Burn for Me Read online

  “How are you feeling?” he asked her.

  “Fine, thank you.” She gave him a big smile.

  I passed a plate to Rogan and sat across from him.

  Leon ran into the kitchen and stopped, his gaze fixed on Mad Rogan. Bern bumped into him, nudging him into the room. “If you’re not getting bacon, get out of the way.”

  Arabella grabbed three pieces of bacon from the plate. “Mine!”

  “Bacon hog,” Lina told her.

  “Settle down, there is more bacon.” Mom pulled another broiling pan full of bacon out of the oven. I grabbed a pancake, wrapped bacon in it, and bit. It was fluffy and delicious, and for no apparent reason it made me want to cry.

  “By the way,” Arabella said, “you might get a call from school. I forgot to mention it before.”

  Mother paused. “Why?”

  “Well, we were playing basketball and I guess I pulled on Diego’s jersey. I don’t even remember doing it. And Valerie decided it would be a good idea to snitch on me. I mean, I saw her walk over to the coach and pull on his sleeve like she was five or something. I even asked Diego if he cared, and he said he didn’t even notice. It’s a sport! I was into it.”

  “Aha,” Mother said. “Get to the call-from-school part.”

  “I told her that snitches get stitches. And Coach said that I made a terrorist threat.”

  “That’s stupid,” Lina said, pushing back her dark hair. “It’s not a threat, it’s just a thing people say.”

  “Snitches do get stitches.” Bern shrugged.

  “Your school is stupid,” Grandma Frida said.

  “So he said I had to apologize and I refused, since she snitched on me, so I got sent to the office. I’m not in trouble, but they want to move me to third-period PE now.”

  Well, it could’ve been worse. At least she didn’t hurt anybody.

  Silence claimed the table. Across from me, Mad Rogan was cutting the pancake into precise pieces and devouring it with a familiar efficiency. When my mother had come home on leave, she’d eaten like that. She was leaning against the island now, watching him.

  “You’re Mad Rogan!” Leon burst out.

  “Yes,” Mad Rogan said, his voice calm.

  “And you can break cities?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you have all this money and magic?”

  “Yes.”

  Where was Leon going with this?

  My cousin blinked. “And you look . . . like that?”

  Mad Rogan nodded. “Yes.”

  Leon’s dark eyes went wide. He looked at Mad Rogan, then glanced down at himself. At fifteen, Leon weighed barely a hundred pounds. His arms and legs were like chopsticks.

  “There is no justice in the world!” Leon announced.

  I giggled and almost choked on my pancake. Mother cracked a smile.

  “Can you play guitar too?” Leon asked. “Because if you can, I’ll go kill myself right now.”

  “No, but I can sing a little,” Mad Rogan said.

  “God damn it!” Leon punched the table.

  “Calm yourself,” Bern told him.

  “You shut up. You’re the size of a Sasquatch.” Leon pointed at Mad Rogan. “Are you seeing this? How is this fair?”

  “He’s fifteen,” I told Mad Rogan. “Fair is very important right now.”

  “You have time,” Mad Rogan said.

  “Yeah . . .” Leon shook his head. “No, not really. I can’t sing for sure, and I’ll never look like that.”

  “I’m a product of calculated selective breeding,” Mad Rogan said. “I was conceived because it would be good for my House to have an heir and because my parents’ genes ticked the right set of boxes. You were probably conceived because your parents loved each other.”

  “According to our mother,” Bern said, “he was conceived because she was too wasted to remember a rubber.”

  Mad Rogan stopped chewing.

  “I was conceived because my mother skipped bail. Her boyfriend at the time threatened to call the cops on her, so she had to do something to keep him from doing it,” Bern said helpfully.

  Awesome. Just the right kind of information to share.

  “Aunt Gisela isn’t the best mother,” I said. “There’s one in every family.”

  “What do you do?” Leon leaned forward. “You left the Army and disappeared. How come?”

  “Leon,” Mother warned.

  “Is it because of the war?” Lina asked. “People on Herald say you have PTSD and you became a hermit like a monk because of it.”

  “Either a hermit or a monk, not both,” I corrected out of habit.

