There is a beat where I’m only aware of my heart hammering against my rib cage, glass smashing against the ground, and the collage of hundred-dollar bills staring back at me. One slides away from me, gripped in Caleb’s shaking hand. He stares at it, brow furrowed.
“Get up,” Leo urges, hauling me to my feet as time speeds up again. The shattering window triggered an alarm, a drone slamming inside my skull. Tiny shards of glass spill from Leo’s dress shirt, tinkling against the ground. One shard sliced his temple and a small trickle of blood trails the left side of his face. His shirt is shredded.
Quinn coughs, and Caleb groans. Daisy helps Miles get to his feet.
I can’t stop looking at Leo. “You—”
My words cut off with a gasp. In the spot where the windows once were, jagged shards of glass stick up around the frame, outlining four silhouettes.
The three hunters and Uncle Arbor.
Leo grabs his fallen hockey stick. “Get whatever Gram left you.” He prods me toward the stairs to the mezzanine. To the others, he says, “If we split up, maybe we can divide and conquer them. Run!”
Nobody needs to be told twice. Caleb and Miles take off toward the shipping side of the factory through two large swinging doors. Daisy and Quinn go the opposite direction, toward the warehouse. My heart sinks as our fatal mistake sets in. We were so busy arguing, it left Uncle Arbor enough time to rethink the clue and find us.
Leo follows me up the stairs. All my anger turns into icy fear as I reach the top step and a rotten wooden board cracks beneath my foot, only Leo’s palm against my back saving me from tumbling backward. Using the rusted railing, I haul myself past the broken step onto the mezzanine floor, also coated with dollars. Gram’s office is within sight. The door is ajar, as if she’s waiting for me just like when I was little and visited her.
I’m nearly there when a hunter follows us onto the mezzanine, a steel-tipped shovel held like a bat in their hands.
“I’ve got your back,” Leo promises. I nod at him, finding miniscule comfort in the fact that splitting up did work—the other hunters must still be on the first floor.
He sets his jaw and spins, raising his hockey stick to ward off the hunter. It grants me a window to slip into the office.
There are still things on the walls, easy to see thanks to the big window on the back wall letting in the moonlight. Sketches of old designs. A family picture of Gram with Petunia and Hyacinth. One of Gram with Dad and Uncle Arbor when they were toddlers. I can’t imagine why she’d leave all this stuff in here, unless maybe she came back somedays to reminisce.
I shake the nostalgia away, hurrying toward the desk in the center, a twin to Gram’s stately rosewood one at the manor. Sitting on top of it are two things.
A key on a thin silver chain. I slip it over my head, so it rests over my dress.
The second: A box of matches.
The screeching drone roars on. It must be a security system. Hopefully alerting someone who will save us.
I grab the matches, still unsure what to do with them. Rushing out of the room, I wince as the sound echoes around the open air of the factory. It’s accompanied by gasps and yelps. In the dim light, it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust.
And I duck.
“Lily, it’s over,” Uncle Arbor yells, trying to grab me again.
“So that’s it?” I shout above the droning, voice shrill with panic as he makes another attempt to grab me. I barely evade him, stumbling backward on unsteady legs. “You’ll kill me for it? Kill us for it?”
“Nobody’s killing anybody. No one needs to get hurt,” he says, but I’m the prey here. I’m cornered and don’t have much more space to back up. “Give me the key.”
I clutch it protectively. “Gram already gave you a key.”
His laugh is humorless. “She did, all right. A key to nothing.”
I knew it. He must have thought it was to the manor, maybe even snuck in like me to try it. It was just something to tide him over, distract him. Realization dawns as I grip the one at the base of my throat. “This is the key to the manor.”
“And everything else, I’m sure. It belongs to me.”
“We can share the money.” It’s a feeble bait to buy more time. “There’s more than enough—”
He shakes his head. Now that Daisy has shared her side of the story, there’s no mistaking the cold glint of greed in my uncle’s green-eyed gaze. “Never been much of a sharer.”
And suddenly, I’m angry all over again. Angry that he made Dad feel like death was his only option. Made Gram feel like she couldn’t trust him; trust us. And angry at myself, for never seeing any of it.
