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I reached for my phone as soon as it lit up. Rereading her reply.

Sorry, I can’t.

Three words. Three fucking words. Seriously? None of those annoying little pictures, just three simple words. Even punctuation.

“Give me a min, pea.” I got up walking out of the room. If he had sent that message, I might just fly back tonight and cut off his thumb.

Putting the phone to my ear as I stepped outside.

“Hey,”

I froze. I did not expect her to answer straightaway. “Hey, um,” I ran my hand over my head, “just checking your, okay?”

Silence. The longest silence I had ever had with her. Each second was painful.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Three words again. She didn’t sound fine.

“My love, are you lying to me?”

More silence. Fuck it. I was flying home. I would make it back before Sofia’s test in the morning.

“Just tired. Um, I have to go. Night.”

She ended the call. Staring at the blank screen for a minute. Why did that hurt? Maybe I had been wrong. I wasn’t losing her. I’d already lost her.

CHAPTER 13

Madeline

Standing out front of the building, the sirens grew louder. Someone must have reported it after seeing the flames.

I looked back at the burning building; the fire was now threatening to spread to the industrial complex next to it. That hadn’t been my intention.

A car pulled to the curb abruptly.

I frowned, seeing the sports car. Nikolai only ever used a driver. Though it was late when I called him, looking at his casual clothes. I must have woken him.

“What happened?” He looked panicked as he walked around the car. “Maddy, are you okay?”

“I started a fire.” I looked back at it. “I didn’t know it could spread so quickly, did you?” Maybe it was the chemicals that made it go up so fast.

He opened the passenger door. “Come on, we need to go.”

I nodded. Right. That was why I had called him. Getting in the car, he closed the door for me. The lights of the emergency services flashed in the distance. I felt bad that they were going to be spending their night putting it out.

I’d have to send something to the fire station tomorrow.

“Maddy, I need to know what happened?” Nikolai kept glancing at me.

Right. What had happened. I sighed.

“That wasn’t my dad’s first question when I walked in the door.” I stared out the window, watching the blue and red lights get smaller. “He saw me, and said, what did I do?” I turned to look at Nik. “As if I had done something to warrant looking like this. And mom, told me to go back and apologize.” I smoothed out my ripped dress; the blood would stain. “So, I did leave. I went back to his house and stole his car. Drove here and um…” I looked back in the side mirror. “Started that fire at the factory where they store their drugs.”

I glanced at Nik. “But for it to go up so fast, I think they must have had a lab there too. What do you think?”

Normally, Nikolai always knows what to say, but right now, he was speechless.