Page 93 of The Faceoff

“The guys made it extremely weird. Cash cried about a hoodie.”

“You cried about the hoodie. I have it on good authority.” And there it is, the corner of her mouth, the real one, and for a second the quiet thing she’s been carrying all morning lifts and she’s just Sloane in my truck in my sweatshirt being funny, and I think, we’re okay, whatever I thought I saw upstairs, we’re okay.

I’m wrong. I find that out in about ninety seconds. But for now, at the red light, I believe it, and I reach over and take her hand and she lets me, and we drive the last few blocks toward Sailmaker Lane like two people who’ve got all the time in the world.

We turn onto her street.

And the first thing I see is the smoke.

It’s coming from the side of the Sailmaker — the kitchen end, grey and wrong against the morning, thick — and there are people on the lawn, and as I get closer I see it’s Margo and June, out front in pajamas and coats thrown over, Margo with her phone to her ear and her free hand in her hair, June barefoot on the frozen grass with her arms wrapped around herself, both of them staring at the house, and the sound that’s been building under the morning finally resolves into what it is, which is sirens, not here yet but coming, close.

Beside me Sloane goes rigid. The boots slide off her lap to the floor of the truck.

“That’s my house,” she says, and her voice has gone flat and precise and terrible, the voice I’ve never heard from her, the one all the way at the bottom. “Beau. That’s my house.”

I’m already pulling over. Already throwing it in park. She’s got the door open before we’ve fully stopped, out into the cold in my hoodie and bare feet, and Margo turns and sees her and her face breaks, and June’s already running, and I sit frozen for one half-second in the driver’s seat of my truck watching the best morning of my life walk straight into the smoke—and then I’m out of the truck too, and running.

Chapter 20

Sloane

Iam out of the truck before it’s fully stopped.

I don’t remember opening the door. There’s the smoke — grey and thick and wrong, coming off the kitchen end of the house — and there are people on the frozen lawn, and the people are Margo and June, and the sound that’s been threading under the whole morning finally arrives as what it is. Sirens. Close. And my body does what my body has always done in the half-second before my mind catches up: it moves. Bare legs and last night’s boots and Beau’s hoodie, the cold not registering, nothing registering except Margo, June, the smoke, where’s Wren — the old machinery spinning up so fast I’m across the lawn before I’ve decided to cross it, counting heads, finding exits, the survival math I’ve run since I was nine.

Ten minutes ago I was in his truck with my boots in my lap and my hair drying in the heat, going back over the morning against my own will. The shower. His mouth. The thing he said against the tile that I’d decided not to repeat even inside my own skull. And the worse thing, the after — the kitchen, the eggs, Cash crying about a hoodie, Theo saying she can stay about coffee that everyone knew wasn’t about the coffee, Beau refilling my cup without being asked. I was happy. That was the diagnosis I was avoiding at the red light: that for about fourteen hours I’d been happy in a way I’ve spent my whole life being too smart to be, and that I’d woken up already drafting the exit, because happy is the thing that happens right before the floor opens, and I would rather leave a room than be in it when the floor goes.

I was composing the speech. This was wonderful and it can’t happen again, in complete sentences, calmly, while looking at you. I had it half-built when we turned onto Sailmaker Lane.

I don’t need the speech anymore.

The floor already opened. It’s on fire.

“Sloane!” Margo’s got her phone in one hand and her face breaks when she sees me, relief and adrenaline at once. June’s already running, barefoot on the frost, and she hits me at full speed and wraps around me and I hold her because she needs holding, June, who feels everything, who’s shaking.

“Wren?” It’s the only word I have. “Where’s⁠—”

“Practice,” Margo says. “She left at six. She’s fine, she’s not here, she doesn’t know yet.” She’s breathing hard. “We’re all out. Everyone’s out. It’s just the house.”

It’s just the house. I hold onto that. Everyone’s out. June’s shaking against me and Margo’s vibrating with the electric calm she gets in a crisis, the pre-law brain running triage, and I do the thing I do, which is go very still and very quiet and very useful, because somebody has to, and it’s always been me.

“What happened?”

“Kitchen. I was making coffee and the outlet by the toaster just — there was a pop, and then a smell, and then the wall.” Margo’s hand is shaking even though her voice isn’t. “It went up the wall, Sloane. Behind the cabinets. June smelled it before I did, we got out, I called — they’re⁠—”

The first truck rounds the corner.

They come off the truck fast and certain, all that gear, and the noise of it is enormous — the engine, the radios, a man shouting numbers I don’t understand — and they move with the awful competence of people who do this every day, and June flinches at the noise and I pull her in tighter and Margo steps forward to talk to the one who seems to be in charge, pointing at the kitchen end, the words electrical and behind the wall carrying across the lawn.

And then there’s a hand at the small of my back.

I know the hand. I knew it before it landed. Beau, who I forgot was even still here, who must have parked and followed me across the lawn, he just puts his hand at my back and stands there, big and warm and solid at my side, a wall I can lean on or ignore, and I am so undone by the morning and the smoke that I do, for one second, lean.

I catch myself. I straighten.

“You have practice,” I say.

“I’m not going to practice.”