Nothing Left to Burn (24 page)

“Okay! Fine.” She shot me a glare. “He’s my foster brother.” She admitted that with so much discomfort, I dropped my guard. We stared down the quiet street for a long moment. Nice houses, green lawns. The acrid smell of smoke still filled the air.

I nodded and looked away. “I wish you’d trust me.”

She dropped her head and groaned. “Let it go, Reece. I’m not a good bet.”

“I’m not either. But you still helped me.” I shifted so I could face her directly.

“It was the look in your eyes, I guess. Same look that’s in mine.”

“What look?”

“I don’t know. You remind me of something from when I was little. Planting daisies.” She huffed out a laugh and shook her head. “We’re the same. Only difference is you can get back some of what you lost. I wanted to help.” Another shrug and half a laugh. “It is what it is.”

There was something in her voice—a crack, a waver—that forced me to take a closer look at her. I figured I’d see fear or panic in her eyes, but I didn’t. All I saw was…defeat.

“So you weren’t playing me?”

Her eyes shot to mine, and she made a choking sound. “Playing you? You think I’ve been, what? Covering up a string of arsons on the off chance you’d wander into the LVFD one day?”

“Okay.” I waved my hand impatiently. “Not me. Us. Did you join squad so you could cover up these crimes? Jesus, Amanda.” I grabbed her shoulders. “What if this kid kills somebody next time? We have to
know
.”

“No! No, you don’t understand.” She jerked free. “It doesn’t matter if he did this or not. They’ll kick him out, send him back into the system. Foster kids like us, we’re throwaways, and this house”—she pointed in the direction of the Beckett house—“is the best one he’s had, that either of us have had. I can’t mess this up. It’s good here. Nobody steals our stuff, nobody hurts us—”

My blood froze when those words penetrated. “
Hurts
you?”

The defeat in Amanda’s eyes turned flat and hard. “Yeah, Reece. Hurts.”

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t wrap my mind around that. Before I could figure out my next move, Amanda flung her arms up in the air and paced away. “Stop looking at me like that! I’m still who I am.”

I raised my hands. “I know. I know. I…I kind of just want to kill whoever hurt you.”

Amanda snorted. That snort became a laugh, and then she was laughing so hard, she sat down on the curb, an arm wrapped around her middle. “You get points for that,” she said when she could breathe again. “Nobody’s ever offered to commit murder for me.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a giver like that.”

She laughed again, then quickly grew serious. “Reece, show me the video again. Are you sure about this?”

I tugged my phone out of my pocket and handed it to her.

“What’s this?” Amanda asked, scooping up the folded-up square of paper that fell from my pocket.

My skin iced over, and my stomach knotted. I lunged for it, snatched the paper out of her hand, and shoved it deep back into my pocket before she could read a word.

“Okay. Jeez, Reece. If you don’t want to tell me, just say so.” She held up her hands.

Shame started a slow spread inside me, and I looked away. I was the biggest kind of hypocrite—ah, hell. I drew the paper back out of my pocket and handed it to her.

Cautiously, she unfolded it. I sat on the curb next to her and waited while she read the lines I’d scrawled so far.

“It’s a letter to my dad.” My heart thudded behind my ribs.

Her eyes shot up to mine. “It’s…angry. And so final. Like you’re saying good-bye.”

I
am.

“Yeah,” I admitted, avoiding her gaze. “I’m…not gonna stick around.”

“So you lied to us when you told us J squad mattered to you.” Her eyes filled, and she quickly lowered them.

I had no answer for that. What really sucked was that it wasn’t true, not now. Now, J squad
did
matter. And she’d never believe that.

“Where would you go?”she asked a long moment later.

“Military,” I lied.

“We’ve got some time then.” She sighed, relieved. “Can’t enlist until you’re legal. Which branch?”

“I don’t know yet. Maybe Marines.” It didn’t matter.

“First in,” she murmured. “Doesn’t that scare you?”

I shrugged. I wasn’t sure anything could scare me now. The worst had already happened.

“When are you giving this to your dad?”

