Everything inside the building is covered in white to hide the rot that comes from inside. I’ve been in there more times than I can count for the various events my parents have hosted. The night would always start with pictures of me, Kiervan, and our parents smiling for the camera. There’d be a speech or two, some food, then I’d be sent to my dad’s office while everyone carried on without me.
Despite all the disappointment my father has in me, he wanted me to work at Osman Pharmaceuticals. I assume it was so he had an employee he could push around until the day he retired.
During the day, the silver building is bustling with people, and it’s slowly been getting busier now that the buzz from the information release has died down and some of the labs have closed to preserve their business. Osman Pharmaceuticals is all the hype again nowthat it’s in the lead with a different medication that its competitors haven’t been able to replicate yet.
Medication that’s being manufactured behind those doors.
“We should have brought s’mores,” Blaze says to herself as she pulls a blanket over our lap. I press my lips to the top of her head as she fusses about getting comfortable while we wait for the timer to go off.
Emergency services are supposed to arrive in nine minutes.
People evacuate in five.
The four-minute window is crucial.
At this hour of the night, there are only a couple security guards and a handful of janitors, making clearing the building easier—seven minutes at the very latest if our prior test runs prove to be correct.
Blaze fishes my burner phone out of my pocket and drops it into my hand. It’s one of the old-style phones where I need to press the number three twice to get the letterE. I push the device back toward her and I’m momentarily struck by how beautiful she looks as the shadows curve along her face. “Make the call.”
She shakes her head and returns the phone to my hand. “Your revenge is your own.”
“Fine,” I say, grabbing another burner and passing it to her. “I’ll call if you send the email.”
“Look at us, so domesticated,” she teases. “But we both know I’m the one who makes the calls in this relationship.” Artificial light glows against her soft skin when she unlocks the smartphone and scrolls until she locates the draft, anonymous email waiting to go out to every Ivy League university and major press agency in the country.
The timer goes off on my watch, sending a line of anxiety down my spine. She casts me a hesitant look. “Are you ready? There’s nogoing back from this.”
I’ve always been certain about the two things I want in life: I want Blaze in every way there is, and to bring the Osmans down. I have no intention of backtracking into the past, where the rest of my family sat on thrones while they made me hide behind them. Out of sight, out of mind.
They’ll be able to see me now.
The whole world will.
My heart beats erratically in my chest, and I have to take a deep breath just to get the words out. “On the count of three?”
A smile splits across Blaze’s face. “Wait. On three or after three?”
“Three,” I say, and push the Call button at the same time Blaze rushes to click Send.
“You’re meant to count down, asshole,” she hisses while staring at the silver building. Neither of us utter a word as we wait with bated breath as the first ring chimes through the air. Her hand drops to my thigh, and she digs her nails into my muscles hard enough to make me grunt.
The line rings again, and still, nothing happens.
By the third ring, Blaze lets go of my leg.
At the fourth, she swings around to look at me with an accusatory glare.
“Did you fuck it up?”
I hold the phone up defensively. “I did exactly as the instructions said. I checked it—”
She jumps into my arms with a scream as orange, black, and vermillion explode into the sky with a thunderous boom. Alarms blare all around, and sirens start up from every corner of the city, dousing the surrounding buildings in a chorus of yellow, red, andblue. The flames go up in plumes of gray, mixing it into the navy sky, scattering ash in every direction the wind will carry it.
My family’s livelihood is quite literally up in flames.
Fuck, if that isn’t a sight to see.
Their research, their facilities, their income.Gone.They barely recovered from the information release two years ago. There’s no bouncing back from losing their main facility. Finding a substitute and replacing everything they need to continue production would take months. And what happens to their staff during that time? Their shareholders?
