On Fire (27 page)

Why so many questions?
Allison wanted to shout. But she
knew her aunt was asking because she cared about her. “I dropped my keys,” she said. “I got a call from Scott and I ran to the fire and then I panicked and I—I couldn’t find them.” She started crying. “Oh, God, he’s stuck down there. He hurt his ankle and he couldn’t get out.”

“It’ll be okay,” her aunt said calmly. “The fire department’s on its way.”

Allison nodded and stared out the window at the wolf, which could no longer keep up with the car. It stopped, and Allison watched it grow smaller and smaller as Kate drove on down the road.

•  •  •

The van exploded, and Jackson stagger-walked. He didn’t turn to look. He didn’t want to see. How hard had he tried to save Cassie?

What could I have done?
he asked himself.
I had to get out of there.

Then the scream of sirens filled the smoke-choked air and Jackson lurched toward them. A sharp wind thinned the clouds of gray for a moment and he let out a harsh, sharp laugh when he caught sight of the preserve parking lot. Police cars were roaring into it, and was that Danny’s Lexus?

Jackson collapsed.

D
erek could hear the fire trucks coming, but Scott hadn’t shifted back to human form. He was still fighting Derek, howling and grunting, in full werewolf form. The fire was raging around them, and there was too much mountain ash to cross anywhere. The cliff was too high.

Then he saw the boulders that he’d knocked down when he’d fallen. If he and Scott could push them into the bushes and crush them, they might be able to cross over on top of the rocks.

“Scott,” he said, “listen to me. Listen.”

Scott grunted and howled. Derek wondered if the time had come, if finally he would have to sacrifice Scott to maintain their secret. He’d thought about it many times, and used the threat to try to talk Scott out of behaving rashly. Once or twice it had actually worked. But not usually.

“Scott,” he tried again. He slapped Scott hard across the face. “If you don’t shift, Allison will never see you alive again.”

Scott showed his sharp fangs in utter rage.

“Allison,” Derek said to him.

Scott cocked his head. Staggered backward. Nearly fell into the funeral pyre that was the tree, and then, miraculously, shifted.

“Derek?” he said, running his hands through his hair, slicking it back. “What happened?” He dropped his arms to his sides and looked around. “Did Allison make it out?”

“Yes,” Derek said. “And we’ve got a chance, too.”

He explained his plan to Scott. Together they got on one side of the largest boulder—perilously close to the fire—and pushed it forward, into the burning mountain ash. It was heavy, and as they grunted, searing welts and blisters rose on Scott’s back. Inch by inch, they shoved it into the vegetation. It smothered the flames and they hoped it would provide a shield between them and the bushes.

Derek climbed up the boulder. He felt himself begin to shift back into werewolf form as he bent down and held out his hand to Scott. As Scott grabbed it, Derek’s fingernails grew and sliced into Scott’s wrist.

And Scott saw:

Laura heard about it first, when the principal came to get her. And they drove them there, someone drove them.

And Derek could see it as if he’d been there, saw it all, felt it all in his soul as the house smoked and the bodies were gone. The screams and the cries and the shouts and the little ones burning.

Laura seeing it all as she and Derek stood in the ashes of their smoldering home. The Hale siblings insane with grief, but not shifting, because the fire trucks were there and the EMTs were there. And even their grief was stolen from them.

They wheeled out Uncle Peter, and Derek held Laura’s head
away so she wouldn’t see the horror he had become. He’ll probably die, they told the two Hale kids. We’re so sorry, we’re sorry; we’ll get to the bottom of this.

Laura, crazy, screaming, “Who did this? Who could do this?”

But she knew it had to be hunters.

And as she sank to into the charred ruins in her brother’s arms, Derek saw the glint of metal in the wreckage. A melted gold ring, with little green stones. Had it slipped off by accident? Or had she taken it off her finger and let it drop into the fire? Did she want him to find it? Had she wanted him to know?

He stared at it for a lifetime, for an eternity; then he picked it up and put it in his pocket.

Tears slid down his face.

For days.

And then they hardened like the molten pools of metal in the foundation of his home.

•  •  •

Jackson was on his way to the hospital in an ambulance. When Lydia was told that she wasn’t family and therefore would not be allowed to ride with him, she ignored the EMT and climbed inside. She simply said no each time he insisted that she come out.

Jackson was quiet. He kept thinking about Cassie. He’d overheard the deputy talking to Sheriff Stilinski on the radio. Cassie had tried to crawl away, but the fire had overtaken her.

What could he have done?

Nothing
, he insisted.
I had to leave her there.

The thieves at his house had been caught. The one Danny had hit with a lacrosse ball had a concussion.

And what about his biological father? The picture was still in his pocket. Had that been part of the scam? Or had Bailey Gramm’s father really known Jackson’s dad?

“You’re in big trouble for everything you’ve done, and there’s a small box of punishment in your dresser drawer,” Lydia told Jackson. But you’re going to be okay.” And even thought he was a little confused, he smiled wryly, because her words weren’t intended to comfort.

They were an order.

•  •  •

It seemed odd that Aunt Kate had just happened to be out driving when she’d seen the fire and decided to investigate. Several of the things Allison’s family had told her lately didn’t add up, and that felt like one more. But that wasn’t important now.

Allison leaped out of her aunt’s car before it had come to a full stop. Well away from the blaze, an ambulance was parked with its back door wide open. Framed by the light, Scott and Stiles were sitting together on the bumper. Scott was breathing into some kind of machine—oxygen mask—and he had a blanket around his shoulders. An EMT was patting a gurney, and Scott was shaking his head.

“Scott!” Allison cried. She ran to him, laughing and shrieking, saying his name over and over. He was alive. The fire was raging all over the preserve, and she’d been afraid she’d never see him again.

Both he and Stiles looked up and saw her. Rising unsteadily, Scott threw off the blanket and fumbled with the mask. She eased herself carefully against him, and began to cry.

“He’s okay, Allison,” Stiles said. “They’re going to take him to the hospital so his mom can smack him upside the head about two dozen times. But after that, he’s a free man.”

“I think now we’re busted,” Scott rasped.

“I don’t care. I don’t care
forever
,” Allison said, reaching out an arm and hugging Stiles, too.

“Ooph,” Stiles said, pretending she had squeezed too hard. “My best estimate? You’ll care in about an hour, once the euphoria has worn off.” Then, as Allison carefully kissed Scott on the lips, and Scott pulled her against his chest, Stiles said, “Or . . . you won’t care ever.”

•  •  •

Derek sat farther away, on the back of a fire truck, and his gaze moved from the happy trio to Kate Argent as she ambled behind her niece. They locked gazes, and she smiled at him. Gave him a wink.

“Seems like old times,” she said. “Doesn’t it, lover?”

Then she turned and walked away, joining the others.

Derek studied her with the eyes of a predator, and burned with such hatred that he was practically on fire.

And somewhere, not too far away, the howl of a wolf echoed in the night. The howl was a promise:

There are more of us, bent on payback. And domination. And death.

And we are coming.