Chapter 6
The third night was thick with heat and humidity.
There was no wind.
The courtyard outside lay silent and dead.
I sat by my bedroom window in complete darkness, fully dressed, with a fire extinguisher beside my knee and my phone open to the live feed from the hidden cameras.
My heartbeat pounded so hard it felt like it might crack my ribs.
Every shadow looked like a threat.
Every creak of the building sounded like footsteps.
At 2:14 a.m., my phone screen flickered.
Motion detected. Camera 3.
My breath caught.
A figure emerged from the Lane apartment.
She wore a dark raincoat with the hood pulled low, and in her hands she carried a large red five-gallon gas can.
Victoria Lane.
She moved with terrifying silence, jerky and unnatural, her eyes darting around the empty courtyard.
She stopped below my parents’ bedroom window and began pouring gasoline along the side of the house.
The smell hit me even through the cracks in my window frame.
Sharp.
Acrid.
Nightmarish.
The scent of my death.
My hands started shaking.
Ghost pain flashed across my skin, memory and terror colliding so violently my teeth chattered.
Breathe, Lily.
Breathe.
I picked up my phone and dialed 911.
“She’s here,” I whispered. “She’s pouring gasoline. Courtyard B, Building Four.”
The dispatcher answered immediately.
“Units are already on scene and moving in now. Stay inside. Do not confront her.”
On the camera feed, Mrs. Lane finished emptying the can and tossed it into the bushes.
Then she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a long barbecue lighter.
A tiny blue-orange flame appeared.
It lit up her face.
Twisted.
Grinning.
She lowered it toward the gasoline.
And then the courtyard exploded with red and blue lights.
“Drop the lighter! Police! Hands in the air!”
Three officers rushed from the shadows with weapons drawn.
Detective Harrison was leading them.
Mrs. Lane froze.
The lighter slipped from her fingers and fell into the wet grass inches from the fuel.
The flame sputtered out.
Then she looked up.
Straight at my window.
I parted the blinds just enough for her to see my face.
This time I wasn’t afraid.
This time I was ready.
This time I looked victorious.
She let out a scream so raw and hateful it sounded inhuman, then turned and ran.
The officers tackled her almost immediately.
She fought like an animal—biting, clawing, spitting, shrieking.
“You ruined him! You took his future! I’ll kill you! I’ll burn you all to ash!”
The words echoed through the courtyard as they pinned her down and locked handcuffs around her wrists.
My parents burst into my room.
“Lily, what’s happening?” my father shouted.
Then he smelled the gasoline.
He rushed to the window with my mother.
Outside, they saw Mrs. Lane being dragged toward a squad car while firefighters hosed down the soaked ground beneath our apartment walls.
My mother collapsed to her knees, sobbing in shock.
My father just stared, face drained of all color.
Realizing how close we had come to dying in our sleep, I knelt beside them and wrapped my arms around both of them.
“We’re safe,” I whispered.
And for the first time in two lives, it was true.
The trial was brief, but heavily publicized.
Attempted arson.
Attempted murder.
Severe reckless endangerment.
The prosecution used everything: my hidden camera footage, testimony from the neighbors, her threats, the evidence I had brought to the police, and the unhinged confessions she screamed during her arrest.
Her attorney tried to argue insanity caused by extreme stress over her son’s academic failures.
But the planning destroyed that defense.
She had bought the gasoline.
She had waited until two in the morning.
She had come prepared to kill us.
The judge sentenced Victoria Lane to twenty-five years in a maximum-security psychiatric prison facility.
Ethan attended the sentencing.
He sat in the back row like a hollow shell.
When the verdict was read, Mrs. Lane screamed for her son to save her.
He lowered his head into his hands and wept.
After court adjourned, I stepped outside into bright summer sunlight.
Derek was waiting by the courthouse steps in a surprisingly clean leather jacket, smoking a cigarette. He had barely graduated, but he had secured an apprenticeship at a high-end auto mechanic shop.
He had a future.
He grinned faintly when he saw me.
“It’s over?”
“It’s over,” I said.
The weight I had carried across two lifetimes finally loosened.
“Lily.”
I stopped.
Ethan was hurrying down the courthouse steps toward me, wrinkled shirt clinging to his thin frame, hair greasy, eyes hollow.
Derek immediately stepped in front of me and cracked his knuckles.
“Give me the word,” he muttered, “and I’ll throw him into traffic.”
A small laugh almost escaped me.
“No. Let him talk.”
Ethan stopped a few feet away, trembling.
“You took my mother,” he whispered. “She’s gone. I have nothing. How am I supposed to pay rent? How am I supposed to eat? You took everything from me.”
I looked at him for a long moment.
Then I answered.
“I didn’t take anything that wasn’t already rotten. Your mother made her choices. You made yours. You chose to be a coward. You chose to let other people take the fall for your mistakes. Now there’s no one left to shield you from the real world.”
He stared at me like a drowning man.
“But… we’re childhood friends.”
I held his gaze.
“We were never friends. You were a leech.”
I turned away.
“Enjoy community college, Ethan. I hear they have a great remedial math program.”
I walked down the courthouse steps with Derek beside me and didn’t look back.
I had a flight to New Haven the next week.
I had a life ahead of me.