Page 1 of Up In Flames

PROLOGUE

“ O ne more round,” Byron, or Ron as most people called him, said. He leaned heavily against me, his arm draped over my shoulders. I leaned right back against him, too drunk to sit up on my own… probably.

Before I could ask if we should, another drink appeared before me. I’d meant to ask, but I kept losing snatches of time. I’d blink and the conversation had moved on around me. I generally didn’t drink to excess, but after years of hard work, I deserved to tie one on. I shrugged and took a sip.

“A toast!” Rita said, clinking her glass against mine and then Ron’s. “To three badass bitches who passed the bar on their first try.”

Rita scored a 280. I’d barely scraped through, while Ron, my best friend since day one of college, passed his with a 300. I’d scored a full 29 points lower—271. A score of 266 was a pass.

The bar exam was brutal. Easily the hardest thing I’d ever done. We all had known Ron was going to pass, and I didn’t care that he’d clearly blown us all out of the water. The important thing was that I passed on the first try.

All the sacrifices I made. The fight with Tasha months ago that led to our breakup had been because I was unwilling to deviate from my study plan.

She’d wanted to go to parties and be taken out to dinner and dancing all the time, and in the beginning I’d tried to find a balance, but the more I compromised, the more she wanted me to give up.

“Should I call Tasha?” I wondered out loud.

“No!” Ron gave me a shove, which nearly took me to the floor. Only Rita’s quick reflexes stopped me from falling over. With a gentle nudge, she pushed me back the other way.

“You absolutely should not call her,” she said, agreeing with Ron. Rita’s long hair had been braided, and she’d piled that braid on top of her head, holding it in place with bobby pins and magic. She took a few bobby pins out and let her hair down. “She never respected you.”

I didn’t want to call her. Not really. The thought had come into my head and fallen out of my mouth, and by the time it landed in my friend’s ears, I knew it wasn’t going to happen.

“Ignore me.” I took another sip. Whatever it was, it was stronger than my last drink. This was fruity and smooth, like the juice I used to drink as a kid, but way not child-friendly. “What is this?” I asked, thrusting my drink in Rita’s face.

“It’s a Bay Breeze cocktail.”

“I like it.”

Ron laughed and Rita rolled her eyes. “So you said, the first three times you had it.”

They laughed at me again and I leaned against Ron. My eyes blinked closed, and then I was on my feet, walking out of the bar. Though walking was a stretch. Ron’s arm was around my waist, and he had my arm held over his shoulder.

“You okay there, buddy?” he asked when he realized I’d come around.

“Fine. Are we going home?” God, I wanted that.

Home. Bed. Sleep. I blinked again, and Ron was dumping me into the back seat.

He stretched over me and buckled me in. The door closed, and then the next thing I knew, Ron was in the back seat next to me.

He was behind the driver’s seat, and I was on the passenger side.

I’d missed parts of their conversation, but I could tell Rita and Ron were bickering.

One day, the three of us were going to open our own law firm. It had been our plan since we all entered law school together. Now we were closer than ever.

“—still can’t believe you let him get this wasted. Is he okay?” Rita asked.

“I—” I tried to hold onto Ron’s reply, but it was a struggle to stay awake. “—you were there too.”

Horns blared. Tires screamed. Rita’s shrill voice was cut off, replaced with the sound of breaking glass and crumpling metal. The world spun. Over and over.

Everything went dark.

Everything hurt.

The car wasn’t moving anymore. I blinked, willing my eyes to open. The car was on its wheels, but that didn’t feel like a miracle. Not when the roof was smashed down and the driver’s side was—oh, God.

I fought the urge to be sick. My head fucking ached and the sound of sirens closing in comforted my soul but pierced my skull like a jackhammer. I reached up for my head and my hand came away sticky and red. Fuck.

“Ron…” I definitely had sobered up in the past thirty seconds. “Ron… Rita.” I tried to open my door, but it wouldn’t budge. Next to me, Ron was motionless. Asleep. He was asleep. Passed out. Probably knocked unconscious. I had to think that, in spite of suspecting the truth.

I looked for Rita, but she wasn’t in the passenger seat where she should have been. Where was Rita? Why wasn’t Ron waking up?

Someone came to the side of the car and started yanking at the doors.

Their screams hurt my head. I turned to the side and puked on the floor of the car.

The alcohol burned coming back out, and puking had been a mistake.

The action made my head feel like it was going to break in half and the stink made my stomach lurch.

