean night air. The next thing she felt was Drew wrap his arms and legs around her as they fell, making a shell with his body to protect her. She hadn’t even taken a breath when the bomb exploded with a sound louder than any sound she had ever heard; a sound that pushed her body out of itself.

BOOM!

The vibration shot through her bones, the blast of billowing heat sending them flying forward. As they dropped from the second level, a hellish inferno of fire and smoke and burning wood swirled around them. Disjointed images flashed in her mind as the house fell away from her: Drew’s body behind her, the feel of his hand clutched to her chest. A fiery orange flame consuming the night. Plumes of black smoke twisting like demons. And finally a monarch weathervane, spinning as it burned. This might be the end of everything, Thea thought as she fell.

I’m coming, Natalie, she whispered into the smoke. I’m coming.





Thirty-One


All Thea could hear when she came to was an incessant ringing in her left ear. Pieces of smoldering paper were floating down like snow, dusting her eyelashes, singeing her cheeks. Above her, a raging inferno of black wood and orange flame was billowing out of control. The light from the fire made everything around her as bright as day. She could hear voices in the distance, but something about her hearing was unbalanced.

Thea stretched her legs and gasped as she felt a still body underneath her. “Drew!” She turned over, finding Drew’s soot-blackened face. He wasn’t breathing. She had just pressed her mouth against his when he coughed violently. Thea sat back with a cry of relief.

“Lost my breath.” He took a huge gasp of air, wincing when he exhaled. “Ahhh, God!” He grabbed his leg. “Something’s wrong. Thea, I think my ankle might be broken, and . . .” He moaned, pressing against his side. “Possibly my ribs.” Her fluttering hands felt their way down to his right ankle and yanked up his jeans cuff. Sure enough, the ankle was distorted. His breathing was unsteady. “Where is Julie?” he moaned. “She can’t get to my dad.”

Thea took his face in her hands. “I’ll find her, I swear it. She’ll pay for what she’s done.” And she has Natalie’s file, Thea thought to herself.

Drew shook his head. “No. It’s done. Walk away. Please.”

She looked up with panic as she heard voices coming closer.

“Come on.” She hooked her arms underneath Drew’s and began pulling him away from the fire, her back screaming with the effort. Finally, she rested him against a trellis covered in yellow roses. They glimmered in the flames. She kissed his forehead once.

“Thea.” His eyes were pleading with her, and she could tell he was rapidly losing consciousness, which worried her. “Just stay.”

Thea rested her forehead against his. “I love you, but I have to go. I have to finish this.” As she ran away from him he screamed her name. She darted past the shadows gathering on the side of the lawn and past the hungry bonfire that was once Mademoiselle Corday. Fire was consuming every inch of the house now; she saw wicker furniture burning on the patios and the Haunt melting in on itself. Thea flew past it all, barely able to hear her footsteps above the howling wind and the crackle of burning wood.

She ran into the woods behind the house, following a dark gravel trail through overgrown bushes and thickets of green. The entire valley was lit up with a hazy gold from the flames. As she ran, her lungs pushed out the smoke that had taken residence there and her legs pumped faster than she knew possible. Each step took her farther away from the Black Coats, and she shed the house like a skin as she sprinted through the woods. Her feet crunched as she looked down. Ink-black gravel led away from the house. What had Robin said? There is a long black road between the assault, revenge, and recovery, and unfortunately, you will walk it alone.

The terrain dipped, and the ground became slick as Thea neared the marsh. It appeared up ahead of her, a large pond of green algae sitting ominously silent. Cattails poked up through the surface and high grasses protected the water from the jagged rocks around it. Beyond the marsh a small light bounced and moved. Something was moving in the shadows there where the trees swallowed the shore of the pond. The light swayed and she saw a cruel face emerge. Julie.

Thea paused for a moment and turned her head. Something stopped short right when she did. Someone was following her. When she turned back, Julie was gone, vanished into the trees. Thea crossed over the left side of the marsh, leaping over fallen branches and big gnarled roots, this section of the woods like something out of a distorted fairy tale. The night consumed her as she ducked under a lush canopy of kudzu and continued to follow the unmarked trail.