Page 108 of Seal of Honor
Fear threatened to freeze her. The chemical-heavy air threatened to choke her, and the room morphed into a funhouse mirror before her eyes, all stretched and wobbly. The floor surged and pitched under her feet, and the short trip to the door was a feat of equilibrium that would turn any gold medal gymnast green with envy.
Next up on the balance beam: Audrey Van Amee.
She giggled. Stopped. Shook her head. Nothing about this was funny. Stay focused. If she let the chemicals get to her, she was dead.
She shoved the dresser aside, its legs scraping loudly across the wood floor. She didn’t let herself think about how that might alert him and flung open the door. He was there in the hallway, tossing aside an empty can of turpentine, grinning at her as he dug in his pocket.
A flash of silver.
A lighter.
She charged and brought the cane down hard on his head. He staggered but didn’t collapse. With her forward momentum and the slippery turpentine covering the floor, she couldn’t have stopped even if she wanted to. She slammed into him, taking him to the floor. He was small. So much smaller than an attacker bent on burning her alive should be. A boy, not a man.
He cursed in livid Spanish, jarringly foul words in a voice that was still more child’s than man’s. She reached for his hand, stabbing her fingers into the fleshy part, hoping he’d drop the lighter.
He did.
She snatched it up and scuttled away from him as he rose to his feet. Oh God, he had a gun. Why did she not think that he’d have a gun?
He pointed the muzzle at her head and advanced toward her, his shoes slipping in the turpentine. “¡Levántate!”
Audrey remained frozen, her hand clenched around the lighter.
“I said, get up!” he snarled in English.
She held up one hand in a show of surrender and used her other one to push herself upright slowly. The turpentine had soaked through her clothes, making her skin prickle with coldness despite the adrenaline raging through her veins. She tried to keep her breathing as steady as possible, not wanting to let on just how terrified she really was.
“Give me the lighter,” he demanded, eyes gleaming with a mad kind of desperation.
She couldn’t make herself open her fingers and hand it over. It was inconsequential compared to the gun in his hands, but it was all she had. There was no way she was giving it up.
“¡Obedéceme!”
She saw his finger tighten on the trigger and stared at the gun in horror as something oily dripped from the muzzle…
Turpentine.
He was as smeared with the paint thinner as she was.
She opened her hand and stared at the silver lighter with the initials R.S.V. engraved in extravagant letters on the side. One of those fancy kinds that light when the lid flips off. She pressed her thumb against the lid and met his widened eyes.
“Don’t make me do it,” she told him in Spanish. She flicked open the lighter and watched as a tiny flame erupted from the small device.
For a second, he looked like the boy that he really was. Then he firmed up his grip on the gun and raised it again. “You won’t.”
The sight of him standing there, sneering at her, ignited a fury inside her.
She was not a victim.
If he was going to kill her, then he was damn well going with her.
Audrey threw the lighter at him, and at the same moment, he squeezed the trigger. She didn’t feel the shot. Didn’t know where it went—if it hit her or thudded harmlessly into the wall behind her. She was too focused on the terrifying fire. It almost moved in slow motion, sparking in the paint thinner at his feet—and then it roared, consuming her attacker’s body in a fireball. He staggered back, crashing into a small table and knocking over a lamp, which shattered on the floor. He fell with it, screaming, writhing in agony. The acrid stench of burning turpentine and flesh filled the air.
Flames licked up the wooden walls, jumped to her furniture, consumed her paintings, and devoured everything they touched with a wild hunger.
She choked on the fumes, her heart pounding as she backed away. The heat burned her face, drying out her eyes and stealing away every breath. The man was still shrieking on the floor, his cries growing fainter, his body writhing in the orange flames until he finally stilled and curled in on himself like a slug sprinkled with salt. It was a horrifying sight that would haunt her nightmares…
If she survived.
