Page 189 of Dance With A Devil

He fires again.

Then again.

Gasoline pours over the rest like baptism in reverse.

“You two,” he says to us, “upstairs. Finish the dousing. I’ll handle this.”

We don’t speak.

We just move.

Upstairs, we coat the halls, the bedrooms, the closets. And then we hear it,screamsrising, frantic, agonized.

I smile.

It’s music.

The final choir of cowards, sinners, enablers.

Their prayers won’t save them.

Their bones will snap like kindling.

And when this place is nothing but smoke, Athens will be free from the last chain my father ever had on her.

Hell just got a little fuller tonight.

And I’m the one who opened the fucking door.

I flip the last tarp in the garage and there they are, just waiting for me like obedient little sins. Four red gas cans. Full. Heavy. Dangerous. Like they know exactly what they’re here to do.

The Devil himself must’ve stocked this place. Fitting.

I drag them out one by one, metal biting into my palms, my knuckles cracked and white. One slips, nearly shatters against the floor. Doesn’t matter. I’ll shatter worse tonight.

“You need a hand?” Carlos materializes out of the dark like smoke with a voice that slithers into your bones. Of course he’s here. He always is.

“Stealth,” I grunt, tossing him two cans. “Good. We need more ghosts like you.”

He catches them without a sound, lips twitching. “That’s not all I’m good at.”

My jaw ticks. “We’ll test that later. For now? We light this motherfucker up. Staff, guards, ghosts of the past? All of it burns.”

He blinks once. Twice. “You’re giving me the choice? Kill them clean or roast them alive?”

I stop. Tilt my head. “Initiation. You want to run with Devils? Earn it.”

He goes still. The change in him is subtle but sure.

“I say we kill ’em first,” Carlos murmurs. “They don’t get to scream. They get topay. For what they let happen to Ms. Athens… They don’t get mercy. Just judgment.”

My grip tightens around the gas can. “What the fuck did you just say?”

Carlos meets my eyes. Steady. Cold. “Your father used to beat her. Not often. Not at first. But it got worse. Regular. He’d wait until no one was around, drag her into the study like she was less than nothing.”

My vision goes red.

“How do you know?”