Since when did puke smell like gas?

Since… puke didn’t smell like gas.

My booze-addled brain realized that I was in deep shit.

My puke didn’t smell like gas. The gas smelled like gas.

There was probably a leak. I unbuckled my seatbelt, but there was nowhere to go.

The door wasn’t going to open. The window was busted out, but the car had flipped, and the roof was crushed, making an easy escape out the window impossible.

I couldn’t make myself look at the other side of the car. Ron and Rita were both unconscious. My brain rejected the idea of anything else.

“Are you okay? Holy shit, you’re bleeding.”

I turned my head toward the sound of the voice. The kid couldn’t have been older than eighteen, and all three of him were as white as a ghost. “I called 911. Help is coming. Are you okay? Are you hurt? Holy shit, man.”

I tried to answer him, but when I opened my mouth, the only thing that came out was a keening moan.

Agony crawled through me, digging its claws into every nerve in my body.

I wasn’t sure what hurt because everything hurt.

I took stock of my body and though it nearly made me scream, I could wiggle all ten toes.

I must have passed out again. Strobe lights of blue and red filled my vision. Sirens wailed up close and personal, splitting my skull open.

“Hey, hey, what’s your name?”

I couldn’t keep my eyes open. “Or—” I took a breath and tried again. “Oren. Reid. Oren Reid.”

“Oren, my name is Will and I’m a firefighter. We have to get you out of this car, but it’s going to take us a minute or two to get the roof off. Stay with me, okay? Can you tell me where you’re hurt? Any wounds besides your head?”

“Don’t know.” The booze was rapidly wearing off, being eaten up by all the adrenaline in my bloodstream, or maybe it was the absolute gravity of the situation that had me feeling far too sober to deal with this. I wanted to sleep. I wanted my bed. I wanted my friend to wake up and answer me.

“Ron?” I started to turn toward him, but the voice at the window called me back to him.

“Oren. Oren, can you look at me? We’ve almost got you out. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Lights strobed. The world tilted whenever I moved too much, so turning back toward the firefighter at the window was easier than looking at Ron.

“There you are.” The firefighter smiled at me. From ear to ear. “That’s good. We’ve almost got you out, okay?”

“I can move my toes.” It seemed important that he have this information. I didn’t tell him that I was still pretty drunk. Or that my head felt like an anvil had fallen on it. Or that every muscle in my body throbbed like I’d been through the spin cycle on a washing machine.

“That’s great news, Oren. We’ll have you up and out of here in a minute.”

The sounds were horrendous, and I closed my eyes to try and fight down the urge to puke again because of it.

The sky opened up and more lights pierced the small space.

The roof was off and then hands were on me.

Will wrapped my neck in a collar to stabilize it, he told me.

Just in case. He made me look at him, and he started to explain how they were going to get me out of the car when all hell broke loose.

Fire appeared out of nowhere. Dark smoke billowed out from under the car. More yelling, this time with intent. Then suddenly water, and strong arms hoisted me up like I weighed nothing, and I was pulled from the car.

I clung to Will. Even though there were two guys who pulled me out, Will was the one who had talked to me. Who saved me. Who kept me from looking at Ron. Will was the one who sat me down in the back of a waiting ambulance.

“Oren, look at me,” Will said, and my gaze drifted over to him. His eyes were the bluest things I’ve ever seen. When I looked at him, he smiled at me, wide and bright. “There you are. How are you feeling? Do you know what happened?”

I shook my head.

“Did you lose consciousness at all?” an EMT asked me as they shone a light in my eyes.

I hissed when someone pressed a bandage to the side of my head.

I couldn’t make myself talk. Even when an officer came over and tried to question me, I couldn’t make my mouth move.

Worry paralyzed me. He might have said something about catching up with me at the hospital.

Everything was out of focus like I was still drunk.

The throbbing in my skull increased with every beat of my heart but, I couldn’t look away.

I watched the wreckage. Stared as more men pulled two unmoving figures from the car before it was fully engulfed in flames. Will moved and blocked my view after that. He stood by me as the EMTs worked on me. Examined my head. My body.

I didn’t want to leave the scene. I wanted to know about Ron and Rita.

“He’s going into shock.” A faraway voice said. Everyone around me seemed to move at warp speed after that. I was loaded up into the back of the ambulance.

I didn’t think I was in any grave danger, but the EMTs were worried enough to throw the siren on. It screamed all the way to the hospital.