“When it’s done. I have a lot left to say, but I don’t know—” I didn’t bother to finish the statement. None of this mattered anymore. Not the note, not even my promise to Matt. All that mattered was J squad. I shoved the paper back in my pocket while Amanda tapped the video play button on my phone.

“So what does that line mean—‘I’ll be at his altar’?” she asked while we watched the guy in his underwear clear the space in front of the hydrant again.

“Oh, um.”
Fuck.
The knot in my gut jerked, tightened, and half my body went numb. “It’s just something Matt used to say.”

She frowned and finally nodded. I let out a slow breath, and the video finished playing.

“Amanda, nobody knows about this note. Nobody but you.”

A bright-red bird stopped to rest on the porch rail of the house across the street. Amanda watched him for a moment. I just watched her. I still couldn’t figure out what color her eyes were. Not blue, not green, not brown. I didn’t know why I was so hung up on what the hell color her eyes were, because all I saw in them at that moment was pain, and suddenly, I knew exactly what I had to do, had to say.

I cleared my throat. “Um, Amanda, I know what you said about being a foster kid and the no-boys thing. But you need to know you can trust me. With anything.”

Slowly, she shook her head. “I can’t. I don’t know how.” But she leaned in to me, put her head on my shoulder, and handed me back my phone. “Can you please not show anybody this? Don’t report it, not until I’m sure.”

“Of what?”

She watched the red bird spread his wings and take off. “Sure of Larry. If there’s the tiniest chance he’s not involved, I have to know. I can’t get him in trouble just because you have video of him playing with his phone.”

“Amanda, this is
arson
. We have to—”

She jumped away from me. “Oh, come on, Logan! A minute ago, you wanted to kill somebody for me. You said you’d do anything to make me happy. Were those just words, or did you really mean any of that?”

I blew out a long breath. I was here, wasn’t I? I’d sat in the fire marshal’s office for ten minutes wrestling with this after my dad said he was proud of me. But here I was. “I really meant it. So what do you want to do?”

“I need more. I want to follow him around, see where he goes, who he goes with, and what he does.”

I clenched my teeth together. That wasn’t our job or our responsibility. That was for the arson investigators to do. All we had to do was show them the video of Larry. That was it. Why was this so difficult for her? He was just some kid who happened to be staying in the same foster house as she was, and now she wanted to put herself in danger for him. I didn’t get it. And I sure as hell didn’t like it.

“Amanda, if anything happens to you, I’ll—”

She jerked like I’d just shot her. She took my hand and squeezed it for a second. “Don’t do that.”

“What, care about you, about what happens to you?”

“Yes! I told you—”

“No boys. I know. But I can’t change how I feel. I won’t.”

She shut her eyes tightly, shaking her head. “This is impossible, Reece. We can’t.”

A car turned up the street, and she almost jumped behind a shrub. I shoved my hands in my pockets, tracking the car until it disappeared around a curve. The note singed my fingertips, forcing me to remember my plan.

And show me exactly how to make her trust me.

“Oh fuck it.”

When Amanda’s eyebrows shot up, I raked both hands through my hair. “This note…the truth is I’ve been writing it for weeks. It started out as a promise I made to Matt. Amanda, he
knew
he was dying, and he knew my dad was going to flip the fuck out. He made me promise not to…give up, you know? So I made this plan. I was going to leave—just disappear the day I got my dad to finally show me a little love. The military was a lie. It doesn’t matter where I go. I just had to be away from here.”

She took a step toward me, her eyes a storm of emotion. Encouraged, I kept going.

“I never expected it to work, Amanda. I figured I’d just give it a shot, do whatever it took so I could tell myself I kept my promise to my brother and then just get the hell out. But when I joined J squad and all of you decided to help me, things changed. My whole plan changed, because for the first time in my entire fucking life, I had a shot! I had a chance to really make my dad proud. It became this legend, you know? The day John Logan compliments his son!” I waved a hand over an imaginary theater marquee.

“For weeks, that day was nothing more than a daydream. Some nebulous gray point in the future. And it just hit me. Amanda, today’s
that
day
.” I grabbed her arms and made her look directly at me. “He told me not even an hour ago that he was proud of me. Which means I did it.” I smiled broadly. “Holy shit, Amanda. I did it. I can go now.” I flung my arms up in the air. “Right now. Leave, fade away like I planned. There’s nothing holding me to this life anymore.”

