“Jesus,” I whimpered.
Pickle. My sister’s savage, asshole cat was wide-eyed and silent for the first time in her chaos-fueled existence, her matted tail curled tight to her body.
I crouched and scooped her up, and for once in her feral, hellcat life, she didn’t claw my face off. She pressed her tiny body against my chest and let out the saddest, tiniest meow I’d ever heard.
“Good girl,” I said, my voice barely there.
Then I ran again.
The fire had already overtaken the back rooms by the time I stumbled out of the stairwell and into the barroom again, Pickle still pressed to my chest. The smoke was thick now, black and choking. I could barely see through it, but I staggered forward anyway, hand outstretched toward the greenroom door.
It wouldn’t budge.
The heat behind it was unbearable. The second my hand closed around the knob, the heat lashed up my arm, and I recoiled, eyes burning, lungs heaving.
“Mags!” I tried again, slamming my shoulder into the door.
Nothing.
Panic tore through me like the flames eating through our walls. I turned toward the office—managed to shove the door open enough to see that it was already gone. Flames clawed up the walls like a demon out of hell. The couch was ablaze. The metal desk was the only thing left standing. If she were in there—
No.
I backed out, Pickle whimpering against my chest, her body shaking like mine. I had to get her out. I could drop her off outside and go back in. I’d find my sister. I’d drag her out if I had to. I’d—
Something caught my eye through the smoke.
The portrait. The one I made for her. Moments and memories, tangled and vivid, spilling across the surface like the past cometo life. It had fallen off the wall, resting on its side beneath the flickering light of a melted sconce.
I grabbed it on instinct, dragging it behind me as I stumbled through the dark, coughing, the smoke screaming in my ears and in my lungs.
The front door was still lying on its side, and I stumbled over it. The cold air hit me like a slap, and I ran, depositing Pickle into the bed of my truck with the softest apology I’d ever whispered in my life, begging her not to move or run away. She blinked up at me, dazed and silent. I propped the painting against the side of the truck like it was the last holy thing in the world.
And I turned to go back in.
But I didn’t make it.
“Sir! Get back!” A firefighter caught me around the chest as I hit the sidewalk.
“No—my sister’s still in there!” I fought, twisted, screamed. “I have to—she’s still—”
“You can’t go in,” another shouted. “The second floor’s collapsing!”
I looked up.
The windows above the bar buckled inward with a groan, and then—crash.
The roof caved. Wood splintered. Smoke roared.
And with it… all of it.
Magnolia.
My sister.
My whole damn world.
I dropped to my knees, hands clutching at my hair, eyes wild. The street tilted under me. My lungs refused to work. My throat tore open on a scream I didn’t even feel coming.
