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“Remember when I said your heart is stubborn enough to beat for both of us?”

“Yeah, Charlee. Right now it’s trying to tear through my ribs.”

“I’m depending on that. Keep it beating for me, Jay.” The heartache over the hell she was preparing to put him through swelled in her throat. Roy wouldn’t survive it, but Jay was made of steel. He had a lifetime experience in surviving.

Her eyes stung, and her voice clogged with unshed tears. “My heart, my life, and my love are yours. I give you those things, because I love you.”

She lowered the phone and pressedEnd. A stab passed through her chest, and her lungs burned with gulping breaths. Her lips curled back through the surge of grief.

The phone buzzed. She powered it down, wedged it into her pocket, and pressed a fist against her breast bone, over the ache that weakened her knees.

The boom of gun shots thinned, and silence settled over the hangar. She grabbed the lighter fluid and lighter, gathered a bundle of blankets and pillows, and sprinted over the cluttered aisle.

A blast of adrenaline accelerated her movements. Her vision was clearer, her mind more so. She dropped the grill supplies on the driver’s seat and flung the bedding into the stairwell.

Roy leaned against the door, forearm braced above his head. The gun in his hand thudded slowly against the spider-webbed glass. He stared at her out of red-rimmed eyes. “I wanted this to go peacefully. I wanted…” Stepping back, he pressed the butt of the gun against his head, grinding it into his scalp. “I didn’t want to punish you.” He dropped his hand. “You’ve left me no choice.”

The Craig appeared at the door with a pry bar. Shoving the flat end in the crack of the doors, he worked it back and forth, bending and screeching the metal.

She tagged the lighter fluid, flipped the cap, and submersed the blankets. Twisting, she snatched the lighter and squatted on the top stair.

“She’s up to something, Mr. Oxford.” The Craig removed the bar.

Roy slammed his body against the door, eyes wild. “What are you doing?”

Holding his gaze, her insides knotting with the horror of her plan, she sparked the lighter. “Would you survive my death?”

He threw his shoulder against the door, over and over. “No! No, don’t do this!” Hands in his hair, gun rubbing along his head, he screamed, “Get that fucking door open.”

The Craig shoved the bar through the crack, and she touched the flame to the blankets. The fire flashed in a brilliant yellow flame and curled into a roaring blaze, consuming the stairs and door.

“Noooooo, no, no, no.” Roy bellowed, and the bus rocked under the bang of something against the side. Presumably his body.

The smoldering air chased her into the lounge, burning down the back of her throat and scorching her lungs. She knelt on the couch and pressed a hand against the window. “Put that gun in your mouth,” she shouted.

He ran to the window, eyes up and blinking with helplessness. “There’s an extinguisher. Find it. Check the galley.” His hand clenched on the collar of his dress shirt.

“You did this.” She coughed, her voice rattling with phlegm. “You killed me.”

Squeezing the lighter fluid, she sprayed it over the aisle, couches and walls. Smoke blanketed the cabin, and Roy vanished behind the thick screen of smog.

Nose buried in her arm, she danced around the flames, scooped up the fire extinguisher, the gas mask and goggles. The heat scalded her skin, her clothes drenched in sweat.

Outside the bus, his wails roared over the whoosh of devoured air and the crackling and crashing of things falling down around her. She strained to hear that final gun shot, knowing it wouldn’t come. He would scour the charred remains for her body. If he couldn’t identify her, he would watch Jay, analyze his behavior. His thoroughness rivaled his persistence. He wouldn’t turn the gun on himself until he had the evidence, until he saw her death in Jay’s eyes.

Her lungs burned from lack of oxygen and dizziness swept over her. She wrestled with the head gear, wondering why she’d want to watch the inferno consume her. Hands trembling, heart racing, her earlier resolve seeped away with her strength. Panic flooded in. Too late for that.

The fire rushed toward her. She backed toward the bunks, awaiting her death, comforted by the howl of Roy’s sobs.

92

Jay lay in a bed, in a room, unsure of when or how he arrived, his mind still entombed within the smoldering skeleton of the bus. He was simply a cell in his body, breathing, existing, nothing more.

A shadow had stretched over him, blocking light to his thoughts, picking at old scars, and softening the steel beneath. Outside the shadow, hours passed. Days maybe. But time held still in the darkness.

He gathered a pillow to his chest, wishing it was one of Charlee’s shirts, her messenger bag, her sketchbook, something of hers to hold. He had nothing. Everything that signified her had burned. Gone. She was gone.

An aching void crawled from his gut, hollowed out his chest, and swelled in his throat. It wouldn’t relent. No matter how many tears or how deep the pain, it wouldn’t be satisfied until it swallowed him whole.