- AHMED -

"Whoa," I felt blood rush to my head. "Slow down. You're saying Glenn Clather murdered Ruby?"

"Yes. And Marcus Hall was in on it."

"There's...there's no way." Steven's voice was low, tremulous. "...Why?"

"Because she was a threat—she was a rowdy girl with a promiscuous past who knew a secret that could have destroyed everything Marcus so tenuously held. She knew the only gods he served either fit inside his wallet or dangled between his legs, and she knew that EdgeWay Church of Christ was just another conquest—just another ladder of success whose rungs he'd managed to climb faster than anyone else. Luckily for Marcus, the only other little girl who ever got that close to the truth was Lane Martin."

"What truth, Marissa!?" I asked bluntly, frustrated. "You keep spewing all these riddles and rhymes—just tell us what happened!"

"Oh, haven't you figured it out by now!?" she screamed in reply. "Glenn Clather was a rapist, and Marcus Hall was an opportunist!" She exhaled, shaking her head. "To hear Glenn tell the story, though, it wasn't his fault. His wife Beth had just divorced him, and she was best friends with everyone's favorite tabloid junkie, Madam Caroline. After the divorce was settled, Caroline wrote a nasty piece about Glenn's sex habits based off private info she got from Beth. It was the first time The EdgeWay Press was printed with a parental-advisory label, and it was the first time it was mailed to kids' houses instead of being given out at school."

"And what, Caroline never got in any trouble for writing something like that?" I asked.

"Well, from what I understand, she knew some pretty juicy info on Marcus at the time. I don't know all the details, but apparently there was some major fight he was having with his wife. Either way, I'm fairly certain that banning the Press was the last thing Marcus was going to do." Marissa paused, her voice taking on a biting, acrimonious tone:

"But boys will be boys, I suppose. And if you can't get it from a consenting adult, I guess sex with a seventh-grade wild-child is the next best thing. Glenn followed Ruby one day when she went to the park, he donned the best mask he could find, and he raped her. All her classmates thought she'd disappeared, but it was really just her family who begged the school board to give her some time off while the police were investigating. And that sicko Marcus promised Mr. and Mrs. Densett that he'd be praying for justice, for the rapist to be found. He swore to keep everything under wraps and went so far as to erect a life-sized memorial for the 'missing' Ruby, knowing all the while what really happened."

"B-but how can you be sure?" Steven asked after a moment's hesitation. "How can you—"

"Because I know the rest of the story," Marissa cut him off. "It was late, later than I'd ever worked. I had no idea being a secretary could be so demanding, but due to budget cuts, Marcus had insisted that I be placed in charge of all game ticket sales for the rest of the year—starting with the first basketball match. Kids were yelling and screaming in the auditorium, but the main school building was quiet. Quiet enough for me to hear the faintest of screams coming from a few rooms over. I'd just gotten back from the gym after making two trips to collect all the money EdgeWay made selling tickets at the game. I was headed back to my secretary office at the end of the school's main hallway, and I thought I heard a girl yelling.

"I locked the ticket money in my office, and I heard the scream again. I poked my head outside my office door, and I saw him—Glenn was pulling a massive hoodie on top of some little girl. Seconds later, he was shoving her down the hall and out the back door facing the gym. I followed him as quietly as I could, but I lost him when he went outside. I went to Marcus about it the next day, and he made it clear that he expected me to forget the whole thing."

I was shaking.

"So what did you do?" Steven asked.

"I told him I would go to the police, but then he threatened me. He said I'd lose my church membership—and much worse—unless I helped him."

"H-helped him?" I shivered. "Helped him with what?"

"The cover-up," she said. "As I came to find out, Glenn wasn't acting alone. He had called Marcus that night, the night of the basketball game. Apparently, he'd kidnapped Ruby from her home and raped her again...in the usher's room adjacent to the chapel. It really is a sick irony when you think about it, but I guess he figured it was the safest place to indulge. He had access, the church was locked, and no passers-by would ever hear him; those basketball games kept up enough noise to wake an entire neighborhood. Had I not been in the main school building that night, Ruby might have simply vanished and never been seen again. But because I knew, Marcus demanded my silence and cooperation. If I said anything, he would've—"

CLANG!

Marissa swiveled left in an instant and gasped, her chest tightening, fear pulsing through her eyes. "No," she breathed.

"What the—?"

"Out of my way!" Marissa yelled as she shoved past me and Steven, ambling for the nearest kitchen countertop, where a wooden knife rack sat undisturbed.

"The heck?" Steven began as Marissa pulled a serrated blade from its grove in the rack. "Marissa, what're you—?"

"SHOW YOURSELF!" she screamed into the air.

