CHAPTER22
“WHY ME? WHYdoes everything go wrong for me?” Syder muttered. He tucked the knife into his belt and pulled his gun to press the muzzle under Ledger’s chin. It stayed there, dug into the soft flesh, as Syder unfastened the cuffs from the legs of the gurney. “Untie your legs. If you try anything, I’ll shoot you.”
The fire overhead spat and crackled as it ate into the old, dry-rotted wood and cheap furnishings. Heat scorched down into the small room and turned it into an oven.
Ledger sat up. His vision blurred gray and red, and his stomach twisted queasily as the room lurched around him. He forced the bile in his throat back down and fumbled at his feet to try and pick the knots apart with numb, sore fingers. It took him longer than it should have, but he eventually got loose.
“Move,” Syder snapped as he gestured toward the stairs with the gun.
Ledger slid off the gurney and tried to stand. His legs gave way under him, numb and prickling, and he went down onto the floor. His collapse earned an irritated noise from Syder. The rat box was shoved into Ledger’s arms, and then Syder grabbed him by the collar and dragged him across the floor to the steps.
The gun jabbed into the back of his skull. “Walk up them or crawl up them,” Syder said. “Your choice.”
Ledger crawled.
Even before he reached the top of the stairs, the heat of the fire stung his face and hands. Smoke scratched his lungs with every breath he took, and the rat in the box scraped at the cardboard in a panic. Ledger sympathized.
Once he reached the kitchen, he stayed down, arm wrapped around the box and shoulders hunched over. It was thick with harsh, dark smoke and so hot it hurt to blink. Flames licked up over the cabinets, the cheap melamine blistered and curling as it melted, and chewed at the ceiling. Runnels of it ran over the floor.
“Goddamnit,” Syder said as he scrambled out of the hatch. He hunched down and held his arm up to his face, his breathing fast and ragged. He grabbed Ledger’s shoulder and pushed him forward. “Get to the door. If you try and run, I’ll shoot you.”
“Then how will you sacrifice me?” Ledger asked between coughs.
“I didn’t say I’d kill you,” Syder said. He headed through the fire toward the door.
Ledger couldn’t move without the worldsloshingaround him and his stomach crawling up his nose. He crawled forward through the smoke. Charred strips of wood, the ashes still glowing red, stung and blistered his palms and knees as he crawled.
He tried to think of… something. A plan. Something bold. It didn’t work. He struggled to string together each step in the crawl; there was nothing left for anything beyond that. His lungs hurt. His head felt like someone had taken a hammer to it. Splinters burrowed under his nails as he dug his fingers into the planks to pull himself forward.
Something cracked overhead, a brutal, resonating noise. It didn’t sound good for the structural integrity of the old house.
Good, Ledger thought bitterly. Let it burn. But he wasn’t going to burn in it.
Ahead of him, Syder, doubled over and coughing, staggered through the open kitchen door and out into the fresh air. Ledger stopped.
He could almost feel the Death card under his fingers, taste the soft cinnamon incense of Madame Persephone’s tent.
Choose, she’d said.
Maybe he’d not understood what the cards had tried to tell him after all. What if the Death card meant just what it said?
Death. His.
It might. Ledger clenched his jaw and made himself crawl forward. Sparks showered down on him from the ceiling and spat from the walls. They stung the back of his neck and singed his already raw scalp.
The cards could mean what they wanted, but Ledger wasn’t going to die in this house. He’d rather let Syder cut his throat.
Ledger dragged himself over the threshold and collapsed onto the ground. He coughed and puked at the same time, every retch making his head feel like it was going to explode.
“Get up,” Syder ordered, his voice raw and harsh. “On your feet. I’m not going to carry you.”
He grabbed Ledger under the arm and tried to haul him to his feet.
Ledger managed to get to his knees, but he couldn’t bully his body any further than that. In an outburst of frustration, Syder shook him viciously. Ledger responded by puking uncontrollably, bile and fried milk splattered across his knees and onto the ground.
“When you get to Hell,” Ledger said, pausing to spit to clear his mouth. “I hope Bell’s there to greet you.”
This time Syder managed to force Ledger up onto his feet. He leaned in close, his breath hot and acrid. The mint had worn off. “I’ve sacrificed too much. Done too much,” he said. “I’m owed this. I’m not going to die.”
