Arrested by My Ex

"Is this about the murder?" That's the question I asked the man who called me at two in the morning, the one who said I was wanted in connection with a major case.

The line went quiet. Then, careful and low: "...Who did you kill?" "My husband," I said. "I put him in the freezer." I heard him swallow.

A while later I was in the shower, suds in my hair, on the phone with my best friend, the two of us cracking up about how this guy wouldn't even hang up.

Then my front door came off its hinges. Six strangers slammed me facedown on my own bathroom floor.

Chapter 1 Here is what a scammer should know before calling a thriller writer at two in the morning. I will not panic. I will take notes.

I was forty thousand words into a murder mystery, stuck on how to hide a body, when my phone lit up with a number I didn't know. "Is this Ms. Shaw?

We've flagged your involvement in a serious criminal matter—" Smooth voice. Newscaster smooth.

The kind of voice that had probably already talked some poor soul out of her savings this week. A friend of mine got taken for forty grand last year by a voice exactly like that.

Her marriage didn't survive it. So, no. This guy was not going to enjoy his night. I glanced at the cursor blinking on my unfinished crime scene.

Then I smiled. "Is this about the murder?" The line filled with the sound of several people inhaling at once. Gotcha. Pathetic little cockroaches.

The kind that can only come out where it's dark and nobody can see your face. "...Who did you kill?" The voice had dropped. Careful now. I picked up my second phone and hit record.

Then I pitched my voice up, sweet and unhinged, the way I'd write a woman who had finally snapped. "My husband," I cooed. "I put him in the chest freezer.

But he just wouldn't hold still, and now, well.

He's made such a mess of my floor." I heard him swallow. "Why do you hate your husband so much," he tried. "Was he cheating?" I let the silence stretch. "You people already know everything.

Why are you asking me?" "Ms. Shaw—" "Call me again," I said pleasantly, "and I'll put you in a freezer too. Be a better person, sweetheart." I hung up.

Then I stared at my stillblank crime scene, and a headache started up behind my eyes. Shower. I'd find the ending in the shower. I always did.

I called my best friend on the way in and told her everything. Cleo lost it. Cleo, naturally, made it worse.

Within a minute she was doing the voice, this breathy little serialkiller giggle bouncing off my bathroom tile. "It really stinks in here," she crooned. "Bag him up tonight, babe.

Take him out to the curb." "But I'm scared he'll leak." I was laughing so hard I got soap in my eyes. Suds in my hair, cramps from hell, the whole glamorous picture.

Then the world exploded. I didn't even get the swear word out. Something hit me like a freight train and put me on the floor. "Police!

Don't move!" My chest was tender, worst week of the month for it, and the impact drove tears straight out of my eyes. What was happening. What was this.

There'd been a string of breakins nearby, men flashing fake badges to get through the door. Oh god. Was this that. Were they here for money? Or for something worse.

Cleo had told me this building was too old, too unsafe. Told me to come live with her.

But every window faced a row of old oaks, and the light was perfect, and a writer needs her light. So I'd bought the place anyway. No time for regret now.

Just survival. "Sir, officer, you want money, right," I babbled into the tile. "It's all in the bedroom, take it, take all of it, please." And then I couldn't talk anymore.

Because somewhere above me a pair of eyes was moving over me, and the look in them was hot enough to leave a mark.

I squirmed against the grip pinning me down. "Stay still," the man snapped. The anger came off him in waves I could feel.

I got so nervous I hiccupped. "Sir, I've got nothing up front, nothing in back, I've got people who depend on me, I—" "Search the apartment." He didn't even acknowledge me.

Just kept giving orders. Then cold metal closed around my wrist, and something hard pressed into the small of my back. Chapter 2 Me. Me.

Every breakin headline I had ever read came roaring up at once. Don't panic, I told myself. There's pepper spray taped behind the toilet tank. I put it there for exactly this.

The weight on my back lifted. I inched backward. My fingers found the canister.

And a string of voices rolled through my apartment. "Bedroom's clear." "Kitchen's clear." "Nothing under the bed." Just as I tensed to fight, someone yanked a towel around me, bundled me up like laundry, and dropped me on the couch. "Take her in." I turned toward the low voice on instinct.

I didn't get a good look before I was hauled up and folded into the back of an SUV that chirped when the doors locked. The station kept its air conditioning at meatlocker levels.

I sat in the interrogation room looking like something the cat dragged in. They showed me their badges, said their names, and sat down across from me.