  “Herald also said he was disfigured.” Arabella made big eyes.

  “Yes, I’m a hermit. Mostly I brood,” Mad Rogan said. “Also I’m very good at wallowing in self-pity. I spend my days steeped in melancholy, looking out the window. Occasionally a single tear quietly rolls down my cheek.”

  Arabella and Lina snickered in unison.

  “Do you also brush a white orchid against your lips?” Arabella put in.

  “While sad music plays in the background?” Lina grinned.

  “Perhaps,” Mad Rogan said.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” Grandma Frida asked.

  I put my hand over my face.

  “No,” Mad Rogan said.

  “A boyfriend?” Grandma Frida asked.

  “No.”

  “What about . . .”

  “No,” Mom and I said in unison.

  “But you don’t even know what I wanted to ask!”

  “No,” we said again together.

  “Party poopers.” Grandma shrugged.

  “It’s nine o’clock,” Mom said. “Go on.”

  Leon pointed at Mad Rogan. “But Mad Rogan!”

  “But you have a sixty-seven in French,” she said. “You’ll regain your staying-up privileges when you pass.”

  “But!” Leon waved his arms.

  “Don’t make me carry you,” Bern rumbled.

  “Dibs on the shower,” Arabella jumped up.

  The girls left the room and dragged Leon with them. Grandma Frida, Mom, Bern, Mad Rogan, and I remained.

  My mother leaned forward. “Nevada is going after Pierce because we have no choice as a family. I don’t know what this is about for you. I don’t know if it’s pride, or if you’re just bored. I know you kidnapped Nevada. You scared her and tortured her. If you hurt my child again, I’ll end you, Prime or not.”

  Nice, Mom. I’m sure he’s scared.

  Mad Rogan smiled without showing his teeth. The familiar cold, predatory look slid into his eyes, the dragon waking up and showing his true colors.

  “Thank you for inviting me into your lovely home and offering me this delicious meal.” His voice was calm and measured. “Because I’m your guest, I feel some small degree of obligation to you, so I’ll make it perfectly clear, Sergeant. I know who you are. I’ve seen your service record, and I consider you to be a potential threat. If you threaten me again, I’ll change your threat status to definite, and I’ll act on it.”

  He’d seen my mother’s service record. His House had run a background check. That meant his question about my father being in the military had been complete bullshit. He probably knew the whole history of my family. He’d manipulated me, and I’d played right into it. Stupid.

  “I prefer not to kill children,” Mad Rogan continued. “But I have no problems with making them orphans.”

  True. Every word. He meant it.

  Bern blinked.

  Mad Rogan drank from his grey kitten mug. “Besides, considering your daughter’s skill with a firearm, she’s likely to shoot me before you do.”

  My mother turned to me. “What happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. I was trying very hard to pretend that it hadn’t happened.

  “Nevada . . .” she began.

  “No,” I said quietly.

  A dark stain was spreading through Mad Rogan’
s Henley over his ribs. “You’re bleeding.”

  He looked down at himself and frowned.

  “Let me see.” I got up.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Rogan,” I said. “Lift up your shirt.”

  He pulled his Henley up, exposing his side. A folded paper towel covered his lower ribs, held in place by duct tape.

  “What is this?” I demanded.

  “It’s a bandage,” Bern said.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Yes, it is,” Grandma Frida said. “Sometimes you cut your finger and you wrap the paper towel around it real tight, slap some duct tape on it, and good to go.”

  “Your father used to do this,” Mom told me. “I swear, it’s like every man is born with it, or they must take some secret class on how to do it.”

  I waved my hand at them. “It’s a paper towel. With duct tape! Where did you get the duct tape?”

  Mad Rogan shrugged. “In the cabinet under the sink in your bathroom. I thought it stopped bleeding.”

  “Well, it didn’t. When did you even get this?”

  “I got hit by some debris during the blast,” he said.

  “Did you clean it?”

  “I showered,” he said.

  “Right.” I glanced at my mother. “Okay, the two of you will have to postpone trying to figure out who is the harder hardcase until I fix this.” I got up and pulled a med kit out of the kitchen cabinet.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and flicked it on. A text from an unknown number. I sighed. Of course.

