Page 60

1998

Orchid stared at the suburban sprawl through the scratched bus window. Someone had etched the word balls into the plastic glazing, and it skewed and refracted her view. But the streets were brightening, the human and material refuse thinning. Allan’s neighborhood was not upscale, but it was clean and pleasant, something wholesome about the dated single-family homes. On the surface at least.

Fucking Star. The girl had been told not to come here, threatened even. Orchid had grown complacent, used to the blind trust and loyalty of Lucy, the lack of agency of Tracey. Star was a different breed: a rebel, a firecracker, a problem. But she was not a killer. Not yet.

The bus stopped and Orchid got off in front of a convenience store. Allan’s address was on a piece of paper, crumpled in her front pocket. She had kept it away from Star, but the girl was resourceful. She could have found it while Orchid slept or gone to the pharmacy and gotten it from Allan directly. There was no guarantee Star had come here, but Orchid had to check.

She walked calmly through the suburban streets, quiet but for light birdsong and distant traffic. The neighborhood was well kept but deserted, its residents off at their middle-management jobs. A cab would have gotten her here quicker, but Orchid didn’t want a record of this trip. There was no way of knowing what would happen next, but she had a strong sense that it would be better if she was never here.

Allan’s home was like all the others on the street: a split-level, seventies design with a manicured front lawn, watered to a deep green despite the arid conditions. The pharmacist had assured them that his wife—her name was Carol—would be passed out in her room. He’d added a sedative to her bottle of wine, but Carol regularly drank herself into a stupor by four o’clock each day. But Orchid knew a lot of drunks, and she knew they were highly unreliable. There were still plenty of ways this mission could go horribly wrong, and Star was not prepared for any of them.

Orchid slipped stealthily down the side of the house, to the backyard. The lawn was patchy and yellow back here, with a small, wilting flower garden. It was easy to find the lone decorative gnome that concealed the spare key. Tipping it over, Orchid saw only soggy grass, dirt, a couple of worried centipedes. The lack of a key meant that Star was already inside.

On silent feet, Orchid climbed the back steps up onto a sun-bleached deck. Sliding along the length of the house, she passed two windows with their blinds drawn tight. The third window had yellow gingham curtains tied back to reveal a sunny kitchen. Orchid scanned the room. From the glass bowl of fruit to the cactus on the windowsill, nothing appeared to be wrong. Except for the wisp of a girl standing before the gas stove, a pot of oil beginning to smoke before her.

Orchid moved around to the kitchen door and slipped inside.

“Fuck!” Star said, jumping back from the stove. “You scared me.”

Without a word, Orchid crossed the room and smacked her, not hard, but enough to rattle her, wake her up to the mistake she was about to make. And yet it had no effect.

“It’s almost done,” Star snarled, her teeth gritted with determination. “Get out. Let me do this.”

Orchid glanced at the smoke curling from the pot. Soon it would burst into flames. “Turn off the gas. Let’s go.”

“No.”

“You do this, and we’re done. Do you understand me?”

“I’m doing this for us,” Star hissed, voice low. “And you’re not going to walk away from me when I have twenty thousand dollars in my pocket.”

Orchid was about to lecture this girl on trust and loyalty, how the means didn’t always justify the ends, when a female voice called out from another room.

“Who’s there?”

Allan had promised that Carol would be comatose, that she wouldn’t hear a thing. But the woman was awake. She knew they were there. She could enter the room at any second and see them. She could be calling the cops right now.

“Let’s go,” Orchid whispered, and Star nodded, her face pale with fear. Orchid didn’t see the cup of water that was sitting on the counter until it was too late, until Star was already tossing it onto the small flicker licking out of the pot.

“Don’t!” Orchid screamed, but her voice was drowned out by the roar of the flame shooting into the sky like lava, spraying an arc of fire across the room. Star screamed, stumbled, held up an arm to protect herself, and then she disappeared, enveloped in the hot orange glow.

Fifteen-year-old Star was on fire.