I’ll kill him.
Void.
How long had passed? Hours? Weeks?
Endless.
ANDY SCREAMED FOR ME.
Crushing.
I’LL FUCKING KILL HIM.
Sound.
It came from above her, shaking the earth that trapped her.
Light.
It pierced the black, peeking through fractured rubble.
Hands.
They found her—pulled her out of the earth, into the air.
CHAPTER TWO
RUBY WANTED TOfeel human again.
She wasn’t human, hadn’t been for a long time, but sometimes she craved the ridiculous, bittersweet emotions only the living could feel. Anger. Jealousy. Even terror.
Take southern women, for example. They seemed terrified of boobs—her boobs, specifically. Or maybe it was the other way around—maybe they liked the view but didn’t want to get caught. Either way, their furtive glances were painfully obvious.
She strolled into the church, designer sunglasses perched on her nose, a silk slip dress that defied small-town modesty flowing around her legs. The sudden hush satisfied her—conversations dropping mid-sentence, PTA moms with their ratted hair and tight jeans tutting and clucking their tongues. Their children, too young to stay home alone, clutched chirping devices, while blue-collar dads snuck her glances under trucker caps and cowboy hats.
Ruby bit back a smirk.Bless their hearts.
She smiled at every person who glared at her and wiggled her fingers at those whose gazes were less hostile.
She didn’t come for their scrutiny—she came to save their lives. If she didn’t stop the fledgling thermophile tonight, the flames would spread, and more families would burn. Not that anyone would ever know it. The Thermophile Control Agency would erase all evidence of her existence in this town. Bymorning, she would be a ghost, a whisper of gossip left on the community’s Facebook page.
She dropped into a pew in the back, crossing her ankles and tilting her head toward the man droning on at the podium. The words “community safety” passed his lips, but her presence seemed to be the only thing they feared. She pulled out her phone and pretended to text, ignoring the furtive looks around her.
The man in the second row caught her attention immediately—mid-forties, widow’s peak, sweating under his collar. He twitched when she entered, that telltale jolt of recognition rippling through him. She’d seen it a hundred times before. The warmth in her chest, the itch under her skin, confirmed it. Fresh thermophile.
A white cowboy hat rested on the knee of his starched jeans. A quick smile revealed teeth that were clean, but crooked, and a dimple hidden by a salted beard. Nothing about the man screamed murderer and public threat.
His sunglasses were the most obvious tell. Ignoring the fact the sun had long since set, no respectable southern man would wear them inside a chapel. Even without the picture stapled to the front of the file in her truck, he was her guy.
Looking around, she couldn’t help but notice the people around her weren’t grieving, not in the way she’d seen in other places. Especially her target, whose wife and neighbor had burned alive in front of him.
Two separate occasions, roughly a week apart. Two bodies scorched beyond recognition, reduced practically to ashes.
And yet, no panic stifled the air, no tension lingering in the zombified crowd. Their thumbs idly scrolled on their phones while the man up front droned on with all the authority of a substitute teacher.
Ruby could have given them the benefit of the doubt and believed they were grieving behind well-rehearsed facades. They weren’t. She’d grown up in a place like this, in a small community where people either pulled together or pushed you out. Why should they care about two women outside their heavily guarded social circles? They had their perfect husbands, white picket fences, large dogs, and kids molded in their own image. What happened to those two women could never happen to them.
No, the only crime those women had committed was being poor. And in communities like this, poverty meant a death sentence.
