"I can't move." With my eyes closed the pain was almost worse.

"Riley, we don't have much time," he said, waiting for me to look at him once more. When my eyes were open again, he nodded at the bed. We were still in Mariah's room but she wasn't there.

"Where is she?"

"He took her. Riley, this is bad."

We looked at each other. Both of us having so much to say but not knowing where to start. The realization that I wanted to know more about Drake before we died overwhelmed me and question after question cramped my already swollen brain. Where are you from? Did you have a family? Were you a dad? A good lover? What's your favorite song? Your favorite food? Are you a cake or pie person? Beach or mountains? What do you like to read? Do you read? Who are you? Who are you really?

He spit onto the carpet - a globby mix of blood and saliva. The shirt he slept in was soaked in a scarlet color along the bottom. "Your st.i.tches," I said.

"Least of my problems, don't you think?" He tried to smile but his puffy lips barely moved.

It was rope that was tied around my wrist and ankles, that's why I couldn't move. I had a burning rash on my skin where the rough cord rubbed me raw. Hog-tied. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d had tied me up like an animal. The only thing I could do was roll on my stomach from one side to the other.

"You need to get that gla.s.s, cut the ropes," he said, nodding his head toward the bed.

"I can't move, Drake," I said through gritted teeth.

"I'm tied to the f.u.c.king bed frame, Riley, I can't get it," he hissed.

And so began my roll across the room. It might have been funny under other circ.u.mstances, but my hips hurt from digging into the floor and my limbs objected every time I attempted to flip myself over like a fish on the sh.o.r.e. After a series of ungraceful revolutions, I opted to squirm along the floor on my side, using my toes to dig into the carpet fibers for leverage.

The gla.s.s lay on its side, just under the foot of the bed, waiting patiently for me. My bad shoulder creaked like an old tree branch as I scooted myself closer to what was left of the cup, dragging my body almost the length of the bed before feeling the cool gla.s.s touch my finger-tips. I imagined myself in a horror flick as I fumbled with the jagged base, rotating it to fit into my hand securely. In a scary movie, I would be able to slice through the rope with ease just in time to get away from the attacker. But it wasn't a movie and using the bottom of a busted drinking gla.s.s slippery with my own blood to cut through one inch of rope was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Several minutes pa.s.sed, and the rope had barely begun to fray when I noticed movement in the far corner of the room. The surprise caused me to jerk backwards, knocking the gla.s.s out of my hand. I wiggled around on my side to get a better view of whatever it was that shared the room with us.

Hovering in the empty corner was a dark, pulsating ma.s.s. It shimmered slightly before taking the oily shape of a man. Its gloomy color stood out against the pale yellow of the painted walls like a dark water stain.

With my eyes shut tightly, my head collapsed to the floor as I moaned, "No, no, no...no...not now, please not now."

"What?" Drake snapped, "Did you drop it? Pick it up!" And then seconds later, "Oh s.h.i.t!"

There's only so fast one can move with their hands and feet bound behind them along carpeting, but I gave it my best, getting maybe four feet before the shadow was standing just beside me. A feeling of cool foreboding covered me like a wool blanket, pushing me down into the floor, pinning me in place.

"Go away!" I cried into the ground. Like a child, I hope that if I couldn't see it, it wouldn't be real. If I didn't look at it, maybe it would leave.

Voices, small and rushed, echoed around the room in a chaotic chorus. The vibrations of sound tickled my ear ca.n.a.ls. It was the sounds of the lost - wanting to be heard. I yelped as the bed moved beside me and still I refused to open my eyes. I knew the shadow man was still there, standing somewhere next to me, I could feel his sorrow, his anger and pain radiating out into the room like a toxic gas.

It could have been an earthquake but the bed was the only thing that bounced around the room. So violent was the shaking that the feet of the metal frame actually lifted off the floor more than once, causing my forehead to bounce against the thick carpet with soft little thumps. And still I did not open my eyes.

When a banging shook the closed bedroom door from the outside accompanied by shouting and cursing, I finally looked to see if our intruder was letting himself into the room or not. The doors had no locks on them but the handle rattled in place as if stuck. Our attacker continued to scream while the bed shimmied one final time, settling against my back a good foot away from the wall. The erratic bouncing of the bed was all the leverage needed for Drake to slip his ropes out from under the frame.

