THE ART OF BURNING

XVIII: POPCORN BURNED IN THE FIRES OF HELL

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RACHEL

            RACHEL IS CERTAIN THAT aliens are a bunch of fake-ass whores. She's spent the entire past three freaking hours wandering by herself in a dark, scary cornfield, and not once did she get abducted or even see a lousy crop circle. Not once!

            She huffs, watching her warm breath turn the dark air smoky. Every stalk of corn in this endless field has looked the same, the goddamn same. She isn't any closer to reaching the exit, at least as far as she can tell. For all she knows, she might have been wandering around in circles. But she does know that if she keeps wandering, if she keeps moving, if she keeps hoping, she'll make it out of here. Eventually. What she'll do from there, she has no idea.

            All she knows is that she's the last person left. Maybe in the entire world.

            Cain, Atlas, and Meredith were carried off in the backs of burning blue-and-red cop cars. The rest—her dad and Avani and Silas and Bianca and Callie and Maya—she's assumed dead. (It's best to assume the worst.) She knows Vic and her dogs are dead. She feels nothing about it, not even the slightest hint of grief. She hardly knew them, and she has bigger problems. She's gotta look out for her on and only.

            She digs her palms into her eyes, trying to keep the tears from flowing. Her throat feels like it's closing itself up. Her feet feel like she's walking barefoot on crushed rocks. Her calves burn. Her throat is full of broken glass, her lungs of sand. Her flashlight died an hour ago. She can't see a foot in front of her face. At this point, she's so exhausted she can hardly breathe. She has to order herself to keep walking, to keep moving, to keep hoping. With each drag of her foot, she's a step closer to the end of this field, a step closer from where she started. Maybe.

            All she wants is to go home.

            She'd been so close to it. Cain, her dad, Bianca . . . she'd been so close to going home. And now she probably never will. Home, for her, will always lay just out of reach. Close enough to see, to touch, to smell, but never close enough to have.

            Defeated, she plops down in the dirt, hugging her knees to her chest. She's just going to sit here a minute, that's all. She's just going to sit here and close her eyes and sleep for a minute. That's all. Just for a minute . . .

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            WHEN RACHEL WAKES, everything's on fire.

            She lays there for a moment, screwing her eyes up at the sudden brightness, wondering if she's dreaming. Wondering if fire follows her everywhere.