Giving It Up (29 page)

I was the crazy one, raging with impotence and venting fury at my best friend.

Shelly looked past me, her glassy eyes reflecting red and orange flames.

I glanced behind me. “Shit.”

A fire spread nimbly along the perimeter of the back of the warehouse, following the path of a metal wall that shouldn’t burn. It came around the sides, and I yanked us both away from the wall just as it came around and engulfed the front. Panting on the ground, we were trapped in a rectangle of fire.

Shelly’s words came back to me.
“The whole house is rigged to burn if the security gets tripped. No paper trail, just ashes.”

Philip liked fire. Philip was paranoid. One of us here had betrayed him.

Now I understood what Shelly was saying. Philip must have known someone had betrayed him and set a trap. He’d probably thought it was me, though I doubted he really cared that much about Shelly either.

There was no way we could get out of a locked warehouse. There was sure as hell no way we could get out of walls of flame. I glanced up at the ceiling. No way.

I was really going to die here.

The flames leaped from the far corner onto a crate, which burned around the edges before it puffed into an oversize torch. It was only a matter of time.

Already my breathing was labored. Some of it was panic, but probably the fire was using up the oxygen. Would we suffocate first or would we burn? What a choice.

Oh, Bailey. Now that I’d caught up to Shelly’s line of thought, my question was the same. Would they give her to my dad? He’d raised me alone, after all, though he was twenty years older now. It wasn’t so bad a fate for Bailey, I told myself, trying to ignore the sickness in my stomach. If I was upset that I couldn’t see her again, didn’t get to watch her grow, that was my own selfishness talking. I’d brought this on myself when I hadn’t trusted Colin.

Oh God, did Colin know Philip had done this? For all I knew, he was the one who’d watched us enter and locked us inside. He’d found the money, the cop’s business card, so he had every reason to believe I had betrayed him. I wanted to believe he wouldn’t have done this. He would have confronted me, let me explain. Anything other than kill me—and like
this
.

But I’d always been a realist, and Colin was a hardened criminal, after all. A mean son of a bitch, he’d once told me. I’d denied it then, but it might be true after all. He beat up a man just for messing with me when he’d barely known me. He’d probably killed before. Just because he’d let me live with him, just because he’d fucked me didn’t mean I got special treatment.

Or maybe this was the special treatment. Maybe regular enemies got a bullet to the head, but traitors like Shelly and me got punished. Not just killed but burned, like fucking witches with a phony trial.

God, I needed to do something. I couldn’t just sit here and wait.

I ran to the nearest crate, one standing near the middle that hadn’t yet caught fire. My eyes burned from the heat and the smoke. I groped at the sides, searching for a latch. I moved around the crate, leaving a trail of blood as the coarse wood scraped open my fingertips. Finally I caught on a padlock.

It wasn’t any good. I couldn’t budge it. Then Shelly’s hands pushed me aside. She reached to the top and pulled herself up as if to climb it, but then stomped down on the padlock, and it broke apart.

Together we pulled aside the opening to reveal large black containers stacked up like legos.

“Help me up,” I said. My voice came out scratchy, but she heard me and bent to give my foot a lift. I caught hold of the second to highest container by its top, and my feet found holds on the lower ones. Slowly and with Shelly’s support behind me, I dragged myself up to the top.

The smoke was thicker up here, and I could barely open my eyes. I waved Shelly away, and she disappeared into a cloud of smoke. I rocked, gently at first and then harder, until the containers toppled onto the concrete.

When I opened my eyes, I saw one of the containers had cracked open, spilling large, gleaming guns like a macabre treasure chest. I forced myself up, but Shelly had already picked up one of the guns. She aimed it at the fire and pulled the trigger—nothing happened.

“Bullets?” she asked hoarsely.

We looked through the rest of the guns, crouching low to avoid the worst of the smoke, but there were no bullets packed with them. That would be too convenient.

Fuck.

Through my fear and despair, anger surged. Okay, so I should have trusted Colin. He’d given me so much, all on faith, and I should have told him everything, but I hadn’t betrayed him. I’d had the opportunity to strike back at Philip—and every reason to do so, considering Tony Yates—but I hadn’t. And I was only here in this godforsaken warehouse because I was worried about Colin. I hadn’t betrayed him. I didn’t deserve this from him, assuming he’d known about it.