The voices stopped. The shadow man drifted over my trembling feet, hovering only a moment before it faded back into the yellow corner as if pa.s.sing through the wall and then Drake's hands were on me, fumbling clumsily along my wrists. At first, I thought he was trying to free me, but realized it was the gla.s.s he was searching for.

When the bedroom door finally flew open, Drake launched himself forward with the busted gla.s.s held tightly in both hands, the cords of his muscles bulging from both arms and brought it down into the startled younger man's chest before the two catapulted into the hallway out of my view. Too afraid to move, I listened to the m.u.f.fled cries and grunts of fighting as the struggle moved further away. A piece of wooden furniture fell over - most likely the small decorative table at the top of the stairs and picture frames flew off the wall. After an eerie silence, the crunch of breaking gla.s.s being stepped on made me flinch.

"Do it!" a male voice bellowed.

After a slight pause there was a loud, wet crack, like something was split open and then - nothing. Someone was still alive though - I could hear their raspy breathing.

"Drake?"

No answer. Then someone from the hall rustled around a bit and thumped against a wall. Arching my back to loosen the rope behind me, I shifted my legs, rolling to my side and then upright. With my shoulders pulled back, I crawled forward on my knees until the hall came into view.

Mariah stood over a body with an antique bra.s.s bookend in one hand. When our eyes met, she dropped it to the floor where it made a solid thud before falling over. Blood splatter had sprayed the lower half of her naked legs in the shape of a rainbow. But there wasn't a pot of gold at the end of this one. Just a broken skull leaking its contents.

"What'd you do?" I whispered.

"What I told her to." A breathy answer came from the slumped figure by the wall.

She grinned at me and nodded, her gums bleeding where a tooth had been knocked out. Though she had showered the day before, her hair was still a ratty mess and standing naked in the hall she looked every bit the definition of crazy.

"He's dead," she laughed, "I killed him. He's dead...dead-dead-dead-dead-dead," she cooed and giggled. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up at the sound.

"Mariah. Mariah, can you help me?" I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.

She froze, her face stuck in a manic grin, her b.l.o.o.d.y s...o...b..r drooling from the corner of her mouth. "Help? Yes, yes-yes-yes, Mariah can help you," she said quietly with a series of brisk nods.

No. That was the answer to my question from the day before. Mariah wasn't going to come back from the h.e.l.l she'd been thrown into.

She was lost forever.

I dressed in jeans and a long sleeve top, pulling a thin denim jacket over my shirt so my cuffs stuck out at the wrists. In the last few days, I had lost another five pounds or so, as was evident by the way my pants hung from my hips again. Even with swollen and injured joints, my body swam in my clothing. After tugging on socks and shoes and pulling my hair back for a braid, I walked through the room taking a mental image of the supplies I managed to stock up on. There wasn't much, but now that I was leaving, I realized I didn't want to take any of it with me.

After fidgeting with the strap around my thigh where a new knife was tied in place, I used the restroom and splashed my face with cold water before smoothing back the loose strands of my hair. Water. All I wanted to pack was water.

When I stepped out into the hall, the body of the boy who was once ruggedly handsome was still sprawled out on his back on the floor. He was probably a football star at one time, voted best smile or most likely to succeed by his high school cla.s.s and there he was, dead on the top landing of someone else's house, head crushed in by a sculpted Rodin book end. Amazing how the choices you make can determine not only your fate, but also the fate of those around you. As I stepped over the towel I draped over his face a few hours before, I caught sight of his closely cropped brown hair and had the sudden urge to feel it.

Squatting above him, I ran my hand along the top of what was left of his head, feeling the downy hair p.r.i.c.kle my skin. His scalp was almost room temperature. Not that long before he had been just a kid and in only a year, he morphed into a local thug - the worst kind of urban monster there was. Taking what he could from those who lost everything. I wouldn't miss him.

"He's not coming back, you know."

Startled by the sound of Drake's voice, I looked up to find him leaning against his open doorway, a full backpack draped over one shoulder and a clean shirt dangling from his hand.

"I don't want him to come back. It's just," I looked back down at the boy; Hunter Mariah said his name was. "I can imagine him being a nice kid before all this. And look what he became."

"Yeah, well, tragedy brings out the worst in some people."

"What has it brought out in us?" I stood up as he pushed out of the doorway and walked toward me.

Moving a loose section of hair off my face, he let his hand linger for a second too long on my cheek before dropping it back to his side. "Well, in your case, nothing bad."

I shook my head in disagreement. There was nothing good left in me.

