He glanced toward the back hallway.“I’ll just take a look?—”
I stepped into his path.“You’re nothearingme.The house is done.Move the men out.”
He searched my face again, suspicion creeping in.“You hiding something?”
My pulse spiked once, quick, controlled.“More bodies.If you want your men traumatised by what’s down there, by all means… go right ahead.”
He studied me another beat, jaw tight, then finally exhaled.“Fine.But if someone crawls out of this place after we torch it, that’s on you.”
“It won’t happen.”
He still looked unconvinced, but he turned and called out to the others, voice echoing down the hall.
“Pull back!We’re moving out!”
Only when his footsteps faded and the last soldier stepped outside did I finally breathe.
I watched as the the last vehicle engine started outside, moving slowly down the expansive drive.I exhaled a slow release of tension I didn’t want to acknowledge.
I went to the kitchen and grabbed the gas can we’d brought with us.I snapped the cap open and began pouring.First I doused the curtains.Then the hallway carpet.Then the chair legs and broken picture frames.Everything that would burn fast.
I struck the match and touched it to the soaked curtain.It ignited instantly, climbing upward with a hollow crackle.I watched for a second.Long enough to confirm the fire was spreading exactly how I needed it to.It had to be a clean burn that left no trace that we were ever here and there were no survivors.
Except the one I was hiding in the dark.
I moved quickly back to the pantry and let her out.The heat was already building, smoke creeping along the floor.
“Come on.”
She stared at the smoke behind me like she thought she’d disappear with the house.I grabbed her wrist, pulled her out, slammed the pantry door shut again as though shutting the door on my own betrayal.
She coughed when the smoke hit her throat.She stumbled.I tightened my grip and dragged her out the back door, keeping low as flames began crawling along the roofline.
Outside, the air hit cold and piercing.
The girl blinked against the night, dazed and shivering.Her nightgown was coated in blood and filth, doing nothing to ward off the chill.She looked unsteady, exhausted, and close to collapsing.But I couldn’t let her condition get to me.I’d already spared her once, against every rule I was supposed to follow.I’d known it was a mistake the second I did it.I just hoped this small act of mercy—or more likely my own weakness—wouldn’t come back to haunt me.
I shoved her into the backseat of my car.
She folded into the corner immediately, knees to her chest, arms locked around herself like she was trying to hold the pieces of her body together.She was shaking so hard I could hear the relentless rattle of her teeth.
I started the engine.
The fire behind us caught fast, roaring up the walls of the house with a hunger that felt personal.Flames twisted through the broken windows and chewed their way through the timber until the whole structure buckled.It screamed before it collapsed, a violent, final sound.
The end of her life as she’d understood it.
The end of whatever she was before I found her.
Erased by fire.
In the rearview mirror, the girl kept her gaze pinned to the window.Wide, empty eyes tracking the growing inferno as if she was watching herself burn inside it.
Good.Better she understood that nothing remained of her former life.
I told myself this was mercy.That dragging her out of that house was an act of grace from a man who never gave it.I told myself she was no threat.Just a shaking, ruined thing with no power.
I knew both were lies.