And the man running my interrogation was not a stranger. He was my ex. Cole. If I'd put this in a book, my editor would have flagged it. Too convenient, she'd write in the margin.

Nobody's exboyfriend interrogates them for murder. Cut it. My editor had clearly never met my life. I started shaking harder.

Cole looked me over in a way that made my skin crawl, and when he spoke, his voice was the same cold I remembered. "Wren Shaw. Twentyfour.

Single." "We recovered a water bottle at last night's scene. Your prints. Your DNA." "Your neighbors say you collect a lot of material on violent crime.

That your apartment makes noise in the middle of the night.

They think you're tied to a homicide we're working." "Where were you at two a.m.?" The questions landed like a string of slaps.

My soul left my body. "Cooperate," Cole said, eyes like ice, "and this goes easier for you. Fight us, and it won't." My brain went to static.

I was shaking so hard the chair rattled under me. The two cops flanking him had veins standing out at their temples.

Cole sat ramrod straight, every line of him cold, and brought his fist down on the table. "Wren." "Start talking." My heart slammed into my throat.

My palms went slick. "I— what am I supposed to be confessing to?" I have written a hundred books. Cops, surgeons, athletes. I had never once sat in a room like this.

I took a shower in my own apartment. How did the shower end at a police station. "You said you killed your husband. Where is he?" Me. My eyes nearly rolled out of my skull.

Even my voice went stiff. "What— what kind of insane accusation.

I don't even have a husband to kill." For someone with a quick mouth, I was suddenly tripping over my own tongue. "No, that's not— who exactly did I kill?" The cop beside him, Reyes, dropped a thick stack of files on the table, plus a recording of my phone call. "I've seen plenty of people like you," he said. "Pretty face.

Rotten all the way through. Talk." My brain, two beats behind, latched onto exactly one word. Did he just call me pretty? I almost smiled.

Read the room, I told myself, and looked down at the files instead. It was my crime research. All of it.

I'd sent it last night to a buddy of mine on the force and asked him to check it for anything a cop would know I'd gotten wrong. I'd sent it to the building group chat instead.

Add to that the hammering and the shrieking laughter that came out of my place every night around two, loud enough to wake the neighbors' kids more than once.

The whole building had filed a report saying I was into something criminal. Plus that crime scene they kept bringing up. Oh, for the love of god.

None of this had anything to do with me. And that scam call? That had been them. Testing me. They'd already had my apartment surrounded before I ever picked up.

Chapter 3 My head was pounding. I started explaining, fast. "I'm a writer. I write thrillers.

I was researching online and sending it to a friend who's a cop, and I sent it to the wrong chat." "I haven't left my apartment in days. My neighbor's been taking out my trash.

You can check." "I thought it was a scam call. That's the only reason I said any of that." "And the smell is durian. I had it last night.

That stuff could clear a building." The two cops across from me had their brows knit tight enough to trap flies. I was sweating through everything I had, words tumbling out.

Reyes typed my pen name into a search and sucked in a breath. "Cap. She's actually a writer. Access Denied.

Keep the Baby, Lose the Man. 365 Ways to Tame Your Husband—" Every title he read aloud took my face down another shade. "You really don't have to keep going." "And get this.

She did two years at the academy before any of it." He looked up, almost impressed. "That's why the research is deadon." Great. Wonderful.

Outed as a washedout cadet and a romance writer in the same breath. "PrincessTroll," Reyes read.

Then he actually yelled it. "You've got two million followers?!" "Oh my god, Cap, you have no idea how many of her books I've—" His eyes lit up like a pair of high beams.

I wanted to staple his mouth shut. A pen name is sacred. You do not read a writer's handle out loud in a police station. Everybody knows that. The door opened.

An older cop leaned in. "Vance. Step out." He and Cole traded a few low words in the hall, Cole's face getting worse by the second.

I read the older one's lips through the gap in the door. We got him. Hit her building, walked off with a bag of her trash. My heart nearly came out of my chest.

The real guy had carried my garbage, water bottle and all, straight to his scene.

The two of them came back in, smiling now, gentle. "Mixup on the neighbors' end," the older cop said. "The noise at night was a woodpecker in the tree out back. Security caught it.

One big misunderstanding." "You're free to go, Ms. Shaw." Cole flipped through the file, frowning, and a couple minutes later reached over to unlock the cuffs.

The heat of him hit me up close and I flinched back on instinct, cracking my lower back into the chair hard enough to make me hiss.

His face stayed cold. "Stay off the internet with that. You caused a public disturbance." I swallowed a scream and rubbed my aching wrist.