"Riley. Riley, look at me," he shoved his hands in his pockets and I wondered if it was to keep from touching me again. "You know that dark survivor cloud that's hovering above us, just drowning us in shadows? Well, you can see my cloud and we can both see Mariah's. But you," he leaned closer and lowered his voice, "I can't see your cloud, though I know it's gotta be up there somewhere." After he smiled, he walked away. I listened to him take the stairs down two at a time and not till he got to the bottom did I let my eyes water up.

Mariah shaved her head. While changing and washing my face, she took the clippers Drake used to trim his hair and removed the guard, shaving her hair clean off. The torn patches of skin from her time as a captive stood out more but without hair, her head had a smoother, universal look to it. She stood in the kitchen all smiles, dumping miscellaneous food items and bottled water into a backpack she found in the guest bedroom closet. She smelled of fresh sunscreen and lavender body wash.

"I'm so excited, I can't wait!" she gushed to Drake. He stood on the other side of the counter, picking the chocolate chips out of a bowl of mixed nuts. "Is there snow up there? In the mountains? I love the snow. I really want to see some snow. It's been cold enough. Might as well have snow if it's going to be cold, you know?"

"Hi," I said as I entered the room.

"Oh, Riley, are you ready, can we go now?"

"I'm ready," I said to Mariah.

Drake lifted his eyebrows at her as she struggled with the pack zipper. "Here, let me help. Why don't you go get some shoes on, okay?" I asked.

"Shoes, oh, I don't have any." Her smile was plastered to her face like it was stenciled on.

"There's some shoes by the door for you, but if they don't fit well, we can stop somewhere along the way and pick up a new pair. Okay?"

She bounded out of the room with a nod, the cuffs of my jeans skimming the ground even though they were folded up her legs. From behind, she looked like a malnourished thirteen-year-old boy.

"Better keep an eye on that one," Drake said over my shoulder before following her into the living room.

With a sigh, I joined them, my hand fingering the small metal object that rested in my pocket. Mariah pulled her socks on and then pushed both feet into a pair of canvas shoes I grabbed while at the mall with Drake. She wiggled her toes inside them and held a foot up for me to see.

"They're a little big. I'll definitely need another pair, because these are just a tad too big...see?" She wiggled her foot again and I smiled. Mariah was teetering closer to the brink of insanity than I had ever been. It put things in perspective.

For instance, I knew looking at Mariah that I had someone to take care of again and I couldn't fail her, not a second time. Which meant I had to take her back to the group. Even though they weren't her family, they were the closest thing to a family that I had. She would fit in. Eventually.

"Are you sure you aren't coming back here?" I asked Drake as we walked out the front door and stopped on the front steps.

"Nothing will bring me this way again," he turned around to look at me, "I told you I'd see you back, but remember what I said, I'm not staying."

In a mock salute, I brought my bandaged hand up and watched the two of them follow the walkway to the sidewalk. When they got there, Drake turned around to see me still standing on the top step.

"What's wrong? Did you forget something?" he asked.

"Yeah. Give me just a second."

But I hadn't forgotten anything. I stepped back inside and walked up the stairs to the rooms at the back of the house. Inside the one I spent the last month in, I took a good look around, my eyes settling on the gauzy and expensive curtains. My fingers found the small metal tin in my pocket and removed it, flipping the top off. After dragging my thumb down the side twice, I smiled at the small fire that was born.

Touching it to the base of the curtain, I quickly stood back as the flame shot up to the ceiling, eating away at the fabric hungrily. After repeating the same process on the other window treatments and the foot of the bed, I closed the door and did the same thing in each room. Downstairs I set the kitchen curtains and the living room curtains on fire, then hunted around the couch until I produced the Swarovski crystal adorned throw pillow. I set that ablaze too and threw it onto the couch where it swiftly spread to one of the blankets. Pulling the door shut behind me, I joined the others on the sidewalk and not until we were several houses down the street did the windows start popping, exploding from the heat.

Drake knew what I did, but he didn't ask why. I thanked him silently for that. But the house had to burn. For miles, every block we walked, I stopped and went inside a home or office building and set it on fire. By the time we reached the coast, the others had joined me and it became a game of sorts. We walked, jogged, stopped to set fires and then walked and jogged some more. We even raced each other down Pacific Coast Highway during that first day, the loser getting the heaviest backpack for the next mile. We set over fifty structures on fire before nightfall.

