Chapter 13

The smoke is starting to fill the room above me. I wonder how long it’ll take for it to filter into the basement. Compared to this, the coyote option is starting to seem like a luxurious death.

I’m thinking about texting my mom. Telling her I love her. Telling her I’m sorry. I’m fumbling with my phone when I hear Ahmed’s voice.

“Alex! Grab the rope!”

Rope?

I look up. And there it is. A rope, dangling inches from my face.

“Alex, are you okay?” Gabby’s voice. Out of breath.

“Yeah, I . . .”

“Well, come on! We don’t have all day.” That’s Destiny.

I squint toward the hole. Between the smoke upstairs and the darkness down here, I can’t even see who’s holding the rope. I just know that they’re all up there. They’re all here for me.

“Where did you get this?”

“The bell tower,” Gabby gasps out. “In the mission. That building didn’t catch fire. This time or the first time.”

So many similarities between this fire and the earlier one. I wonder if that first fire was set by Morrison, or a curse-possessed arsonist, or—

“Grab the freaking rope, Alex!” screams Destiny.

I grab it. And I hang on while my three friends haul me up out of the dark.

***

Next order of business: run for our lives.

The fire is consuming Main Street. The good news is that there’s not much wood left for it to feed on. The original fire destroyed most flammable materials. So this new blaze has to work a little harder.

But it’s definitely making the most of what it finds.

As we charge up Main Street, I pull my shirt over my mouth to block the smoke.

“Where’s Tanner?” I gasp.

“We dumped him at the fence,” says Destiny. She points to Ahmed, then herself. “While Gabby was getting the rope.”

“And one of you called 9-1-1, right?”

“One step at a time,” says Gabby. She’s clutching the film reel to her chest with one hand and the lifesaving rope with the other. I guess she does have a lot of priorities to juggle right now.

At last, we’re at the fence. One by one, we slip through the opening I cut earlier. On the other side, Tanner sits slumped against the chain links. He smells pretty strongly of barbecue. And he’s still groaning like he’s at a zombie audition. I should probably feel sorrier for him. I’ll work on that later.

“Okay.” Ahmed pulls out his phone and wipes soot from his eyes. “Now we call 9-1-1.”

Gabby swears quietly. “We are soooo getting arrested for this.”

I look from the flames to the reel tucked under Gabby’s arm. “Well, who knows? Maybe our luck’s about to change.”