  I put the phone on the table and tapped the text message. A picture of me and Mad Rogan circling the tower. In the picture, my face was pale, my mouth pressed into a hard line. I looked like I was trying not to cry, which was so strange, because at the time I wasn’t anywhere close to crying. Mad Rogan’s face was turned away from the camera, his head tilted as he looked up at the second-story windows.

  A second text popped under the first. It said, “Whos the guy?”

  Rogan focused on the phone. “Pierce.”

  I texted back, “Where are you?”

  “Outside ur house.”

  My heart hammered. Mad Rogan leaped up and took off for the door. My mother moved. I hadn’t seen her go that fast since she left the Army. Grandma Frida dashed to the motor pool, Bern ran to the Hut of Evil, while I chased Mad Rogan. I caught up with him by the door, slipped into my office, and tapped the keyboard. A grey thermal camera image filled the screen, split into four parts, each section of the screen showing the view from a different side of the house: the parking lot and street in front of the motor pool at the back of the warehouse, the trees to the right, the street to the left, and the front door, with Mad Rogan’s Range Rover parked next to my car.

  I held my breath. Nothing.

  Mad Rogan leaned over me. His chest brushed against my right shoulder.

  On the screen the night spread outside the house, a charcoal painting came to life. Nothing moved. No cars passed the house. If my mother put a bullet through Adam Pierce’s heart, we could kiss the agency good-bye. If he came to burn us to death . . . he shouldn’t be able to burn us to death. Hellspawn was a higher-order spell. It would’ve tapped him out the way Mad Rogan was now tapped out. At least I hoped it had.

  The intercom on the phone flashed white. I pushed it.

  “Three people in the building across the street,” Bern said quietly. The image on the monitor zeroed in on three white human silhouettes on the roof of the warehouse to the north. One of them lay in the familiar sniper pose.

  “Those are mine,” Mad Rogan said quietly.

  We waited. Trees rustled gently in the night breeze, barely visible on the screen.

  My phone buzzed. Another text.

  “Ma’am, this is the police. The call is coming from INSIDE YOUR HOUSE.”

  Asshole!

  “Did I freak you out?”

  Gaaaah!

  I pushed the intercom. “Just got another text. I think he’s screwing with us.”

  “Sit tight,” Mom said.

  I typed “Asshole” on my phone.

  “Heh. Tell your new friend I said hi.”

  On the screen the Range Rover exploded. Thunder punched the door and wall with a huge, invisible fist. The warehouse shook.

  The intercom lit up. “Do you have the kids?” Mother asked.

  “Yes,” Bern said. “They’re with me.”

  Flames billowed out of the Range Rover’s metal carcass, bright white. Going out there was out of the question. We’d all make lovely targets silhouetted against that fire.

  We sat, and waited, and watched the Range Rover burn until the fire department barreled down our street in a blaze of glory, lights, and sirens.

  “Take your shirt off.” Now there’s something I never thought I’d say to the Scourge of Mexico.

  Mad Rogan pulled his shirt off, and I tried my best not to stare. Muscles rolled under his tan skin. He wasn’t darker than me, but I tanned to a reddish gold, while his skin had a deeper, brown undertone to it. He was perfectly proportioned. His broad shoulders flowed into a muscular, defined chest that slimmed down to the flat planes of his hard stomach. Handsome or athletic didn’t do him justice. Dancers or gymnasts were athletic. He had the kind of body that should’ve belonged to a man from a different time, someone who swung a sword with merciless ferocity to protect his land and ran across the field at a wall of enemy warriors. There was a brutal kind of efficiency about the way muscle corded his frame.

  I hadn’t even realized how large he was. Because all those suits streamlined him and his proportions were so well balanced, he looked almost normal-sized. But now, as he sat in my kitchen chair, dwarfing it, there was no way to ignore it. The sheer physical power of him was overwhelming. If he grabbed hold of me, he could crush me. But I didn’t care. I could look at him all night. I wouldn’t go to sleep. I wouldn’t need to rest. I could just sit there and stare at him. And if I looked long enough, I’d throw caution to the wind, reach out, and slide my hand over that powerful muscle. I would feel the strength in his shoulders. I would kiss . . .