What kind of police station calls a woman at two in the morning. With a script word for word off a scammer's. "Maybe look at your own methods," I muttered.

The older cop saw me shaking and went kind. "Don't be scared of him, sweetheart. He's always like this." Then his whole face flipped and he rounded on Cole. "Why so rough?

Built like a linebacker and not one clue how to treat a lady. Apologize.

Now." "Dragging her in at this hour." "How do you ever expect to land a wife, acting like that?" He turned back to me, beaming, warm as anything. "This one's stubborn as a mule.

You have to yell at him. Boy needs some training." Something in my chest jumped. I would not be training him. I was a little worried he'd train me.

The older cop elbowed him, low. "You carried her in. You can drive her home." Cole's jaw went tight. He stared at me, and the air went strange. I stared right back.

What, did he want to see whose eyes were bigger? Cole's mouth flattened to a line. "I've got things to do.

I'll arrange someone." "Like hell you do." The older cop ground his teeth, then softened the second he looked back at me. "I'll have Reyes run you home, sweetheart." He ambled toward the door, his gaze sliding between the two of us. "Some men," he said, to no one and to everyone, "wait too long to step up.

And then the girl's just gone." Chapter 4 The whole room was watching now, inside the room and out in the hall. Reyes asked the thing everybody wanted to ask. "Mack.

Whose wife?" "Your captain's, obviously. Man's been pining over this girl for years, and the second she's in front of him he turns into a coward.

No wonder he's still single." "Wait. Wait." Reyes' eyes went huge. "Ms. Shaw is the one Cap's been carrying a torch for?" Cole's hand stopped midstack.

His spine went rigid, and he turned to go. The bad fire in my gut flared. "Cole. Don't you move." His footsteps stopped dead, and the sound of them rang in my ears.

He looked back, expression flat, eyes a thousand miles off. "Was there something else, Ms. Shaw?" That face. That exact face.

When we were together, this was the only face he'd give me in daylight. Every single time. My throat went tight and hot, and the heat climbed into my eyes.

I steadied my voice and went cold right back at him. "When you and your team busted into my shower just now. Which one of you copped a feel?" Dead silence.

Then the entire room took one big step back, and every finger in it pointed at Cole. "Cap." Cole stood in the doorway, face black as a skillet.

A muscle jumped at his temple. "It was an accident." I was flushed to my ears. I ground it out between my back teeth. "You absolute creep.

I'm going to the hospital to get checked, and then I'm pressing charges." The room erupted, half scolding him, half coaching me. "Cap, that's on you, honestly." "I mean, it was a raid, things happen, but your hands have a mind of their own—" "Ms.

Shaw, you want to even the score? Cop a feel back?" "Nah, he's gotta do right by her.

Cap, you proposing or what?" "He really didn't grab you that hard, did he?" My chest still ached. I shot the man responsible a look and went sweet and vicious. "I'm delicate.

How could I ever take on the great Captain Vance." I tugged the towel down, just far enough to bare my collarbone. "He doesn't know his own strength.

Look, it's already bruis—" The room's eyes went round. Before anyone could lean in, his long legs ate the distance and he was in front of me, blocking their view.

Then I was wrapped in a black jacket, his scent closing over my head. "What are you doing?" I fought inside the jacket, mouth still going. "You can't just— you're wrecking my reputation, hauling me around like this." His big hand, calloused at the palm, fisted the jacket shut, and his whole frame put itself between me and the room.

The peanut gallery would not quit. "Told you Cap's always staring at somebody's photo." "Right?

Thing's gone soft at the edges from all the handling, and he still won't show us." "Any woman comes near him, suddenly he's married.

Won't so much as flirt." "I thought that was a line.

Turns out he's been hiding a knockout this whole time." "Explains why he keeps asking me how to make a girl happy." "Finally we meet her." "Mrs. Vance. You want a ride or not?

Going once." Reyes jingled his keys, delighted. I peeked up at Cole, ears burning. His lips were pressed flat, his eyes pointedly somewhere else, the picture of composure.

Except the tips of his ears were red enough to bleed. He dropped his voice and aimed it at the room. "Nothing better to do? Twenty laps.

All of you." Reyes shot me a wink on his way out, grinning. "Run, boys. Cap's about to propose.

Let's give them the room." "An hour enough for you, Cap?" "'Cause if not, I'll come pull you for the briefing in two—" Cole's boot caught him square in the backside.

The door pulled shut. Chapter 5 Cole looked down at me, taking his time.