I picked up one of the guns and dipped low. It was heavier than I’d thought, which was good. I stormed back to the door. The flames hadn’t actually caught on to the door. Whatever they’d put on the walls to make them burn, the door seemed to be resistant. But the flames still crowded in from the walls, heating my skin and making it itch.

I raised the gun above my head and slammed it down on the doorknob, a shiny beacon through the flames. The shock from the impact traveled through the gun to my arms. Christ, that hurt. Was it possible to get bruised by
vibrating
?

But pain hardly mattered when I was about to get fried. I picked up the gun and brought it down on the door again. I wasn’t even aiming for the handle anymore, just hitting the door with my everything. Maybe it would somehow be enough, and it would open. Even if it didn’t, I’d go down fighting.

“Allie!”

I paused with the gun raised above my head, panting. I must have imagined it. It didn’t come from behind me, from Shelly, but in front of me, from outside the door. And the voice, though distant, sounded male.

“Allie!” Closer now and definitely Colin.

Yes! My first thought wasn’t even that we would be saved, but that he hadn’t done this. If he was here looking for me, he must not have left me here to die. A weight lifted, and I breathed easier despite the thick, gritty air. It would have been almost the worst part of dying, aside from not seeing Bailey again, to think Colin had done this to me.

“I’m here.” There was no way he could hear my croak through the metal door, above the dull roar of the fire, so I banged against the door with the gun again. Not as hard now, but faster.
I’m here!

“Hang on,” he said.

I stood there, because where else could I go? I could only hope I’d live long enough to have nightmares about this scene.

Then the door banged back at me, hit from the other side. I backed up into Shelly, and we both moved out of the way. Whatever he’ used, or maybe just his stronger swing dislodged the door handle, and just that small sliver of escape sucked in fresh air.

“Get back,” he yelled, his voice clearer now.

We were already standing away, but we backed up even farther, to the spill of guns.

Two shots and another loud bang and the door creaked open. The top side of it had pulled down and out, but the rest of the door seemed to have melted into the frame. The space should be large enough to squeeze through, but it was too high.

Colin appeared in the space and saw that we couldn’t reach. “I’m coming in,” he said.

“No,” I tried to yell. Then he’d be trapped. “Wait a minute. Shelly, help me.”

We dragged one of the open containers over to the door. I let Shelly go first, practically pushing her out of the hole. Then I dragged myself through, ignoring the sharp pain of the too-hot metal against my skin.

I collapsed next to Shelly on the concrete, gasping for the air of the city.

“We’ve got to move,” Colin panted. “This place’ll blow when the fire hits the ammo.”

Oh good. He was planning to blow us up, not burn us to death. How comforting.

I dragged Shelly up, both of us wheezing, almost choking on the thick smoke inside our lungs.

Colin pulled us all along somehow. I couldn’t quite see yet, at least not beyond a few feet, and followed him blindly. He slowed, and Shelly dropped to the ground. I fell beside her again, my muscles like jelly, while Colin put his hands on his knees and head down.

Staring up at the sky, I saw only black.

My breaths rattled in my chest as I heaved on the ground, but it seemed that Colin was recovered. “Get up,” he said. “You need to get out of here.”

“Me?” I asked. “You’re not coming with us?” I was mostly offended that he’d let me leave like this, though in truth I probably couldn’t drive as I was.

“No,” he said. “Take Bailey and leave.”

He’d put something in my hand. It was the envelope of money from Jacob, the same fucking envelope of money. It felt different, lighter. Not that I should care about such a thing as some missing money, but I was struck dumb by the whole experience, and I looked inside. The thick wad of hundreds seemed to have grown even thicker.

I looked up at Colin. He towered over me, chest heaving, eyes flashing.

“You still think I did this,” I whispered.

“I don’t care,” he said, the acid in his voice burning me anew. “It’s not safe for you. Just go.”

“Did you do this?” I stood and listed to the side, where he caught me. “Did you leave me in there to die?”

“Then why would I get you out?”

