Fire with Fire (Burn for Burn 2)

JAMES GLENN DONOVAN, BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER. I let out a sob. No. Not Daddy. It can’t be. It says he died a year ago. That’s not possible. He never said good-bye. How could it be? I rack my brain, trying to remember the last time I saw him. It had to have been before I left for Jar Island. But I can’t remember anything about that day. I can’t hear his voice, or see him put me on the ferry. It’s like someone erased my memory, wiped it blank.

I’m still choking back tears when I see it. The gravestone right next to his. It looks old, like it used to be white and now it’s grayish.

elizabeth mary zane. sleep, my little one, sleep. My fingers reach out. Elizabeth. I say it and I know it’s my name. With a shaking hand, I try to trace my birthday. Thirteen when I . . .

I stumble to my feet and start backing away from the grave, without leaving a single footprint behind in the snow. I spin and run as fast as I can back to my house.

The front door is open. I run inside, up the stairs, to my room.

There aren’t any boxes. None of the clothes I packed away. My dresser is covered in a sheet. My bed has no linens. I step into the bathroom. The shower curtain’s gone. The towels, too. I look down into my bathtub. It’s full of dust, even though I showered right before Mom came.

I force myself to look up at the beams in my ceiling. At where I looped the rope, so many years ago.

I squeeze my eyes shut, throw back my head, and scream a scream that doesn’t end.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

It’s dinner time and I’m parked a half block away from Lillia’s house, chain-smoking with my car windows rolled up tight. The snow hasn’t stopped falling since last night, and my windshield is almost completely blanketed white.

I’ve been waiting an hour for her to come home. I’m not sure where she is. Maybe at Rennie’s mom’s apartment, comforting her. Maybe with Ash, or some of the other girls from the cheerleading squad, holding each other and crying.

My heart hurts bad. Rennie and I were friends for a long time. Even with our break during high school, I know our friendship was deeper and longer and eclipsed anything she had with anyone else.

I can’t even go over to her apartment. It’s not like I have a right. It’s not like anyone would think to check on how I’m dealing, or give me a shoulder to cry on. No one is explaining to me why this happened, what was the cause of the accident, what the f**k we’re all supposed to do now.

I’ve texted Lillia maybe ten times, and she hasn’t written back once. Not one f**king time, when she knows that Rennie was my best friend too.

Maybe she’s still with Reeve. I don’t feel like I can even go check on Mary until I talk to Lil so she can explain what the hell is going on.

I let my head fall against the windshield and my eyes close, but as soon as they do, the tears come flooding back. This is all f**king crazy. It’s insanity.

I haven’t slept. Not a wink. Just sobbed and smoked, sobbed and smoked on repeat since I saw her Jeep burning in the ravine.

I glance at the dashboard clock. It’s five p.m.

Rennie’s been dead fifteen hours.

Fifteen hours ago. I was the last person to see her alive.

I start shaking, shaking and crying, and my head hurts so f**king bad. I stick my hand in my pocket and take the Valium that Pat handed me when I first tried to lie down, after we’d gotten home from the woods. Lord knows where he even got it. I wash it down with a sip of cold gas-station coffee.

I guess I eventually do nod off, because I don’t know how long has passed before I hear a knock at my window.

Lillia.

I lean across the car and open the passenger-side door. She climbs in. The skin around her eyes is pink and her face looks so pale.

“Sorry I didn’t text you back,” she whispers. “I was with her mom. She . . . she’s in really bad shape.”

I just stare at Lillia, because I don’t know what to say. She starts crying. Quiet, delicate tears.

“Do they know what happened? Why she crashed?”

“I don’t know. The officers aren’t saying yet.”

“Did you know she had pictures of you putting E in Reeve’s drink?”

Lillia pales. “You saw them?”

“Yeah. Rennie showed me after you left. I had to convince her to leave with me and not show everybody at the party. I went back and got them and burned them but I don’t know if they’re the only copies or what.”

Lillia closes her eyes. “I can’t even think about that right now.”

“Well, you better think about it because if people see those pictures, we’re f**ked.” I feel my lip curl. “What the hell happened with you and Reeve last night?”

Her mouth starts opening and closing, but no words come out.

“For f**k’s sake, Lillia!” I shake my head and wrap my hands around the steering wheel. “What are you going to say to Mary?”

“I don’t know, okay!” Lillia shouts, wiping her eyes. “I can’t even think straight right now.”

I rail on. “I hope you don’t think that I’m going to be the one to tell her, do your dirty work for you. That’s on you.”

“Kat, God! Can you just—can you just give it a rest? Rennie’s dead. My oldest friend in the world is dead.”

I slam my hands on the steering wheel and scream my throat raw. “You don’t think I know that! You think you were the only one who cared about her?”

Lillia wipes her tears with the sleeve of her coat. “I can’t believe any of this is happening.” She turns toward me, eyes sad but hopeful. “I mean, this could all be a bad dream. Right?”

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

I’m outside Kat’s car, listening to them fighting. Fighting over who’s going to have to tell me what I already know.

They’re the ones who don’t know. I’m the one with the secrets. So many secrets. Still so much to figure out.

I do know this for sure. What happened last night, it wasn’t

my fault. Rennie dying was an accident. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was upset; I wasn’t thinking straight. But now I am. Now I know just how much Reeve’s taken from me. My family, my friends, my heart. My life.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a burn for a burn. A life for a life.

That’s how this all started. That’s how it’s gonna end.