A body hits tile. Blood crawls across the floor like it’s trying to escape.
“Some of you,” Carlos says, voice like a damn sermon, “don’t deserve the fire. But none of you deserve to walk out of this house.”
He fires again.
Then again.
Three bodies. Three debts paid.
The rest get the gas.
Carlos douses them with holy precision. Their prayers come too late. Their guilt means nothing.
“You two,” he says, “upstairs. Finish the job. I’ll light it here.”
Wells and I don’t speak. We move. Hands soaked in gasoline, boots pounding wood that creaks like it’s begging for mercy.
By the time we descend the stairs again, fire licks the ceiling and screams curl through the air like incense.
I smile.
It’s a hymn now.
The death wails of cowards. Of liars. Of the complicit.
No one’s coming to save them. No absolution. No redemption.
Only flame.
And when it’s done, when the walls cave and the screams go quiet, Athens will be free of every chain that tied her to this house, to this history, tohim.
Hell just swallowed a mansion tonight.
And I fed it with a fucking grin.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Athens
My eyes crack open, slow, reluctant, like they already know something’s wrong.
A yawn claws its way out of me as I stretch, my limbs stiff like they’ve been in a coffin, not a bed. “Why the hell am I so stiff?” I mutter, voice sandpaper and confusion. My neck creaks as Iroll it from side to side. Feels like I’ve been asleep for a hundred years. Or drugged.
“Now is not the time to punk out, Athens. Get your shit together.”
With effort, my eyes finally open, and it’s not as dark as I thought. That was my brain playing tricks on me. Or maybe I never opened them at all. Doesn’t matter.
Because this room?
This isn’t my room.
The realization slithers down my spine like a snake made of ice.
I sit up fast, breath catching as the sheets pool around my waist, silk. Expensive. Five hundred thread count or more. They smell like cedar and sin. For a second, I pretend I’m some dark fairytale bitch waking up in the Devil’s bed. Snow White in stilettos. But that’s not the part that matters.
What matters is, I don’t remember getting here.
The last thing Idoremember? Devil’s Lane. The girls were taking me there after everything at the asylum went sideways. Wyck and the Devils weren’t gonna make it in time. So the girls made a call.