Part of me knew that the others thought I'd lost my mind and decided to become a pyromaniac overnight. But it wasn't that. In fact, a huge chunk of me felt guilt for committing arson, but it had to be done. It was the only way to help those left behind.

Everything in the city had to burn.

CHAPTER twenty-four.

Behind us, Orange County lit up the sky. An eerie terracotta glow pulsated from distant neighborhoods where flames leapt from rooftop to rooftop in a frenzied hunger. The wall of curling smoke hovering over the horizon just below the fading light of the blue sky should have been a terrifying sight but it made me feel giddy, almost delirious with joy. I was sure this was what they needed - all of them. The dead told me so. The feeling was so right that it tingled through my skin all the way into my bones leaving behind a dull ache.

Mentally buzzed but exhausted physically, we walked south on Pacific Coast Highway until the day came to a close. Mariah spent the hours mostly talking to herself and I spent the time looking for shadows. When I thought I saw something move that wasn't our reflections off the shop windows or expensive coastal homes, I would start a fire. That's how the day went as we neared the hills of Laguna Beach. But when night encroached, I stopped setting things ablaze so we would be safe overnight wherever we chose to sleep. The wind was in our favor - blowing northeast of us, but I knew that could change at any moment and send the fire nipping at our heels, which was why we stayed close to the coast.

"How about over there?"

Drake pointed to an open gra.s.s area that wasn't quite big enough to be considered an actual park. The border was overrun with bushes and palm trees but the furthest side opened up to a sandy slope. We crossed the ankle-deep gra.s.s and stood where it met the hard-packed sand, just feet away from a steep drop off. Below us, the ocean churned and bubbled, the high tide slamming repeatedly into the rocky bluff, tossing sea-spray into the air in an aquatic ballet.

"We can lay some blankets out. It's warm tonight, we don't need a fire," he said, as we stared down at the midnight-blue water.

"You don't want to sleep inside?" I pointed behind us to the row of million dollar homes with three stories. "Each of us could have our own floor for the night," I laughed.

"But it's a perfect night. Look, you can even see the stars already." Drake nodded at the sky.

Mariah bobbed her shaved head at me while tugging at her mangled ear. "Uh-huh, perfect night. It's a perfect night, I think."

"Okay. Well, let's grab something to eat then." I turned away from the edge, leaving Mariah standing there in her baggy clothes with her bruised face looking out at the water.

"Yes. Yes, a perfect night," she mumbled.

"What, honey?"

"A perfect night. A perfect night to go," she said to the ocean with a small laugh. As I looked back over my shoulder to ask what she meant, she took a step closer to the drop off. I froze.

"Mariah, step back honey, you're too close to the edge." She wasn't just close, she was teetering over it with several inches of her left foot dangling above at least thirty feet of open s.p.a.ce.

She tilted her head to the side and gave me a lip-splitting grin and then her face fell, taking on a more somber expression. Her brown eyes were large and round with concern, "Riley, did I thank you?"

With the booming sound of my blood rushing through my head competing with the crash of the ocean waves, I almost couldn't hear her. Turning, I took a step toward her, ignoring Drake's quiet warning behind me.

"Thank me for what, Mariah? You have nothing to thank me for," I said with a cautious smile.

She shook her head before nodding so vigorously it made me dizzy. "I do, I do. You found me you came to find me. You saved me, you know. Thanks, Riley. Thanks for saving me," she said. The delicate frame of her body shook as she let out an empty laugh.

For a brief moment, the muscles of my shoulders that had hardened into tight knots relaxed. She wasn't going to jump, she was grateful to be alive still. I could see it on her face. There was joy there - a little crazed and psychotic, sure, but it was still elation for life. The salty moisture of the water drifted with the wind and whipped at my hair and I pushed my loose bangs out of my eyes in irritation.

With an outstretched hand, I said calmly, "Come on, Mariah, let's go."

Her smile was warm enough to melt a hole into my heart. "Yes. It's time to go," she whispered.

And then she leapt.

With her arms out like a bird, she jumped into the air and almost floated on the cool breeze before falling like a stone. The only sound was my scream as the wind pushed it back into my face and made me choke on it. Drake's arms firmly wrapped around my waist and I struggled to get free, to get to the edge of the bluff, to see if she was okay. After dropping to the ground and crawling across the sand, I dug my nails into the hard earth as tears poured from my eyes, screaming her name against the a.s.saulting air current that pushed against me with invisible hands.