Part 21 (1/2)

But Jackie was gone, the bed made and the pillows fluffed, like no one had ever slept there.

”Any more reasons I shouldn't kiss you now?” he asked her. She opened her mouth, but her reply was lost in the abyss as his lips melted into hers.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she was letting him drag her across the room to her bed. Something was terribly wrong, and yet this is what she wanted, wasn't it?

This is what she saw in flashes of light whenever she was near him, one of the many delectable possibilities. Now it was all happening, happening so very fast . . .

His mouth was on her neck, and suddenly it wasn't feeling so wonderful. ”It burns,” she said to him. Then louder, ”You are burning me.”

As his lips continued their downward voyage toward her collarbone, she heard his smooth voice say, ”It is just the heat of the fire between us. Do you feel the fire?”

Ash woke up. The dream-Colt, the feel of his hands, his lips-evaporated. But the heat did not. If anything, the room felt hotter than it had before, and now it was glowing ruby and orange, as if she had gone to sleep in California and woken up in h.e.l.l. Her throat was parched.

If only she could reach over and find her gla.s.s of water . . .

It was then, when she touched flame, that she realized her bed was on fire.

The prison of flames surrounded her on all sides, crackling and eating away at her comforter, while the blaze danced higher and higher toward the ceiling.

255.

Ash had the presence of mind to stand up before the flames grew any taller, and with a crouching start she hurdled over the fire. She landed in a roll and tumbled toward the window. It was only when she landed outside of the infernal prison that she discovered that her night-s.h.i.+rt was on fire as well. She pulled it off so quickly that it ripped, and she proceeded to pummel it against the floor.

Jackie chose to wake up at that moment, staring in hungover stupefaction first at the burning bed, then at Ashline, standing in a sports bra and boxers, and beating her singed s.h.i.+rt against the carpet.

”Your bed is on fire!” Jackie shouted.

”I know!” Ash said, flinging her s.h.i.+rt across the room.

”We need to put it out with something!”

Jackie had dropped out of bed and was hopping from left to right, like she couldn't decide whether to run for the door, try to fan the flames, or scream for help. ”We could . . . beat it with your blanket?”

”My blanket is what's on fire, genius!” Ashline dashed past her and grabbed Hayley's quilt. In her mind she tele-graphed an apology to her absentee roommate for what she was about to do. She secured two corners of the quilt with her hands, and then began to beat the fire with it.

It took nearly a full minute of dancing around the bed while Jackie ran back and forth in a panic. Finally Ash sequestered the last rebellion of fire that was still burning near the headboard. With several quick strokes with Hayley's quilt, she pounded out the remaining flames.

256.

Jackie stopped fidgeting long enough to pry open the window and let out the last tendrils of smoke. Ash took a heavy breath but kept the seared quilt on her shoulder, in case the fire should ignite again without warning. She quickly scanned the room for damage. Her comforter, the same timeworn and beloved blanket that had kept her warm at night since elementary school, was now a mess of char marks and rips, an immolated rag of what it used to be. Hayley's quilt, too, had been sacrificed in the process, beyond what any dry cleaning could repair. A goose might as well have exploded in the middle of the room, because there was feather down scattered all over the floor. And on the ceiling the malfunctioning smoke detector chirped once before returning to its song of buzzes and sparks.

”Need air,” Ash mumbled, and dashed over to the open window. She was just slipping her head outside, preparing herself to puke all over the rhododendrons below, when she saw the figure standing out on the quad.

It was Eve, watching her from the lawn. Again.

”You b.i.t.c.h!” Ashline shrieked, unable to contain herself.

Inside, Jackie took a frightened step back. ”Me?

What did I-”

”Not you,” Ash snapped. ”Stay here.” Jackie sagged and fell back onto Hayley's bed while Ash burst through the door and hustled down the hallway.

Outside on the quad Eve was nowhere to be seen.

Ash cursed and stomped the ground. To believe that her 257 sociopathic sister had really returned with a pure heart and a plan to reunite with her lost sibling . . . Well, Ashline was just a fool.

She was fuming with such pa.s.sion that she didn't notice at first the girl standing behind her.

”Ashline?” Raja hugged her nightgown tightly around her waist and s.h.i.+vered in the cold. ”Was that you who just stampeded past my door? What's wrong?”

A full minute pa.s.sed while Ash simply let the heat from the fire roll off her and up into the night, while she breathed in the smoke-free air. ”The scrolls that Serena gave us on the beach,” she said at last. ”From Jack.” She hesitated, remembering that Serena had forbidden them to share their prophecies with one another. But now that Eve was back in the picture, it seemed like the right time to put aside discretion. ”Mine told me to 'Kill the Trickster.'”

”I don't follow,” Raja said. She wrapped a corner of her nightgown around Ashline's bare shoulder. ”And you smell like smoke.”

”I just realized what Jack wants me to do.” Ash stared across the quad, at the empty s.p.a.ce where Eve had been standing.

”Does it involve coming inside and warming up?”

Raja asked hopefully. When Ashline didn't laugh, Raja stepped in front of her and touched her elbow. ”You can tell me.”

Ash trembled, but not from the cold.

”I'm supposed to kill my sister.”

258.

HANDPRINT.

Tuesda y ”That the last one?” Ashline asked as she lowered her sponge from the bedroom wall.

Jackie placed the large box fan in the semicircle with the other four. ”There were only five in the supply closet.

I'm sure there are others in the boys' residence, but I figured, 'Hey, can we borrow all of your industrial fans to clear out smoke odors in East Hall?' would sound a little fishy.”

Ashline pointed to herself. ”Irritable, sleepless girl here. So if we could try to use our sarcasm filters this morning.”

After she'd plugged the new fan into the power strip, Jackie moaned and rubbed her head. ”I'll trade you an hour without sarcasm for three ibuprofen.”

”Top drawer,” Ashline called over her shoulder, and went back to scrubbing. She had worked her way up the wall, but she'd already missed first period, and the ceiling was going to have to wait until three p.m.

259.

When her wrist had grown sore and she felt certain she was approaching the onset of carpal tunnel, she dropped off the step ladder with a grunt of defeat. ”Well, I think we've downgraded the fragrance of the room from The Bed Is on Fire to Musky Mesquite.” She poked the wall. ”Fortunately, recycled plastic milk jugs don't seem particularly odor absorbent.”

Jackie popped a handful of Advil and swallowed without water. ”Ash, you know I'm your friend first, but I don't know as the floor prefect how I'm supposed to overlook writing up an incident report for this. You could have been burned alive.”

”Yeah, and what's the incident report going to say?”

Ash tossed her sponge into the soap bucket. ”I can see it now. 'I woke up somewhere between intoxication and hangover in somebody else's bed to discover that Ashline Wilde's comforter had spontaneously combusted . ' Riley will definitely promote you to hall prefect for that one.”