CLANG!

This time, the lights fell, plunging the entire apartment into a flush of darkness. Footfall clicked softly in the distance, and I could hear the patter of Marissa's fearful movement inches from me.

A loud rapping burst through the darkness. The window?

Glass exploded, followed by the tinkling of invisible crystals as they fell to the floor.

More steps, and this time they were closer, faster. Faintly, I heard the splash of liquid against the kitchen floor.

What's that smell?

In a second, the darkness was broken—and so was the subtle cool. Bright orange flames erupted vertically from the floor, their tips volcanoing onto the kitchen's topmost cupboards and charring the wood within seconds.

"Whoa!" I screamed, glancing quickly left and right. I spotted Steven several feet away, his eyes wide and mouth agape with pure terror. "Steven, look out!" I yelled to him, barreling forward to tackle him out of the way of a bursting ember.

A lick of fire shot onto the wall, blackening a thick strip of it. The flames crept forward, closer and closer to us with each passing moment. Dark, ebony smoke began its ascent and flooded the kitchen, tumbling through the air, thickening it with a heavy and charred odor.

My brain racing, I surveyed the tiles and walls—"Steven, there!" I shouted, pointed to a small bathroom with its door ajar. "The bathroom!" I grabbed him by his shoulder and pulled him forward.

The two of us ran, narrowly evading another whip of heat and flame as we ducked through the bathroom entrance.

"Bucket," I said the word solitarily, shaking, swiveling my head frantically from left to right.

"B-bucket?" Steven sputtered.

"Yeah," I breathed as I kept looking. "Start running water in the tub," I ordered.

"Huh?"

"We need to douse the flames," I tried to explain, my mind still whizzing a mile a minute. I flung open the miniature doors granting access to the space under the sink. I pored skatingly over the racks and mini-shelves that held WD-40, bleach, isopropyl alcohol, and yellowing rubber gloves, then yanked open the cupboard of toiletries situated beside the mirror.

I could hear my breath leadening as I searched. "Steven," I hesitated, "I—I don't think we can douse the...oh, no." As I spoke, I glanced through the bathroom door, my divided attention gripped suddenly by the ever-growing blaze burning its way across the apartment's kitchen tiles—toward the silvery stove that sat contiguous with the sink and countertops.

And I knew that stove; James and Katherine had a similar one, by the same company. It was powered by gas, and the flames were about to ignite it.

"We gotta get outta here," I breathed. "That stove is gonna blow."

"How!? The only way out's through the front, and that fire'll turn us into a grilled chicken-kabob before we even make it halfway!"

I could feel sweat pooling in rings under my arms and down my back. "I don't...I..."

God, please, I heard myself praying internally, suddenly frozen in place. I looked back at Steven and felt fear throbbing, shaking every inch of my body.

"The tub," he mumbled, then said it again, suddenly louder: "THE TUB! AHMED, GET IN THE TUB!"

I ran, did as I was told, dove for the tub alongside Steven. Mere seconds after we landed inside, I heard the thundering boom of ignition, of exploding metal as it flew and clanged against sink and wall and countertop.

"Turn it on," Steven ordered. "Turn on the water."

I grabbed the tub's faucet and twisted. Clear liquid fell and began to drench us, to fill the bath and creep up its walls, preparing to overflow.

Being so close to Steven was weird, to say the least. He was a relatively built guy, and he gave off more body heat than I guess I was expecting. He rested his back against one end of the tub, and I rested mine against the other, but our legs were both too long to keep apart and untangled. And neither one of us dared to move from what might've been the only safe spot in the entire house.

With time, the combined size and weight of our bodies buoyed the water up and out and onto the floor, where it began to pool and puddle toward the bright orange embers raging past the bathroom door.

I let out a heavy sigh, unsure if it was one of relief.

"We're safe, man," Steven tried to reassure me. "No way that fire's getting in here as long as we keep the water running."

"Yeah," I nodded briskly, trying to convince myself. We're safe.

I shut it out, all of it—the sound of the flames, the smell of burning wood, the intermittent flashes of orange against the sheeny bathroom door. I closed my eyes to it, bowed my head, let my legs fall limp as they soaked in the spilling bath water. Eventually, the splashes outside the tub became almost rhythmic, keeping at bay the rampaging blaze.

It occurred to me that one of us should probably call 9-1-1, and it occurred to me almost just as instantly that we'd both left our phones in Steven's car in our rush to confront Marissa with the evidence we'd found.

I was about to raise my head and despair, lament our predicament. But before I could, the airy pitch of firetruck sirens outside the apartment began to quell my fears almost as quickly as they'd arisen.