Fire on the Water

Lily's POV

For one second, I couldn't move.

The smell was everywhere now, filling my nose and the back of my throat. I knew enough from the diner kitchen to know what happened when gas found a flame. One spark, and the whole house would go up with me inside it.

I ran into the kitchen and pulled my sweater up over my mouth. My eyes were burning. I grabbed the knobs on the stove and turned them off one by one, four, five, six, until the hissing stopped. But the room was already full, and the gas was moving toward the living room, toward the fire, with nothing to stop it.

Water. I needed water.

There was a big glass vase on the kitchen table, full of the same white flowers Margaret loved. I threw the flowers on the floor, grabbed the vase with both hands, and ran back to the living room. The fire was snapping and jumping in the stone fireplace. I threw the water as hard as I could.

The flames hissed and shrank, but they didn't die. Half the logs were still glowing red.

My head was starting to spin. I could feel my heart pounding too fast, and my legs felt like they belonged to somebody else. I knew I didn't have much time before the gas made me fall asleep, and I would never wake up again.

I looked around the room. The windows were sealed, but they were still glass.

I grabbed a heavy wooden chair from beside the fireplace. It was so heavy I almost dropped it. I didn't use the window near the fire. I dragged the chair back into the kitchen, as far from the flames as I could get, and I swung it at the big window over the sink with everything I had left.

The glass cracked but didn't break.

I swung again. This time it shattered. Cold night air rushed into my face, and I breathed it in like water.

I climbed onto the counter. Broken glass cut into my hands and my knees, but I didn't care. I pushed myself through the window and fell hard onto the wet grass outside. Then I got up and ran. I didn't look back. I ran down toward the lake, as far from that house as my legs would take me.

I was halfway to the water when I heard a car.

Headlights came racing down the dirt road, so fast that gravel flew up behind the tires. The car stopped hard in front of the house, and the door flew open before it had even stopped moving.

"Lily!"

It was Ethan.

He came out of the car without his cane, without his cap, without anything. Marcus jumped out of the driver's side behind him. Duke leaped out of the back seat, barking so loud it echoed across the lake.

"Lily!" Ethan shouted again, and he started running toward the front door.

"Ethan, no!" I screamed. "Gas! The house is full of gas! Get away from it!"

He turned and saw me. For one second, he just stood there, staring at me across the dark grass. Then he ran toward me instead.

Behind him, inside the house, the fire found the gas.

The sound was so loud that I felt it in my chest. The windows of the living room blew out in a cloud of orange light, and a wave of heat hit us both. Ethan reached me and threw me down onto the grass, and he covered me with his whole body while glass and wood rained down around us.

Then it was quiet, except for the roar of the fire.

Ethan lifted his head. His face was black with smoke, and there was a cut above his eye. He looked down at me like he didn't believe I was real.

"Are you hurt?" he asked. His voice was rough. "Lily, answer me. Are you hurt?"

"My hands," I said. "Just my hands. I'm okay."

He took both my bleeding hands in his and held them against his chest. He was shaking. I had never seen Ethan Blackwood shake before.

"You lied to me," he said.

"I know."

"You looked me in the eye and told me everything was fine, and then you left me a note on the back of a receipt." His voice broke. "Do you know what I thought when Duke woke me up and you were gone? I thought I was going to find you dead."

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "She said she knew who my mother was. I just wanted to know."

"Then you ask me," Ethan said. "You wake me up, and you tell me, and I take you there myself. You don't walk into a trap alone. Not ever again. Promise me."

"I promise."

He pressed his forehead against mine, and we stayed like that in the wet grass while the house burned behind us. I could feel his heart beating fast against my hands.

"How did you find me?" I asked.

"Marcus put your phone on the family tracking system the day you moved in," Ethan said. "I told him it was for your safety. I never thought I would need it."

Duke pushed his nose between us and licked my face. I laughed, and it came out half a sob.

"Sir." Marcus was walking toward us from the road. He had his phone to his ear, calling for help, and in his other hand he was holding something small. "I found this in the gravel, where the tire tracks are. Someone must have dropped it getting into a car."

He held it out to me. It was the tiny yellow hospital bracelet.

St. Mary's Hospital. Baby girl Sinclair. March twelfth.

I took it with my cut fingers and held it tight. Margaret had been in such a hurry to leave me to die that she had dropped the one thing she had used to bring me here.

"What did she tell you?" Ethan asked quietly.

"That this bracelet was on a baby who wasn't hers," I said. "That she knew my real mother better than anyone. And that if I didn't sign divorce papers and leave you, I would never know who I am."

Ethan was quiet for a long time. Far away, I could hear sirens coming down the road.

Then he looked at the burning house, and something in his face changed. The tired, weak man he had been pretending to be for weeks was gone.

"I'm done playing sick," he said. "Tomorrow morning, there's a board meeting at Blackwood Holdings. My uncle is going to stand up in front of everyone and ask them to give him my company."

He stood up and pulled me to my feet.

"He's going to be very surprised when I walk through the door."