Violet Grenade(104)

My eyes dart to Cain and Eric, and I see that Poppet has Eric's gun. I don't know how the exchange happened, but she has the blasted thing now, and that's enough for me. I jump to my feet and race toward the kitchen, one hand gripping the bullet wound on my arm.

I find what I'm looking for behind a box of rat poison, exactly where Cain said it would be.

I could light a fire if you're cold, Cain said to me once. I have some lighter fluid beneath the kitchen sink. 

Wilson is not the only one with anger. I harbor it, too. Me.

Pulling in a deep breath, I flip the red cap and squeeze fluid on the rabbit mount with the lei around its neck. Next, I squirt some on the curtain valance and then trail a line of it down the hallway and toward the room where everyone is screaming threats. My knife lays flat against my back, held tight to my body by my waistband. The coolness is reassuring. It makes me work faster, my tongue touching my bottom lip in concentration.

When I reach the foyer, I squirt the remainder of the fluid over the curtains and couch. No one sees what I've done. Angie is busy kicking Madam Karina's bony butt, Cain is distracted beating the life out of Eric, and Poppet is exalted by her newfound weapon and power.

"Cain, give me your lighter!"

He stops slamming Eric into the floor and looks at me. He's returned to his dark place, nothingness behind his eyes. It's a glorious look on him. I'd like to lick that look from the back of a spatula. Cain spies the fluid in my hand and then digs in his pocket. The silver lighter gleams in the low light. He tosses it across the space and I grab it one-handed.

"Poppet, get out of here," I tell my friend. When she glances at me, I say, "Start the green car and wait for us."

She nods and dashes out the door.

Cain throws Eric into the corner and dusts off his hands like that's that. I crouch next to Madam Karina. She's breathing, but she doesn't look good. I grab her hair and pull her head up so she hears me clearly. "Now you'll see if your girls really care about you."

A vein in Madam Karina's eye is busted, filling the creamy whiteness with red. Still, I glimpse the fear in it all the same. It instills me with power and joy like it would any reasonable madman. I flick the grind and a small flame dances.

Stealing one last glance at the farmhouse, I fill my lungs. Then I yell, "I'm lighting this place on fire. You'd better get your butts down here and out the door or you'll burn to the ground, too."

That's enough warning, right?

Right.

I toss the lighter, and the curtains burst into flames. The yellow-red warmth snakes up the fabric. It stretches its long arms toward the furniture and the drizzle of fluid I trailed along the floor. Already the smell of smoke is all-consuming. I could be roasting marshmallows and telling ghost stories and inhale the same scent. But it's not marshmallows I'm roasting.

It's Carnations.

And Tulips.

And Daisies.

It's Madam Karina's hard work, and Eric's scandalous involvement, and Mr. Hodge's philandering. It's my mother's vindictive dealings, and her seductive tongue. Staring into the fire, watching as girls race past me and into the night, their screams filling my head, I remember the things I've done. The men I've helped kill because my mother deemed them unworthy.

Behind Wilson, a door cracks open. He tries to close it, but he's too weak. I glimpse the men behind that door. Men who cheated, men who lied, men who called women filthy names, but who didn't deserve to die.

I killed them all? I ask.

No, Wilson says. Mother did.

I nod slowly, accepting for the first time that I was a child. That I was manipulated into performing these horrors, the same way Madam Karina manipulated me here. But the difference is that, this time, I knew better. I saw it for myself in the end. I chose to let Wilson out.

And I chose to come forward and finish this thing.

I'm choosing to remember.

Wilson stumbles inside my mind, his body too heavy to stand. My own legs buckle, too. Strong arms wrap around me and guide me out the door. When I glance back, my vision blurring, I see Poppet lighting the guesthouses on fire, expelling her own demons with a flaming board she stole from the main house. She touches the board to the houses, all four corners, and screams for the girls inside to get out. They race into the night, wide-eyed and half-dressed.



       
         
       
        

Lola is nowhere to be seen.

Angie guides me toward the car Wilson spray-painted, the engine purring with a promise of safety and renewal, and places me in the back seat. Cain is beside me, and soon, Poppet is climbing in the front passenger seat.

Turning to look out the tinted window, I see Mr. Hodge dragging Madam Karina from the burning house. She tried to have him killed, and yet he saved her. The way he bends over her broken body, calling her name, smoothing her hair back-it's almost romantic. Let them have each other.