covering Amy in strong-smelling alcohol. Her hair. Her shirt. Her arms. Her jeans. Her feet. As the fumes gathered in her nose, Amy began to stir. Hilary heard her moan, but the girl's eyes were still closed.
He poured until the bottle was empty.
'Now the rest,' Katie told him. 'Do the whole room. The curtains. The carpet. And don't forget Hilary here.'
Jensen's eyes awakened with a kind of shock. 'Jesus, how did this happen?'
'Hurry. We're running out of time.'
'My wife. That girl in Florida. Now we have to kill two more people?'
Katie picked up the bottle of Cuervo and shoved it into his hand. 'This is the only way.'
Jensen slowly twisted the cap. When the bottle was open, he dropped the cap to the floor and watched it bounce and roll. He took a stuttering step toward Hilary, and then he stopped and shook his head.
'No.'
Katie clenched her fist. 'Gary, please.'
'I won't do this.'
'I told you, this is the last time. Once it's done, we're free.'
'You said that about my wife. You said that about Glory.'
'I know. I never meant for any of this to happen.'
'Let's get out of here,' he said. 'You and me. Right now.'
Katie kissed his cheek and exhaled in a slow, sorrowful sigh. 'OK. You win. Sure.'
'Really?'
'Whatever you want, Gary. You know I love you.'
Katie gently pried the bottle from his hands. She upended the neck to her lips and took a long, burning swallow. When she was done, she wiped her mouth, pointed the gun at Gary Jensen, and fired into the center of his forehead.
Hilary screamed. The explosion sounded like a bomb, rattling her head. Blood and brain matter blew out the back of Jensen's skull in a chunky spray and painted the wall. Jensen's body dropped straight down like an imploding building with its columns knocked out. He crumpled into a dead pile. The smell of charred metal was like sulfur in Hilary's nose.
Katie bit her lip unhappily, staring down at his body. She blinked rapidly, as if even she was surprised at what she'd done. As if it was an impulse she couldn't resist, like scratching an itch. The echo of the shot died, and in the terrible silence, they all heard a rhythmic wailing, rising above the wind. In the distance, sirens grew louder and closer.
Multiple sirens, overlapping, from police vehicles racing toward them.
'It's over, Katie,' Hilary said softly.
Katie listened to the shrill sirens, her face stricken with indecision.
'It's over,' Hilary repeated, it's too late.' She pressed her hands into the bed and tried to stand up without alarming the girl.
Katie swung the gun, which was still smoking, and pointed it at Hilary's face. 'I swore to my mom I was going to burn the house down,' she said. 'She laughed. She didn't believe me.'
'Don't do this.'
Katie ignored her. Her mind was made up. She swung the vodka bottle into the corner of the door frame, and the neck of the bottle shattered across the floor in razor-sharp fragments. She jerked the open, jagged body of the bottle toward Hilary, letting the alcohol splash across Hilary's face and soak through her blouse to her chest.
Katie shoved a hand in her pocket and pulled out a cigarette lighter.
'Don't worry,' the girl told her. 'I've done this before.'
Chapter Fifty-Four
On the floor, Amy Leigh's hand shot out.
Before Katie could react, Amy locked her fingers around her roommate's ankle and yanked Katie's leg into the air. Katie flew, crashing backward on to bottles and broken glass. Sharp fragments stabbed through her clothes and impaled themselves like arrowheads in her skin. The gun broke loose from her hand.
Amy lunged for Katie, leaping past Gary Jensen's corpse and landing on the girl's chest. She drove the air out of Katie's lungs, and Katie rasped for breath underneath her. Pinned, Katie's fingers twitched on the cigarette lighter. She cocked her elbow and pressed the lighter against Amy's alcohol-soaked clothes. Hilary shouted a warning, but before Amy could react, Katie's thumb flicked the wheel, spinning it, striking the metal against the flint.
Amy pushed Katie down with a shout. Her eyes locked on the purple plastic cylinder in Katie's hand. She waited for a cloud of flame to billow over her body as the flash ignited the alcohol, but Katie spun frantically in a series of empty clicks without triggering a spark. The mechanism was wet and useless.
Katie's fingers unclenched, and she dropped the lighter, but she reached out in the same instant and scooped the butt of the gun back into her hand. Amy grabbed the girl's arm and hung on. They rolled, scraping across glass, mingling alcohol and blood. Hilary saw the gun caught between the two girls and threw herself hard toward the wall as the flying barrel pointed toward her stomach. The gun didn't go off. Instead, as Katie squirmed away and aimed from her knees, Amy caught Katie's hand and grabbed her index finger before the girl could slide it on to the trigger. She bent back hard, snapping the bone. Katie screamed. The gun fell like a stone, and as the two girls struggled, Amy kicked it, and the gun slid across the floor and bumped into the far wall.
Hilary rolled across the bed and collected the gun. She pointed it at the ceiling and shouted at the two girls, who were entwined on the floor.
'Stop! Stop it now!'
Amy scrambled to her feet, pulling Katie with her. She threw Katie against the wall, and Katie landed with a groan, holding up her hands, crying with pain. Amy backed away toward Hilary, who trained the barrel on Katie as the girl bent over with her hands on her knees and tried to catch her breath.
Outside, the sirens soared in volume, seemingly from every direction. Police cars sped toward them down all of the side streets, converging on the house.
'That's it, Katie,' Hilary told her. 'No more.'
Amy slid an arm around Hilary's waist and leaned into her, weak and exhausted. She had enough strength to stare at her friend and the wreckage around her. The broken bottles. The blood-stained glass. The body of Gary Jensen, on his back, eyes open, a burnt red hole in his forehead.
'How could you do this?' Amy whispered.
The air wheezed in and out of Katie's lungs. The girl squatted and retrieved an unbroken, unopened bottle of gin, which was tipped on the floor at her feet. Hilary gestured at her with the gun.
'Stop.'
Katie picked up the bottle and shrugged. 'Go ahead, fire. One little spark will turn all of us into a fish boil.'
'Put the bottle down,' Hilary repeated.
Katie rested her head against the wall with her eyes closed. Her face was streaked with blood. Her clothes were torn. She twisted the cap off the bottle, breaking the paper seal, and drank, not caring as gin dripped out the sides of her mouth. When she stopped drinking, she hung on to the bottle by its neck, letting it dangle at her side.
'I heard them screaming,' Katie said. 'As the fire got them. You never forget.'
'Turn around, Katie. Start walking. We're leaving the house.'
'Dad said I should have killed him, too,' Katie said. 'I didn't understand back then. Now I do.'
Katie splashed gin at her feet and down her jeans and across her bare, bloody arms. She poured it over her head. She soaked the carpet, which was already sodden. Fumes rose in invisible waves around her; billowing into the shut-up room. The smell alone was enough to make Hilary's head swim.
The girl dug in her pocket and pulled out another cigarette lighter. 'I always have a backup.'