His eyes moved over me like he owned the place, and my scalp prickled, and the old memories came back whether I wanted them or not.

Every time we'd gone a while without seeing each other, he used to look at me exactly like this.

He'd look until my knees went soft, and then he'd catch me by the waist, kiss the shell of my ear, and laugh low against it. That's all it takes? Hm? Don't hide from me later.

Good girl. A shiver ran through me. I snapped my head up and crashed straight into the faint red at the corners of his eyes. "Cole.

Let go of me." His tongue pressed the inside of his cheek.

His gaze swept down, and his voice came low and dark and far too smooth. "You've come a long way, Wren." I twisted and went for his hand with my teeth.

He scooped me up by the waist and folded me into the front seat of his car.

He pinned me against the seat and leaned in over me. "Don't move." That close, that face wiped every ounce of fight out of me. I'd been the one who threw out a breakup and ran.

Now I was back in his hands, and I was fairly sure I was about to get exactly what I had coming.

I clutched the towel and shook, brave as a wet hen. "CCole." His eyes traced me inch by inch. His hand found the side of my waist. His mouth stopped a halfinch from mine.

My breath stuck. "Don't you dare. We're in a car—" Right when my heart was about to come through my ribs.

His lips curved, his breath brushing the spot under my jaw. "Where would you rather be?" Hm? I— That last note, low and loaded, sent my brain straight onto the freeway.

I nearly blew a gasket. A crisp little click sounded by my hip. "Buckle up next time. Or else." He pulled back and shut the door with a snap. Or else what?

He gave me a look that meant entirely too much. Two seconds later it caught up to me what I'd said, and I wanted to slap myself across the face.

Why did one look from him turn my brain filthy and drop me to my knees. Every single time. I stole a glance at him through the corner of my eye, focused on the road.

Long fingers loose on the wheel. The taut line of his forearm, veins standing. He took a turn onehanded, easy and careless, and god help me. The hands.

He always went a little blank whenever he caught me looking. I had never once thought a man driving was this good to watch. He hit the brake hard.

I pitched forward, and my chest slammed into the arm he'd thrown across me. "Ow." I welled up and curled over my own lap. Cole caught my shoulder and peeled the jacket back.

His hand came toward me. Me. "Cole!" I screamed loud enough to lift the roof and smacked him clean across the face.

His head turned with the hit, his ears going pink, and he swallowed at the worst possible moment. "I was only checking the bru—" "Checking my backside, more like!" That came out wrong.

The point stood. I stayed on high alert through the hospital and all the way back to my apartment.

He'd already fixed my door. "I'm thirsty." He'd shed the jacket, the heat getting to him, and he leaned against the doorframe in a thin white tank, looking at me, direct as anything. "Can I come in for a glass of water?" Sure.

The sly bastard had been trouble since the day I met him, and that look on his face in broad daylight was anything but innocent. He pulled this every time. "Out.

I'm going to sleep." Then a phone call took him away. Chapter 6 I was dead asleep when Cleo showed up at my door sobbing that she'd been dumped and needed a club, immediately.

Cleo, getting dumped. Cleo, who collected men like loyalty points. I had my doubts. A club at night is a deep, deep sea, and everywhere I looked, fresh catch.

We poured ourselves into tiny dresses and stood there like two raccoons who'd found an unlocked dumpster, shrieking at every cut jaw and carved shoulder in the room.

A hand landed on my waist. "Hey, gorgeous. Come hang in my booth." The guy was middleaged, all jowls, reeking of cigarettes and something worse underneath.

My stomach rolled. "Back off before I deck you." He bared a row of yellow teeth and reached for me. A hand clamped around his wrist. Some guy.

Tall, geared up like he meant business. He pulled me in behind him. "Walk." The creep cursed and slunk off. In the low light, the guy's eyes were startlingly clear.

Something about them snagged at me. Like I'd seen them somewhere before. The music was too loud. I leaned in to thank him. He gave me one more long look.

Then someone called him away. I waved after him like an idiot. Cleo, meanwhile, was working the room like a pro. Up on the stage, an MC announced that the main event was starting.

Enjoy yourselves, ladies. Cleo grabbed my arm, eyes bright like she'd been drinking something stronger than vodka. "Okay. This is the part. Heaven for women. Do not blink.

And get your cash out." I scoffed. "It's a club. You think I'm tipping?" The lights cut. The whole room went silent as a held breath.

And then, from every direction at once, the sound of breathing. "Baby." "...Baby." I went red to my ears and my toes curled in my heels.

