“But the thing is,” Emma said. She fell silent. Then pressed on. “The thing is, I never once thought about how I would get away with it. I never thought about hiding it.”
“Maybe that means you didn’t really want to do it,” Nathan said. “You were just angry.”
She made a noise that was almost agreement, but she didn’t think that was quite right. It wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted to kill her parents. It was that she knew if she did, there would be no point trying to save herself.
That was why she had hated shooting so much, every time her father made her go out. Because every time she pulled the trigger, she felt like she wasn’t just destroying something else. She was destroying herself, too.
She remembered the kick of the gun. Yelping. Her father’s laugh. “That’s just the recoil. It’s not gonna kill you.”
She’d known that if she killed them, there was no point trying to get away with it. There was no getting away. Not then.
And not now.
Something thumped downstairs. Emma jolted upright.
“What was…？” Nathan began, and then Emma’s nose, so sensitive since her little houseguest moved in, caught an alarming scent.
“Smoke,” she said, leaping from the bed. She bolted out of the door and down the stairs, the sweat cool on her bare skin. She saw at once the warm, wavering light splashed against the foyer wall—the fire was in the dining room. The dining room, where the wall was covered in paint thinner.
She darted left instead of right, toward the library. The armchair there had been covered in a heavy drop cloth instead of plastic, and it was still folded near the wall. She’d grabbed it and was running back by the time Nathan came down the stairs—he’d taken the time to pull on his briefs.
“What—” he started, but she just grunted.
The fire was contained to the floor in front of the window—the window she’d left open. There was something in the middle of it, a lump, she couldn’t tell what. The rug had caught at the edges, the fire creeping toward the curtains, toward the far wall, and the air was still thick with fumes. She threw the drop cloth over the fire.
It was out in a moment. Suffocated beneath the thick fabric, the smell of smoke joining the rank burn of chemicals.
Movement outside caught Emma’s eye, and she whipped her head toward the window in time to see a figure leaping over the wall at the front of the property. She stepped toward the window to get a better look, but Nathan caught her arm.
“You’re not wearing any clothes,” he said, and she gave him a disbelieving look. She yanked her arm away, stalked to the window. The figure was gone. Had there just been one of them?
Nathan pulled up the side of the canvas, made a face. “I think that’s flaming dog shit. I didn’t think people actually did that,” he said.
The fading adrenaline sent a shiver through her, and suddenly Emma was very aware that she was standing in front of the window completely naked. She wrapped her arms around her middle, fighting off a feeling of vulnerability. Exposure.
Idiot kids, she thought. That’s all it was.
“I’m going to put some clothes on,” she said, voice shaky with anger and fear, and marched out of the room.
They couldn’t stay here. This had been a mistake. They couldn’t have a baby here. But they couldn’t leave now. Not until—unless—Nathan found a new job. Or she did, something steady, but who was going to hire a woman who would be leaving in a few months for maternity leave? Maybe she could hide the pregnancy. And then what? She wouldn’t have been anywhere long enough to get paid leave, so they’d be back to where they started.
She pulled on a T-shirt and shorts and raked her hair into something she hoped made her look less manic. She wanted to collapse into bed, but she wasn’t going to leave that vile mess on the floor.
Halfway back down the stairs, she heard Nathan’s voice.
“—Thank you. No, we’re not going anywhere. Okay.” She stepped around the doorway to see him hanging up the phone.
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
“Calling the police,” Nathan said. He rubbed the side of his neck. “They said they’d send someone out soon.”
“Are you kidding me?” Emma asked. She wanted to strangle him. “Why would you do that?”
“Because someone tried to burn our house down?” Nathan asked impatiently.
She groaned, covering her face with her hands.
“We need to make a report,” he insisted. “I’ll talk to them. You don’t have to say anything. I’m going to go get some pants on, okay?”