Instantly the wax ignited, sending trails of flame through the tree house.
The fire zipped along seams in the wood at lightning speed.
Then it sparked at the spiky needles of the fir tree, which were poking in through one of the windows, and in the next instant the dried twigs and vines overhead caught.
“Crap,” I said in miserable awe, as suddenly we were caught in a living torch, the tree going up in flames all around us. Well, let’s just assume I said “crap.”
“Everybody out!” Dylan shouted, and the five of us jumped through the doorway, one after another, unfurling our wings and flapping until we were all hovering in the cold mountain air above the forest.
I looked at Dylan and felt utterly helpless as we both watched his beautiful creation go up in flames—the tree house he’d spent who knows how many hours to make, just for me.
A perfect gift for a perfect evening, and I’d destroyed it.
“I’m so sorry, Dylan,” I whispered miserably, my voice breaking. “It was beautiful. I didn’t mean to. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
He gave a little smile at that, the rise and fall of his wings in perfect timing with mine. “No,” he said softly. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
My heart surged and I started to smile, but just then the tree gave a terrific crack, as the fire hissed its way through the wood. And as I watched the thick plume of smoke billowing upward, I heard the echo of the Voice’s words in my head, and I couldn’t shake the icy feeling that the burning tree was some sort of horrible omen.
45
YOU’D THINK THAT would be enough excitement for one evening—the pinnacle of romance in my life, my unintended destruction of same—but no. I was awakened in the middle of the night by wailing alarms that made me bolt upright in my bed.
Don’t ask me how Iggy and the Gasman got the supplies to make the alarms, or when they rigged the entire house; I’ve been asking myself those same dang questions our whole lives together, and I still don’t know the answers. I jumped out of bed, wide-eyed and ready to rumble.
Out in the hall, Gazzy stumbled out of his bedroom. “Whuzzappenin’?” he mumbled. His blond hair was scruffy with bedhead. “We under attack?” He stifled a huge yawn.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” I replied tightly. “Head count! Iggy? Nudge? Total? And Dylan?” Note to self: Stop blushing at any mention of Dylan. Total giveaway.
“Yeah, yeah,” Iggy said irritably, making his way to us with unerring accuracy. Nudge was behind him, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. Iggy pulled a small black remote from the pocket of his sweatpants and clicked a button. The alarms instantly went silent.
Dylan arrived just then, looking like a freaking pajama model. We glanced at each other briefly before I chickened out and looked away. You know your life is sad when possibly being under attack is more appealing than facing the guy you made out with just a few hours earlier.
Thankfully, that was when Total showed up to make the little midnight powwow complete, so I had a good distraction.
“I was right in the middle of a dream about my lovely lady,” Total growled, flopping down on the floor with his head on his paws. “This better be good. Is it the whitecoats? Erasers? Flyboys? Mr. Chu monster things? Land sharks? Mini-Godzillas?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t know. Iggy, where were the alarms set up? What were they rigged for?”
“They’re around the perimeter,” Iggy said, shrugging. “Nothing small would set them off, like a squirrel. It’s something big.”
Nudge dropped down and crawled to a window, where she rose a tiny bit and peered out, squinting. “It’s too dark. I can’t see anything.”
“Okay, everyone—get ready for whatever it is,” I said grimly. “Let’s wait thirty seconds, and then we’ll hit the sky to do recon.”
“Fine,” said Iggy. “I’ll get some firearms.” He headed down the hall.
At the window, Nudge frowned and squinted harder, cupping her hands around her eyes to get a better view of the darkness outside.
I dropped and crawled over to her. “See something?”
“Yeah,” she murmured. “Seven o’clock.” She pointed carefully. “See that shadow? I think someone’s out there, walking toward the house.”
“Who is it?” Gazzy asked, also dropping down. “Is it Jeb?”
“No, it’s—” Nudge’s breath hitched in her throat. “That doesn’t make sense. Oh, my gosh. It couldn’t be.”
“What?” I asked, already mentally preparing a defense, an attack, a plan to escape. I pressed my face against the cool glass of the window, but even with my raptor vision, I couldn’t pinpoint what Nudge was seeing. “Couldn’t be what? Or who?”