Yes, there was.

“Except one thing.” I crumpled up the note and pressed it into her hands. “Take it.”

She looked at the paper with wide eyes. “Why?”

“I don’t need it. I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here until the no-boys rule is null and void.”

Amanda’s eyes filled, and a sad smile lifted her lips for a second, but then she shook her head. “Reece, it’ll be years before that happens.”

“I don’t care. I’m in this, Amanda. I’m all in.”

Her lips curled a little. “You told me that the other day. After the alarm.”

“I meant it then, and I mean it even more now.” I took a deep breath and blurted out the words she needed to hear. “I love you, Amanda.” She only stared at me, dumbstruck. “Did you hear me? I said I’m in love with you. So whatever’s up with Larry, I’ll back off and let you do what you need to until you ask me for help.”

Chapter 24

Amanda

I made it back to the Becketts’ house in a fog.

I
love
you
, he’d said. Someone loved me. The concept was freakin’ impossible to understand. No one loved me, including my mother.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t say the words back.

No.

No, I didn’t say the words back because I was a friggin’ coward.

I opened the front door and found Larry watching TV in the family room. I took the opportunity to sneak upstairs into his room. His closet looked like the after shot for a one-day-only sale. The rod held only three hangers—a winter jacket in a hideous shade of green, a suit with worn elbows to go to court in, and a fleece hoodie in boring gray. I took the fleece from the closet and buried my nose in it, but all I smelled was fabric softener.

I tried the garage-sale dresser next. Larry had a few pairs of underwear—white briefs, shoved in the drawer, a few pairs of socks, and a—oh God—a condom. I closed the drawer with a grimace. I moved to the desk next. Its single center drawer held some crumpled-up notes that he’d used for math homework, I guessed. Handheld pencil sharpener, ruler, erasers, some expired book order forms.

I blew hair out of my eyes and scanned the room. His bed was perfectly made—Mrs. Beckett insisted on it. I sat on it, gave it a little bounce, shoved my hand between the mattress and box spring to see if he had a secret stash of anything, but came up empty. I stood up and sighed in frustration. This was ridiculous—a total waste of—

My foot sent something skittering across the floor. I bent down and examined it, but it was just a piece of mulch, probably something Larry tracked in. I tossed it in the waste basket next to his desk and left his room.

Back downstairs, I decided to confront him directly. “What the hell is up with you?” I demanded, whispering.

He blinked at me. “Nothing.”

“You need to tell me what happened at that fire. I know you were there. Jesus, Larry, they have you on video.”

The remote fell to the floor. “Go away.”

“Larry—”

The Becketts’ car pulled into the driveway.

“Go away or I’ll tell them you broke a rule.”

I gasped. He wouldn’t. That would end things for both of us, and he damn well knew it. “You won’t.” I took a step closer.

Car doors slammed. Feet climbed the porch steps.

“I’m trying to help you, you moron,” I hissed.

He shook his head. “Don’t need help. Go. Away.”

Things got real tense while we stared each other down. I didn’t know what happened. The day before, he was terrified about something, and now, it’s no big deal? Suddenly, he let out a shout, so I ran across the room and flung myself into a chair.

“Larry? You okay?” Mr. Beckett paused in the doorway.

“Oh yeah. Fine. Saw a spider.”

“Well, come help unload the groceries.”

“Yes, sir.”

Damn it. What the hell was he up to? God, please let Reece be wrong.

Let him be wrong.

***

The next day, Larry avoided me on the bus. He spent the whole ride talking to a classmate. I cursed silently, wondering, obsessing,
praying
he wasn’t in this arson stuff up to his armpits.

What
if?

The question kept hissing around my brain, etching its way into my gray matter like acid. If he’d set this fire, if he was the arsonist who had been terrorizing our area all year, could I do anything to help him?

I swallowed hard. The answer was obvious.

I watched him head for his locker, debated about cutting class to follow him, but chucked that idea the second it formed. Mr. Beckett would be informed before I got off the property.

I saw Max flirting with one of the cheerleaders and decided it was time to ask for help. “Hey.”