‘What’re you doing?’ he hisses.
I spot what I’m looking for and snatch it up.
Jack’s eyes fall on the bottle of paraffin in my hand. I open it. He’s quick, rushing around the island to get to me. I squeeze the bottle, splashing his bare chest with paraffin. He backs up, yanking a towel from the handle of a kitchen drawer and angrily drying his chest.
‘What about option three?’ I spit, dousing the cupboard, the curtains, the island. I sweep cookbooks onto the floor and soak them too. ‘Neither of us make it out alive. We burn. Wisteria is already burning; can’t you smell it?’ I wet the floor, the towel on the side. ‘So let’s add some fuel to the fire. You wanted a love that burns. That consumes. Something exciting, unpredictable. Maybe even a little dangerous. Well, here it fucking is.’
I toss the now-empty bottle into the sink and pull open a drawer. And another. They’re mostly empty since Jack hid all the cutlery and knives, so it takes only a second to locate the polished silver flip lighter. Windproof, the one we used for the BBQ every summer.
His eyes widen. For the first time, he is scared. ‘You wouldn’t.’
‘You want to know how far I’ll go, Jack?’ I flip open the lighter. The flame springs to life. ‘All the way to the fucking end.’
‘Don’t you—’ He darts for me again, sliding in the paraffin.
I swing around the island, out of reach. He talked about me being unhinged, deranged; I didn’t know the girl in his defence story. I do now. She is wild and reckless, driven mad by grief. She is ready for this to be over.
Jack’s expression pendulum-swings from rage to terror. Fuck you, I think, now you know how it feels. For the first time in our entire relationship, in these thorny, dark months, I have the power and I am drunk on it. It will cost me my life. But the thrill, the glory, it’s worth the price.
‘Don’t,’ he growls.
I smile back. Hold out the lighter. Gather all the memories of my family, my greatest hits, and wrap them around me like a silk blanket. They’ll burn with me.
Jack lunges across the island.
The lighter slips from my fingers. He seizes the front of my dress and jerks me to him. The paraffin-soaked cookbooks go up in flames. A line of fire zips across the floor and sets the cupboards ablaze, the ceiling.
Jack is sprawled out across the marble counter. I try to pull away but his hand closes around my throat and I can’t move. Can’t breathe. He is screaming at me. I see flames in his eyes, feel them at my back. Hot. Too hot to bear. Jack squeezes hard.
Desperate, I swing the knife.
I blink. And blink again.
I expected Jack’s body to put up a fight, for him to be made up of more than just skin and tissue. Yet the blade plunged into his neck with ease, buried to the hilt. He lets go of my throat and his hand closes around mine. Around the handle of the knife. We are suspended here. He is stunned, as disbelieving as me that this is happening.
That I did it.
His hand falls.
I let go of the knife.
He slides off the counter and staggers back, collapsing onto the hardwood floor. Out of view.
I breathe in fire and smoke.
I cannot believe …
I cannot believe what I have done.
I stumble around the island.
He is on his back, staring up at the ceiling. His gaze drifts to mine. I crash to my knees beside him. His mouth opens; he gurgles. Blood bubbles at the back of his throat and bursts on his lips.
The man who manipulated and abused and murdered slips away and is replaced by the little boy who came to me over and over, needing to be loved, who kissed me on the windowsill of his old room, who drew sketches of all the places we’d live when we grew up.
‘Jack,’ I gulp. ‘Jack.’
He lifts a hand to my hair. A featherlight touch. I lace my fingers through his. Jack’s skin is warm and familiar. His mouth opens but his words are lost.
‘Don’t leave me,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m—’
His eyes roll back.
And then he is gone.
He is gone.
And I will never know if he heard me.
I sit with my grief and my love and my hate for only a second before carefully, reluctantly, lowering his hand to his chest.
Then I am coughing, choking on the smoke which fills the kitchen. I need to get out. Escape. I push to my feet and stagger down the hall. Dark grey clouds of smoke roll down the stairs and cling to the foyer ceiling. I look to the locked front door.
Oh god, oh god, oh god. I run to Ada and riffle through her pockets until I find the key she used to get in, then I race back to the door. My hands are slick with blood and fuel; it takes two tries before I manage to unlock it and throw it open.