“I don’t know,” I asked, my voice breaking in fits and starts, like the worst case of puberty. “A change of heart, maybe?”

“I didn’t know it would be you,” he said, looking me straight in the eye. “When I called home and that neighbor picked up, I came here.” So he hadn’t meant to kill me, not exactly. It was a test, one I’d failed. Not for the reasons he thought, though. I’d come for him.

“Colin,” I said. “You have to believe me. I didn’t do it. I didn’t tell the cops about this—”

“Don’t.” He looked offended.

“I’m not lying! That money wasn’t from them. They were together—it was just a coincidence. They came around a couple times, but I just gave them a fake address.”

“Philip said someone broke into his study.”

I had to tell the truth. He’d know it if I lied. Besides, not telling Colin the truth was what had gotten me into this in the first place. I had to trust him. I’d trust him to keep me safe with the truth. If he wasn’t what I thought, I was fucked anyway. “I did that. I went into his study. The cops said they’d arrest me or take Bailey away if I didn’t help them. So I found out about this drop, but I didn’t tell the cop, I swear. And they were going to tell you about—well, I met with Jacob. That’s where I got the money. I wanted to ask him to leave Bailey and me alone, and he did. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just didn’t want to fuck it up, but that’s the truth. That’s the whole fucking truth. I swear it, okay?”

He said nothing.

“I swear it on Bailey’s life.”

I implored him with my eyes, hoping I didn’t look quite as out of my mind as I felt. It would also have helped if I could have made out his face, but my vision was still fuzzy for anything more than a foot away.

“Do you believe me?” My voice cracked.

Colin’s harsh breath sawed through the night. “Yes.”

“Forgive me?” I whispered.

He nodded shortly.

“How kind of him.” I heard Philip’s voice and looked over to see his leaning form against a concrete wall. “But that’s only fair, considering he was keeping secrets for far longer.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Colin growled.

“I told you to tell her yourself,” Philip said, his tone bloated with pleasant inevitability.

“Another word and I’ll quit,” Colin said. “Don’t test me.”

Even though I knew it was in Philip’s best interest to stir up trouble between us, I couldn’t help but ask, “What are you talking about?”

Philip smiled, the cat got the cream. “Didn’t you ever wonder how you ended up with him that night? A man so ready to take on your baggage, almost as if he’d already known.”

Colin’s low, rumbling response reminded me of a dog I’d once seen chained to the front of a broken-down house. It sounded like fear.

“Colin?” I asked.

“Ignore him,” Colin ground out.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered, waiting for him to say Philip was crazy, that he was
wrong,
but Colin just stood there, glaring impotent wrath at his brother.

“I own that club,” Philip said, then nodded at whatever he saw on my face. “One night we hear there’s a disturbance out in the alley.” He shrugged. “Some people having sex.”

My breath caught. Suddenly I wished I’d listened to Colin, who vibrated with anger but made no move to stop Philip. Why should he? I’d asked for it.

I didn’t want to hear my shame described in cool, clipped tones, but Philip continued inexorably. “Normally I don’t care what people do, but I discourage public displays of prostitution. I don’t need the cops breathing down my neck. My bouncer’s tied up, and Colin was visiting to talk about business, so I send him out. He comes back, says it’s not a problem, but next thing I know, he’s looking through receipts and spending every Saturday night at the club. It wasn’t hard to figure out he had a little crush.”

A small sob escaped me, cementing my humiliation.

“Your lover’s drama is fascinating,” Philip continued, “but if you didn’t tell the cop, then who did?”

Shelly staggered up like a baby doe, ready to take responsibility for giving information to the police about Philip. He would kill her.

I stepped in front of her. “Why did you pay Tony Yates to fuck me?”

“What?” Colin and Shelly asked at the same time.

Philip strolled forward. “So you admit to snooping in my study.”

Colin inched in front of me. We were like a line of dominoes: Philip, Colin, me, and Shelly. The only question was who’d fall first.

“What are you talking about?” Colin asked me without turning.

“Tell him,” I said to Philip.

“You’d protect her?” Philip asked Colin, his disdain clear. “Even knowing she betrayed you?”