He reaches for me again, but the defense skills Quinn taught me kick in. I grab his wrist, then bring my elbow up to jam into his trachea. He chokes, stumbling back. It buys me enough time to yank a match from the box and strike it.
“I read the letters.” My voice shakes as the flame burns closer to my fingers. “I know that you made Dad think he had nowhere to go. That people were going to expose him. All this time, I thought his death was my fault, but it was you. It’s always been you.”
Horror dawns in his eyes. “Lily, I—you have to understand. I never wanted anybody to get hurt. But Alder thought he could fix everything. He made all the wrong calls. It ruined the lives of so many people, us included. He was making the town hate us. People wanted him gone. But he was my brother. I never wanted him to die. Just to leave.”
His face twists with pain and guilt. And I hate it with everything in me. Because I’ve seen it on mine.
“Please,” he begs. “I never meant for it to go this far. But we will lose everything if you don’t give me that key. The inheritance belongs to me. I need it to clean up your father’s mess because Gram sure as hell never did.” He steps toward me. “I thought you were like me. That you understood what was at stake. But you’re just like your father. Even dead, I can’t escape him.” His voice cracks. I used to think that looking at Uncle Arbor was like looking at Dad’s ghost. Now I realize that for him, I’m the part of Dad that won’t stop haunting him.
Maybe that’s why he reaches out so fast I can’t stop him, wraps his hand around my throat, and squeezes.
I gasp, tears filling my eyes. But as quickly as his hand is there, it’s gone, leaving a stinging sensation and a tearing sound. I claw at my throat, sucking air in. There’s the empty chain of my ruby necklace, but that’s it.
In his hand is the key, ripped right off my neck.
“No!” I scream, lunging at him. But he shoves me down, my nails uselessly scratching his arm.
Three things happen in quick succession:
A gunshot rings out at the same time I fall to my knees.
I drop the match.
A crack fills the air.
Through the orange flames racing across the ground, the dry and dusty paper beneath our feet the perfect fuel, I see Leo knocked backward, his hockey stick falling in two broken pieces beside him. His arms windmill as he tries to regain his balance. He nearly has it when he takes one more step back.
Right onto the rotten top step.
A scream of smoke fills my lungs at the snap of wood and the plank gives beneath his weight. It just—gives.
“Leo!” I leap to my feet, elbowing past Uncle Arbor and the hunter as I race toward him.
But I’m too late, always too damn late. Air rushes as his fingers slip through mine, and he tumbles down the flight of stairs in backward, jumbled somersaults, landing in a heap at the bottom with an awful crack.
I sprint down the stairs, falling to my knees beside his crumpled form. “Leo,” I choke out. He doesn’t move, his right arm twisted beneath him in a way that makes bile rise up my throat. His eyes are closed, mouth slightly ajar with blood running down his face. I can’t tell if it’s from the glass shattering or him hitting his head on the ground.
The last thing I said to him was I fucking hate you. Just like Dad. I never fucking learn.
A sob bursts from my mouth, my hands hovering uselessly. I’m scared to touch him. “Help!” I screech, voice raw.
Footsteps thunder behind me. The hunter that fought Leo jumps over the railing to avoid us, sprinting across the floor toward the windows, shovel in hand. “Bail!” he screams.
The other two follow, abandoning their attacks to flee. I want to chase after them, but I’m terrified to leave Leo’s side.
“Wake up,” I beg, cupping the side of his face and brushing my thumb over the blood on his cheek, smearing it. “You’ve gotta wake up.”
“We need to get out of here.” Quinn’s suddenly beside me. “Miles is outside calling nine-one-one with Caleb.”
“They won’t get here in time.” I gesture to the encroaching smoke, a precarious creaking filling the air. “This building is too old, too—”
“Do you hear that?” Quinn asks, straightening suddenly.
Past the blood pounding in my ears, I hone in on my cousin’s voice from the mezzanine. She must have gone up the second staircase on the opposite side of the building. I can barely make out her silhouette confronting Uncle Arbor.
“It’s going to give!” Quinn points to the mezzanine. Ravenous flames race across it, over half engulfed. The brittle support beams catch just as quickly, two buckling so the platform tilts. Soon, the fire will reach this floor. As it is, the original path toward the basement that Gram wanted us to retreat to is shrouded by smoke.