I turned around and instantly became a screaming animal. "AAAAAAAH!" Under the low gold lights, men in white buttondowns were moving like sin itself, every roll of the hips landing somewhere behind my sternum.

One of them, tall, built like something out of scripture, danced his way right to me. Mask on, ball cap low. No face.

But after years of writing this exact kind of man, I can tell you with authority: he was a ten. "Ladies," the MC crowed, "tip your favorite and he'll pull you up to dance!" I kicked my feet, delighted, dug out a fistful of bills, and tucked them into the belt of the eightpack in front of me.

My fingers grazed his abs. He went still. His hand came up to block mine. He stood there on the platform looking, frankly, like I was corrupting an honest man. "Aw.

First time?" I patted him, all sympathy. "I'll be gentle, sweetheart." Beside me, Cleo had a guy by the collar and was half a song deep already, grinding.

My guy was still standing a polite mile away.

The liquor caught up with me and I got annoyed. "Not enough?" "Honey, I have money." I hooked him by the waistband and hauled him in close.

Shoved a few more bills down and groped a lap around those abs for good measure. "Dance. For me." The words were barely out.

The lights blazed on. "Everybody down!" "Don't move!" "You're all coming to the station!" Short, hard, in a low voice that rode over the speakers and straight into my bones.

Half the liquor left my body on the spot.

A run of clicks. "Caught in the act." "Wrap it up." The man in front of me pulled off his mask, dropped his ball cap onto my head, and bent to settle his shirt over my shoulders.

Two soft clicks. He cuffed me, gentle as anything. "Wren. Still want to dance?" Chapter 7 What the hell. How did the smokinghot stripper turn into Cole. Cole.

Reduced to working a pole. Same room. Same people. Reyes grinned and waved at me like an old friend. "Boss lady.

We've gotta stop meeting like this." "Cap and I clean up nice up there, though, right?" I stared at the ceiling. Nobody's best day and nobody's worst day ever really touch. One day.

Two nights. Twelve hours, all told. Two sets of bracelets. Cole's face was a thundercloud.

The fist on the table, the lines off the script, word for word from last night. "Wren Shaw. Twentyfour. Single." Single came out scraped between his teeth.

It did something to my chest. "Cooperate and it goes easier. Fight us and it won't." I tipped my head and let my eyes drift to a very specific part of him.

His temple twitched. "Wren. Sit up straight." I would have loved to. My body had other ideas, sliding steadily off the chair. I launched into the routine. "My girl got dumped.

She wanted a night out." "And 'out' had to be a strip club." "There's no law against processing a breakup at a strip club." Cole's face got worse with every word, and my voice got smaller.

Wait. Why was I acting guilty?

I pulled myself upright, squared my shoulders, and completely forgot about the plunging neckline I had on tonight. "You're the one having fun, Officer.

If you hadn't gotten up on a stage and shaken it at me, would I have tucked cash in your pants?" "You go out, you play house rules. I didn't do anything wrong.

A girl can't have a little fun?" Snap. Cole broke his pen in half. I trembled, a little.

The booze hit, and I went full lunatic, dragging my gaze up and down him. "Seeing as we're such old friends, give me my money back." "No old friend keeps the tip." "It was two gropes.

You're abusing your badge over a grudge. Fine. Grope me back, we're even." Steam was practically rising off Cole.

His knuckles cracked. "You want to spend a few nights in a cell, is that it?" Beside him, Reyes hid a laugh behind his hand. "Cap, your—" Cole shot him a look.

Reyes coursecorrected, smooth as anything. "Ms. Shaw. We've got the full picture. No illegal transaction took place." Cole's eyes narrowed over the file.

Reyes tried his luck. "So Ms. Shaw's free to go?" His eyes flicked at me. Move. Cole sat there, silent, and lifted his gaze to me, cold. I was still thinking about my money.

So, with a clear death wish, I draped myself across the table, took Cole's face in both hands, and planted one right on his mouth. "Officer," I purred.

The rims of his eyes went fully red. "Or would you rather I reached into your pants and got it out myself?" His hand moved faster than my brain.

He flipped a jacket over me, hooked an arm around my waist, and walked me out the door. I yelped and grabbed his neck. Reyes called after us. "Cap!

We're really done questioning her?" I blew him a kiss over Cole's shoulder. "Kiddo. Your captain and I have business to handle." The hand at my back went hard.

Cole, perfectly even. "I'm taking her in for private questioning." Out in the corridor, halfgone, I heard someone call his name.