  And that was about enough of that.

  Underneath all of that masculine, harsh beauty was cold, the kind of cold that could stab a helpless man with a knife, feel the tip of it scrape the bone, and do it again and again and not be bothered by it. That cold scared me. Mad Rogan, unlike other people, rarely lied. I didn’t know if it was because he knew I would call him on it or if it was simply his way. When he said he would kill you, he meant it. He didn’t make threats or promises, he stated facts, and when he wanted something, he’d do whatever he had to do to get it.

  I opened the med kit and pulled out gauze and medical tape.

  The fire department was gone, having drowned the sad remains of the Range Rover in fire-retardant foam. It was almost surreal how quickly their questions had stopped after Rogan had given them his name. My mother insisted on staying in the crow’s nest she and my Grandmother had installed while I’d gone to talk to Bug. The kids had gone to bed. Grandma Frida had too. One of Mad Rogan’s men had come to personally take responsibility for failing to prevent the explosion. When Arabella was about two or three, she didn’t like to be in trouble. She didn’t want anyone to be mad at her, and the suspense of waiting until the exact nature of the punishment was decided always proved too much for her, so when she would do something bad, she would announce, “I’m going to punish myself!” and march off to her room to be grounded. I saw that precise look on the man’s face as he stared at Mad Rogan in quiet desperation. He would totally punish himself if he could.

  He was gone now, and the warehouse had fallen quiet.

  I crouched to take a better look at Mad Rogan’s so-called bandage. “I’m going to pull it off now.”

  “I’ll try not to cry.”

  I rolled my eyes, sighed, and yanked the duct tape off. He winced. A shallow gash cut across his ribs on the right side, more of a scrape than a
deep cut, but it was three inches long, and it had bled. At least it wasn’t a gaping wound, so we could get away without stitches. I got the saline solution and clean rags.

  “Sorry about your car.” I squirted the saline solution into the gash and blotted it.

  “We agreed on full disclosure,” he said. “When were you going to tell me that Pierce is obsessed with you?”

  “He isn’t obsessed with me.”

  “He called you to let you know he was starting his fireworks today. He claims he’s in lust. Then he texted you to make sure you saw him blow up my car. That’s twice he notified you before he did anything he views as impressive.”

  I smeared antibiotic ointment on the cut and placed a gauze pad over it. “Adam is a flake. He’s impulsive and he likes people to reassure him he is cool and awesome. I’m a young woman, I’m attractive, and I indicated that I wasn’t impressed by his shenanigans.” I began to tape the cut. “He discussed bringing me home with him to meet his mother just so he could see the look on her face. He got a giggle out of it. It’s not obsession, it’s . . . passing fancy, or whatever people call it.”

  “These are things I need to know,” he said. “I can use this. If I’d known this, I would’ve handled today differently.”

  “Funny how it’s always ‘I’ with you. It’s never ‘we.’” I taped the other side of the gash.

  “What did you do that would make him infatuated? Did you kiss? Did you hold hands?”

  His voice had taken on a distant tone, but there was a slight edge of heat to it.

  “I gave him a peck on the cheek. It wasn’t sexual. He was trying to get me to run away with him, and I didn’t want to rebuff him so hard that he’d slam the door shut. I still have to bring him in.”

  “Then why is he infatuated?”

  “I don’t know why,” I said, exasperated. “Probably because I’m chasing him and I said no. He can’t comprehend that I’m chasing him because MII will throw my family out on the street. His House has been on top forever and he can’t even picture someone doing that to them, let alone try to understand what it would be like. He probably thinks that I’m pursuing him because I’m secretly fascinated with the glittering jewel that he is.”

  Oops. Said a little too much. I didn’t really want Rogan to know that Montgomery held us by our throat. There was no telling what he would do with that information. I straightened. “Look, right now there are two people in this kitchen. One is an overindulged, filthy-rich Prime, and the other is me. You have more in common with Adam than I do. Why don’t you tell me why he’s doing things?”