“I’ll get Daisy,” I promise, vision blurring through tears and smoke. I gesture helplessly at Leo. He still hasn’t moved. “You get him out of here.” Quinn hesitates, but I won’t waste time arguing. “You’re stronger than me. There’s no way I’d be able to get him past the glass. Please, Quinn.”
With a nod, she kneels beside Leo, taking his left arm and pulling him up so she can shrug it over her shoulders. “Don’t quit on us now, Frat Boy.”
“Let me help.” Caleb appears, crouching to get Leo’s feet.
“Why did you come back in?” I ask, trying to see through the smoke if Miles followed.
“For you guys.” Caleb coughs, seeming just as surprised as Quinn and me that he chose us over safety. “Miles tackled one of the hunters and knocked them out, but the others got away. Nine-one-one should be here any minute.”
“Get out of here,” I wheeze. “I’ll be right behind you.”
I sprint back up the stairs, carefully dodging the broken top step. On the second floor, the smoke is ten times worse. It’s suffocating, wrapping around me, climbing inside my lungs. I don’t know if my head is woozy or if the floor actually shifts beneath my feet.
“We have to go!” I shout.
Uncle Arbor is on his hands and knees, Daisy trying to pull him up as the fire scales the walls around them.
“Come on!”
When neither come closer, despair turns my movements frantic, hands waving. “Let’s go! What are you—”
But then I see Uncle Arbor’s hand pressed to his abdomen, red seeping through his fingers.
“He got shot!” Daisy eyes are bright with fear. With the fire framing her Rosewood red hair, pieces sticking to her cheek with sweat, she looks terrifying.
Maybe I do, too.
The floor jerks beneath us, the sound excruciatingly loud. One of the support beams snapping, likely. I stumble forward, close enough to loop my arm around Daisy’s waist and tug her back against my chest. She rips free, whirling on me.
“I’m not leaving him,” she cries. “I want to be different. Better.”
And even if it kills me, so do I.
Together, we force him to his feet. He’s practically deadweight as we drag him down the stairs. The others are gone, and I can only hope that Leo is being loaded into an ambulance right now. That he lives.
That we live.
Because pieces of the ceiling are crumbling down. The gap of the broken windows is in sight, but it’s so hot that crossing the burning factory feels like a million-mile desert. Maybe when Gram said to burn the name, she meant us, too. That we end the Rosewood line once and for all.
But I feel like there’s a hand on my back pushing me forward. As if Dad’s or Gram’s ghost, or both, are telling me I can’t give up.
We trip through the window. A piece of glass catches my bare calf, pain searing through me as we stagger onto the grass. Uncle Arbor is unconscious, and only once we’re a good distance from the entrance do I let him slip from my grasp. Daisy crumbles beside him, vomiting onto the ground.
A hand is on me, covered in latex. “Lily, we’re here to help. Is there anyone left inside?”
I stare at the EMT, the flashing lights around us blurring the landscape. “My friends?” I croak.
“Yes, we’ve gotten to them already. But the fire department just got here and needs to know if anyone else is in there.”
I shake my head. With every breath of burnt air, things become clearer. She pats my arm, caring brown eyes unfamiliar. It’s unsettling that she knows me, and I don’t know her. “It’s all right, Lily. We’ll do everything we can for your uncle.”
That makes the tears come. I don’t want my uncle—I want my dad.
She tries to lead me farther away, toward an ambulance where Quinn sits on the back, Caleb and Miles beside her with oxygen masks over their faces. I root my aching feet, looking over my shoulder at the burning factory behind me. The carved wooden sign that frames the top spelling out Rosewood Inc. now just reads Rose, and even that will be nothing but ashes soon. The firetrucks unwind hoses as if there’s anything left to save. After tonight, it will be a ruin.
A glimmer catches my eye near the spot on the ground where Uncle Arbor collapsed. He’s already on a gurney while an EMT kneels next to Daisy. Something’s in the grass.
“Wait.” I brush off the EMT’s hold. Protests spill from her mouth, but I move toward the spot, falling to my knees and picking up what I saw. It’s covered in soot and blood. I rub my thumb over the warm metal chain, disbelief and horror and something deceiving like hope burning inside me.
On trembling legs, I rise. Clenched in my fist is the chain, and hanging from that—
The key.