Fire With Fire Read Free Page A

me.
I love Reeve.
I love him in spite of everything he did to me. I love him
even while I hate him. I don’t know how to stop.
And the worst part is that I don’t even know if I want to.
CHAP
TER ONE
    When the Monday morning sun streams through
my window, something tells me to get out of bed instead of
rolling over toward the wall like I’ve been doing for the past
week. It’s funny. I’ve known I should go back to school for
a while, but I couldn’t quite muster up the energy to make it
happen. So I stayed in bed.
    But today feels different. I’m not sure why. It’s just a feeling
I have. Like I need to be there.
I braid my hair and put on my corduroy jumper, a button-up shirt, and a cardigan sweater. Sure, I’m nervous about
seeing Reeve; I’m nervous about . . . something bad happening
again. And I don’t want to think about how much schoolwork
I’ve missed. I haven’t even tried to keep up with my assignments. My books, all my notebooks, have stayed zipped away
in my backpack, untouched, in the corner of my room. I pick
it up by one strap and hoist it over my shoulder. I can’t worry
about how I’ll catch up right now. I’ll figure something out.
But when I put my hand on my doorknob and try to turn
it, it won’t budge.
This happens a lot in our old house. Especially in the summer, when the wood swells up with the humidity. The doors
are original and the hardware is too. It’s a big glass doorknob
with a brass metal plate and room for a skeleton key. You can’t
even buy that stuff at the store anymore.
It usually takes a little jiggling to get it to work, but I try
that and it still won’t move.
“Aunt Bette?” I call out. “Aunt Bette?”
I give the door another try. This time a much harder shake.
And then I start to panic. “Aunt Bette! Help!”
Finally I hear her coming up the stairs.
“Something’s wrong with the door,” I say, breathless. “It
won’t open.” I give it another shake, to show her. And then,
when I don’t hear anything happen on the other side, I sink
down to my knees and press my face up to the keyhole, to
make sure she’s still standing out there. She is. I can see her
long, crinkly maroon skirt. “Aunt Bette! Please!”
Finally Aunt Bette springs into action. I hear her struggle
with my door on her side for a second, and then it swings open
fast.
“Thank goodness,” I say, relieved. I’m about to step into
the hallway when I spot some stuff on the floor. It looks like
white sand, or a chalk of some kind. To the left I can see it was
laid in a thin, perfect line, but directly in front of my door it’s
been totally messed up by Aunt Bette’s footprints.
What in the world?
I think about stooping over and touching it, but I’m a little
spooked.
Aunt Bette has always been into weird things, like smudgings and crystals and channeling different energies. She used
to always bring back trinkets and lucky charms whenever she
went overseas. I know that stuff is all harmless, but I point
down at the chalk and say, “What is that stuff?”
Aunt Bette looks up guiltily. “It’s nothing. I—I’ll clean it
up.”
I nod, like Okay, sure, while stepping past her. “I’ll see you
in a few hours.”
“Wait,” she says urgently. “Where are you going?”
I sigh. “To school.”
With a thin, frayed voice she says, “It’s better if you stay
home.”
All right. I haven’t had the easiest week. I know that. I’ve
done a lot of moping around the house, a lot of crying. But
it’s not like Aunt Bette’s been doing so hot either. She hasn’t
been sleeping much. I hear her in her room at night, puttering
around, sighing to herself. She hardly ever goes outside. And
she’s not painting much anymore, which might be the most
worrisome thing of all. When Aunt Bette paints, she’s happy,
simple as that. It’ll be good if I get out of her hair for the day.
Give us both a some space.
“I can’t stay in the house forever.” I have to follow my gut.
Something inside me is