“Get up, Zora.” I could at least move my lips.
“Getup, Zora.” A whisper this time. I curled my fingers, the ones that could be curled.
“Get up, Zora.”Pushed my forehead off the floor. I was two breaths from screaming.
“Get up.” On my knees. Looking at the window through the licking flames.
“Get up.” Legs wobbling, feet shuffling.
“Get up. Get up. Getup.” Forward. Hands on the windowsill. Eyes burning, lungs burning. An ungainly leap.
My sleeve caught and tore; my stomach grew hot. I kicked off the window ledge and crashed to the hard-packed dirt outside, coughing, sobbing, alive. Smoke billowed out the broken window, whipped into the air by the cold night wind. I scrambled to my feet as the world tilted beneath me and my vision blurred, and I sprinted toward the end of the building. Wood popped. Flickering light leaped into the windows I passed, the other rooms. Eight, nine, ten. The building groaned again. The night brightened as fire overtook the roof. I rounded the end of the building and stumbled into the parking lot.
The other motel patrons were already outside. The fire had reached the rooms closest to Tad’s. Leila, Mike, and Eric stood in the parking lot, Leila without a coat, Mike without his shoes, Eric without a shirt. All of them clustered around Tad, who was sprawled on the ground. The cameramen were yelling about their equipment; the producer and the assistants were staring at the building, mouths open. The producer saw me come into the light.
“Hey!”
I tried to run. The first cameraman came around the van and hit me from the front. The second one knocked us both sideways. We crashed into dirt and grass, me wheezing, them cursing.
“I didn’t do it!” My voice was barely strong enough to be heard over the fire and the wind. “I didn’t do it—Ludwig—Tad—set me up—”
Sirens floated in from the distance. The guy who’d tackled me first grabbed me by the wrists and the scruff of my neck, hauled me to my feet, and dragged me back to their van. Something warm ran down my arm.
The producer got in my face. “Do you know how many thousands of dollars of equipment we had in there? Do youknow? Even if you hadn’t put all of us in danger, we’re going to make sure you pay for everycent.”
“She’s crazy!” Tad cried. “She—she barged in demanding the—the thing—and she set the bed on fire—she threatened me!”
“Liar!”I screamed. “I didn’t do anything to you! I didn’t do it! I didn’t! Let mego!” The cameramen only held on tighter, one on either side of me now, so I couldn’t aim a kick at their kneecaps or slam my head into their faces. The fire was only getting bigger.
The sirens were upon us. Addamsville’s lone fire engine, followed by a police cruiser.
“We’rethe liars?” the producer said. “Try to lie your way out of this one, you stupid b—”
I spat in his face. He slapped me. I swung my body forward and drove my boot into his groin. He doubled over.
“DON’T EVER CALL ME THAT NAME! I DIDN’T DO THIS I DIDN’T SET ANY FIRES I DIDN’T DO ANY OF THIS LET ME GO LET ME GOLET ME GO!”
“Zora!”
The wind quavered beneath the whipcrack of Chief Rivera’s voice.
24
My lack of burns baffled the paramedic. The fire had overtaken the room so quickly. Tad had gotten out right away, but I hadn’t. My clothes were charred. My skin was fine. My only injuries were the cuts from the glass.
Jack and Norm stuffed me in the back of their cruiser and drove me to the station. My pulse throbbed where the broken window had sliced straight through my jacket and into my biceps. I still couldn’t quite breathe right. None of these things were helped by the handcuffs.
Norm and Jack never said a word. Neither did I. There was no Ludwig, to them. No ghosts. There was just Tad Thompson and lies. I caught Jack giving me sympathetic looks in the rearview mirror, but only because he’d been alittle rough as he put me in the car. There was no moreI don’t think you did it.The two people who knew I hadn’t done it were me and Ludwig, and he was going lie all the way back to hell.
Police station. Same cell. I paced because I couldn’t lay down. The other cells were empty. Norm and Jack stuck around. Norm answered phone calls while Jack stood near the door to the hallway my cell was in.
“Hey, Jackalope. What happened to Bach?”
Jack turned to me. His voice was subdued, and he kept his distance. “He was released. He didn’ do nothin’, had a clean alibi for the night of the Forester mansion fire.”
I shivered. All of my organs felt like they were standing on the tips of their toes, ready to either explode or help me burst into a sprint. I shouldn’t have been asking about Bach. “You know I didn’t do this, right?”
Jack didn’t say anything.
