Cedar licked her lips nervously.

“Your lips are chapped,” I said.

“Who cares?”

“I do! Lip balm! Got any in your purse?”

“Front pocket. Why?”

“The balm is pure petroleum.”

With my free hand, I fished the tube out of the pocket. I stuck the lid in my teeth and twisted the cap off, then spat it out.

It bounced off Cedar’s nose.

“First you rip half my face off with the duct tape, then you spit lids at me.”

“Shh,” I said. “This isn’t easy. First, I have to move my finger, and before the oil drips out, I have to squeeze this petroleum jelly inside the tube.”

“Could be worse.”

“How?”

She nodded toward the hallway. “There could be smoke coming under the door.”

White smoke roiled across the floor.

“Yep,” I said. “That’s worse.”

“The smoke stinks like a road flare,” she said.

“He uses flares to light his thermite.” My brow filled with sweat. I wiped it on my shirtsleeve. “But the building has sprinklers, so we’ll be okay.”

“You’re forgetting your chemistry. Water—“

“Won’t stop thermite. You’re right.” I set the opening of the tube next to the spot where my skin blocked the hole in the plastic tube. “On the count of three, we go. And Cedar?”

“Yeah?”

“If I blow off your hand, I’m sorry.”

“Worry about not blowing off my face.”

One, I counted.

I kissed her full on the lips.

Two.

I kissed her again.

“Stop kissing me and—“

Three.

In a single motion, I pushed my thumb aside and squeezed with all my strength.

A few ounces of petroleum jelly squirted out. The oil chamber pushed the water back into the top of the tube. I squeezed again for good measure, but the job was done.

Cedar was safe.

“Thank god.” I fell on my ass and breathed in, taking deep gulps.

The fire alarm sounded.

The sprinklers went off.

Water showered down on our heads. Within seconds, we were soaked, and water was pooling on the floor around us.

As the fire alarm rang, the sound of sirens cut through the air, I stripped the lengths of tape off Cedar’s thigh and unwrapped her hands.

More smoke poured in.

Aa bright red glow formed at the doorway.

With Cedar’s hands now free, I lifted the tube carefully off and stuck a piece of duct tape around the tube. I pushed it into a cactus plant on the receptionist’s counter, then slipped on the wet floor.

I fell to one knee.

My hands slapped the bar, and a finger caught the lip of the cactus pot.

It teetered on edge.

Ready to fall.

“Gotcha!” Cedar grabbed the cactus pot. She set it on the floor. “How about we get the hell out of here?”

“Excellent idea!”

The only exit from the suite of offices was the door, but when I reached for the knob, it was white hot.

No surprise.

A thermite fire was on the other side of the door.

“Windows!” she yelled. “You take that office! I’ve got this one.”

I tried the first office. “Locked!”

Then moved to the next.

“In here!” Cedar called.

I ran inside, sloshing through the rising flood of water.

Cedar lifted the window a few inches. “It’s stuck!”

I grabbed the shash, and we slammed it open.

Outside, the courthouse green was in a state of bedlam. Tanker trucks from all over the county roared down the roads around the square. Firefighters ran toward the building while pulling on their turnouts.

People clustered around the bandstand. A bevy of debutantes clung to the back railing, trying to avoid Sheriff Hoyt as he was slapping the cuffs on G.D. Landis, who was seated in his wheelchair, screaming for his son.

“Up here!” I yelled. “Mayday! Mayday!”

“Boone-san!” Luigi ran toward the window. “The building is on fire!”

“I know that!” Smoke poured past me and out the open window. “We’re trapped! We need a ladder truck!”

“No time!” Cedar yelled. “The fire’s at our backs!”

The ladder truck was bulky and long. The trees, buses, and hundreds of chairs on the green would slow it down too much.

“Boone!” Abner yelled. “Stay there! They’re bringing a trampoline.”

A trampoline.

They wanted us to jump.

From a two story window.

“I don’t think I can do that, Boone!” Cedar yelled.

“Me, neither!”

“I have acrophobia!” she shouted.

“Me, too! Let’s take our chances with the fire!”

“I’m serious!”

“Me, too!”

Down below, the firefighters gathered. They stretched the trampoline ring out. Lamar was barking orders to the others, and I saw that the whole Allegheny squad had taken hold of the ring.

“Let’s go!” I yelled. “It’s now or never!”

Cedar looked down and froze.

She couldn’t move.

I pushed her off the windowsill.

As she fell, Cedar screamed, “You asshole!”

Her butt hit the center of the ring, and the trampoline collapsed inside, wrapping her safely like a cocoon.

“Your turn!” Lamar called up to me.

“I’m good!”

“Boone Childress,” Cedar yelled as they reset the trampoline for another go. “Jump down here this instant!”

I licked my lips nervously. They were chapped.

I had to jump.

No two ways about it.

I lifted a foot, bent my knees, and told myself to go.

My feet stayed stuck to the sill.

Behind the door, the receptionist’s counter exploded. The door flew open, and the super heated air rushed toward me. The force of the blast blew me off balance.

And out of the window.

I screamed like a little girl and landed in the trampoline with a huge humph of air.

At first, I saw only stars.

Then Cedar was leaning over me, smiling. The sky was a deep, rich blue, the color of a wide-open sea.

It felt like home.

Cedar cradled my head in her arms. “I love you, you big idiot.”

“I love you, too,” I said and pulled her onto to the trampoline as our lips met.

“Next time we're caught in a fire,” she said. “You better not push me.”

"Next time we're caught in a fire," I said. "Don't take so long to jump."

EPILOGUE

By the end of May, there was little evidence that the farm where Athena and Troy Blevins grew up ever existed. A bulldozer had swept away the bones of the fire that had destroyed it, along with shell of the heating oil tank that had been buried beneath it.

It was above that tank that Peter Mercer had placed a pot of thermite and then ignited it with a delay fuse like the one he had stuck into Cedar’s hands. The fuse lit the thermite, and the thermite burned white-hot straight into the tank, where it ignited a decade’s worth of sludge and leftover oil. The explosion unearthed the remains of Athena and Troy’s Great Aunt Ellen, who was buried closest to the house.

Now, the aunt was being re-interred, along with the rest of the bodies that had been removed by Stuart and Early. The man paying for the work was Trey Landis, who had donated the site to the Allegheny County Historical Society as an apology for the trouble his father had caused.

“Trouble he caused?” I asked Cedar.

We stood in the shade of live oak watching a crew of graduate students from Carolina Tech processing each set of remains.

“That’s how he’s phrasing it in the paper,” Cedar said. “Damage control.”

“Trouble is a pleasant euphemism for all the crap Landis did.”

The process had taken a day a half so far, and Abner expected at least two more days. Yesterday, Dr. K and Mr. Blevins had been on hand, along with Allegheny VFW and my family. A preacher had blessed the work before they started, and he would return later to bless the graves once the work was finished. Mr. Blevins had left right away. Dr. K had stayed most of the day, but when it came time to identify her own family, she was overcome and had to depart.

Together, we walked over to a tent that had been set up as a break area. There were four colors filled with ice and drinks and another loaded with snacks. Two platters of cookies were stacked on one of the folding tables, still covered in plastic wrap. Barefoot Bennie’s catered in breakfast, lunch, and dinner.