I started to open my eyes, and he pressed my face into his chest. At the edge of my vision, just for a second, a beautiful woman.

Chapter 8 The second we were through the door, Cole pinned me behind it.

His voice came rough, an edge of temper in it. "Don't move." I ignored him entirely and climbed his neck to kiss him. He peeled me off and dropped me on the couch.

I looped my arms back around him, hauled myself up, hung off him in a fullbody clamp, and went soft and sweet against his ear. "CCole." He never could hold out against me like this.

In the moonlight his fist clenched white, and he set me back from him again, harder than he wanted to. "Wren." "You think you can wiggle out of this with a little sweet talk?" Ha.

A year apart and his standards had really come up.

I wound right back around him. "Should I try harder, then?" His face went taut, something stormy gathering behind his eyes. "A year ago you said breakup, see you never.

Like a coward." "So tell me. Why did you break up with me?" I gave him my most wounded look. "You were too big." Sincerity. Never fails. His anger died on the spot.

His ears went up in flames, and then he was shouting again. "You dumped me because I'm too big?" "What do you want me to do, shrink?" Swearing now.

Back when we were together, he'd play the buttonedup public servant all day, act like he didn't know me.

Then night fell and he turned into a wolf, and far too pleased with himself about it. He put me through a lot.

Eventually I couldn't take the temper anymore, panicked, said breakup, and ran.

Cole caught my roaming hands and pinned them, redeyed, set on the whole answer. "Big where, exactly." I let it all out, ticking it off on my fingers. "Your age. Your build.

Your temper. Even your—" He swallowed the rest of it whole. The curtains crumpled in the moonlight. The couch gave under us. His mouth came back warm, barely there. "Hands.

Still." A phone screamed on the table. I burrowed into him and lit a fire for no reason. "Who is that.

No sense of timing." Cole pulled back and stood, and his face did something I had never once seen it do. Went tight. Almost afraid. "Understood.

On my way." He bent and kissed me, hard. "Something's come up at the station.

I'll be back, and we are settling this." I laughed and pinched him. "See you, kiddo." He sucked in a breath and crushed me into his chest, gripping like he wanted to fold me into his ribs and keep me there. "You'll get yours.

Sooner or later." I fell asleep hugging a pillow. In the dream, Cole moved past me fast, like film catching the light. Kindergarten through college.

Twentyfour years, and every frame had him in it. All I ever had to do was turn around, and there he was. That cocky kid. The first time he wiped my tears, clumsy about it.

The first time he bought me pads, red to the ears, then looped his jacket around my waist without a word, went and washed the dress I'd ruined, brought me something hot for the cramps.

We played cops and robbers in the lot behind the building, the whole pack of us neighborhood kids, and even then I never had to say a word to him.

One look across all that noise and he knew exactly what I meant. Every time. I chased that game so far I nearly went into the academy myself, years on. Nearly. Life got in the way.

The first time he sat through a sappy firstlove movie with me and let me cry myself stupid, and still found the breath to scold me. You don't cry over other guys.

I'm your first love. You're the one who's supposed to stand up at my funeral and tell them all who I was. Wren. It's you, or it's no one. A white mist rolled through the dream.

Cole smiled and raised a hand to wave. "Wren. I have to go." Chapter 9 I woke up choking, the air gone, panic crawling over every inch of me. The apartment was full of smoke.

The fire had caught and was roaring. Everywhere I looked, tongues of it, eating the room.

I coughed hard and clamped a wet cloth over my nose and mouth. "Wren!" "Wren!" Below me, a woman was screaming. "Officer! My grandbaby's still in there!

Save her, please!" "She's only a year old!" Outside the balcony the fire climbed skyhigh, ran up the curtains, swallowed the room whole. In seconds it was an ocean of flame.

I scrambled back into the bedroom and stuffed wet clothes into the gap under the door. The smoke poured in through the window anyway. My skull was splitting.

I crawled into the bathroom, weak all over, and wrapped myself in soaked towels. It must have started in the unit below mine, the fire riding the wind straight up.

But the woman downstairs didn't have a grandbaby. I had never once seen a child down there.

I tried to climb out the window, and before I reached it the glass blew, and a funnel of fire poured in. Glass opened my arm. My hair singed at the ends.

Where was the fire department. A little more of this and I was actually going to die. No tears left. I dug my nails into my thigh, head swimming worse by the second. "Cole.

If you don't come now, I'm never going to see you again." Right as I lost the last of myself, his voice reached me, frantic, through the roar. "Wren