“We can’t go in just yet,” that same male voice rumbled again. “It’s still too hot in places, and the structural soundness has probably been compromised.”
He laughed at the bad joke he’d made, and his sly chuckles told me he didn’t want to come inside and actually hose down what was left of the blaze. Not really. Like the police, the fire department had its share of corruption and took bribes to put out fires . . . or not.
“Of course not, Chief,” Madeline answered him. “I trust your judgment. It’s already such a terrible tragedy. There’s no need to add to it by putting your firefighters in danger.”
“I’m glad that you agree,” the fire chief replied, the relief apparent in his voice. He knew that Madeline was the one in charge, not him. “Dawn is only a few hours away. I should be able to send my guys in there then. In the meantime, we’ll set a watch over the building. No one will go near it, much less get inside.”
Silence.
“Oh, I’m not worried about anyone going inside,” Madeline said. “Just someone who might come out.”
This time the fire chief was the one who paused before answering. “I don’t think there’s any . . . worry of that. If that gunwoman was in there like you said, there’s no way she could have survived. It was one of the worst blazes I’ve ever seen. You saw how long it took us to put it out. I still can’t believe that she set fire to her own restaurant, but you just never know about people, do you?”
“Unfortunately not,” Madeline replied in a smug voice.
They must have moved away from the storefront because I didn’t hear them say anything else. But one thing was for sure—I couldn’t go out the front doors, and the fire chief was probably on his way to set a watch on the back alley right now.
I needed to get out of here before that happened or I was dead.
Still keeping low, I moved away from the remains of the counter and hurried into the back of the restaurant. I must have inhaled more smoke than I’d thought because I felt slow, stupid, awkward, and clumsy, with a dull, languid fog that wouldn’t leave my mind no matter how hard I tried to push it away. I kept banging into the scorched walls, knocking free giant chunks of brittle ash, and I tripped over something lying just beyond the obliterated double doors.
I did a face-plant onto the floor. The fall stunned me, as did the charred, ashy thing below me. I slowly lifted my head and realized that I was staring at a charred, blackened skull. It took me a few more seconds to realize that I’d tripped over and was now lying on top of the dead woman I’d dragged out of the freezer earlier. Her body had been burned to a crisp, just like I’d wanted, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed the up-close view of what I’d been forced to do to her corpse.
I swallowed down the hot bile in my mouth, rolled off the body, and staggered back up onto my feet. I managed to stumble over to the back corner of the restaurant, where my frozen-food fort had been, and realized that I had another problem. This was the only part of the restaurant that wasn’t singed and scorched, as though something had been sitting on the floor that had been removed, showing the smooth, unmarred surface below.
I couldn’t let Madeline realize that I was still alive, so I staggered back the way I’d come, scooping up burned bottles and other debris and tossing it all over into the corner. For added measure, I kicked ash, soot, and smoky ruin all over the clear space, until it was as dirty, dingy, and damaged as everything else was.
But now that I’d disguised my hiding spot, a large question remained—how to actually get out of here?
Slipping out the back door was out of the question. I couldn’t take a chance that the cops were still stationed outside. But I needed to see exactly what was going on in the alley, so I went back over to the corner, crouched down on my knees on top of my duffel bag, and peered out through my breathing hole.
I still couldn’t see anything but the back of the metal Dumpster that was perched in front of this corner of the restaurant, so I put my ear up to the opening, listening. A few soft murmurs of conversation sounded, but they seemed to be at the far ends of the alley, and not right outside the back door. The firefighters must have cleared the cops out of the corridor to make sure that no one got hurt from the flames that had eaten through the restaurant.
I listened another minute, just to be sure, but the murmurs didn’t get any louder or come any closer. This was the best chance I had to get out of here. A small portion of my magic had replenished itself while I was waiting out the fire, so I flattened my palms against the wall and let what little Stone power that I had seep into the bricks and chip through the gray mortar that held them together.
If I’d been at full strength, I could have sent out one burst of magic and crumbled the entire wall—the entire restaurant—in seconds. But I was weak and exhausted and still coughing up all the soot, ash, and smoke that had polluted my lungs, so all I could do was loosen one brick at a time, pry it free from the wall, set it aside, and then wearily start on the next one.
Sweat poured down my face and neck, my short nails cracked and bled, and the jagged edges of the stone bit and tore into my skin as I tugged and yanked and pulled each brick free. I made myself work as quickly and quietly as possible, but it still took me the better part of fifteen minutes to make an opening that was wide enough for me to wiggle through. But I managed it, pulling myself through to the other side.
I lay against the cold, dirty, cracked pavement of the alley, panting for breath. Even though all I wanted to do was suck down giant gulps of air, I clamped my lips shut and made myself breathe in slowly through my nose, listening to see if anyone had heard my dig to freedom or had sensed me using my Stone magic. But those voices remained at the same low volume and distance, and I felt safe enough to sit up and slump against the part of the wall that was still intact.
When I had recovered enough of my strength, I took a few moments to take care of my lady business, then reached back inside and dragged my duffel bag out through the opening. Normally, I would have slung the bag over my shoulder, gotten to my feet, and staggered off into the night, but I wasn’t done yet. Because I hadn’t escaped just to let Madeline realize that I was still alive.
So I gathered up all the bricks that I’d loosened from the wall, including the one from my breathing hole, and put them all back into their proper places. As I placed each stone back into its slot, I reached inside, scooped up a handful of soot, and rubbed the mess all over the part of the brick that would face the interior of the restaurant. Hopefully, the black smears would help disguise that the mortar wasn’t as smooth and solid as it should have been.