Chapter 9 - Ashes and Iron
The Mercer Estate's west wing had never been fully rebuilt.
It stood as a blackened, hollow shell on the edge of the manicured estate grounds, its charred timber beams framing the gray autumn sky like the ribs of a dead leviathan. The main house had been seized by federal marshals, its gates locked, its grand fountains drained and filled with dead leaves.
I stood in the center of what had once been my bedroom.
The floorboards were scorched black, covered in a light dusting of dirt and dry rain. I wore a heavy black wool coat against the cold wind blowing through the broken window frames.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel outside.
I didn't turn around. "You shouldn't have posted bail, Juliette."
Juliette stepped into the ruined room through the skeletal doorway.
She had managed to post a emergency five-million-dollar bond using an undisclosed offshore account her attorneys had kept hidden from the receivers. She was wearing a dirty trench coat, her hair wild, her face pale and gaunt. She looked like a ghost haunting the ruins of her own creation.
In her right hand, she held an old, rusted canister of industrial lighter fluid. In her left, a silver box of matches.
"I knew you'd come here," Juliette whispered, her raspy voice echoing off the scorched brick walls. "You always were obsessed with this place. You always came here when you wanted to feel close to Mom."
"I came here to remember who I was before you tried to burn me out of existence," I said, turning slowly to face her.
Juliette unscrewed the cap of the lighter fluid with her teeth, spitting the plastic top onto the floor. She began splashing the clear, chemical liquid across the scorched floorboards between us. The sharp, toxic smell of accelerant filled the cold air instantly.
"They took my bail," Juliette laughed, a terrible, unhinged sound that rose into the gray sky. "The board stripped my name from the building this morning. The bank seized my apartments. Julian won't answer my calls. I have nothing left, Caroline! Nothing!"
"You have a trial in forty-eight hours, Juliette," I said calmly, making no move to run. "You have a guaranteed life sentence waiting for you."
"I'm not going to prison!" she shrieked, striking a match against the silver box. A tiny, yellow flame danced between her shaking fingers. "If I can't have the Mercer legacy... if I can't have the empire... then no one will! We started in this room four years ago, sister. Today, we finish it!"
She tossed the burning match onto the pool of lighter fluid.
FOOM!
A bright, roaring wall of orange fire erupted between us, crawling rapidly across the chemical trail toward the dry timber walls. Smoke billowed up into the ceiling beams.
Juliette laughed hysterically, backing toward the broken window frame as the flames grew taller. "Burn with me, Caroline! Burn like you were supposed to!"
Suddenly, a heavy hand grabbed Juliette from behind through the window frame.
Marcus Vance slammed her backward out of the ruined room onto the muddy grass outside, knocking the matches from her hand and pinning her to the ground with swift, military precision.
"Got her!" Marcus yelled through the smoke.
I didn't panic. I stepped around the wall of fire, walking calmly through the smoke toward the open doorway. My boots stepped over the burning timber, the heat fanning across my face, catching the scar tissue on my left cheek.
Four years ago, this heat would have paralyzed me with terror.
Today, it felt like nothing.
I stepped out of the burning ruins into the fresh, cold autumn air.
Down on the muddy lawn, Marcus held a screaming, weeping Juliette in heavy steel restraints. Sirens wailed in the distance, their red and blue lights reflecting off the bare trees as three state police cruisers sped up the winding drive of the estate.
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I walked over to where Juliette lay in the mud, looking down at her as the police officers jumped out of their cars with their weapons drawn.
"You failed again, Juliette," I said, my raspy voice quiet, cold, and entirely unbreakable. "Fire doesn't destroy iron. It just burns away the weakness."
