I called Ella.
I even called Diane Hill, despite severing all contact with her after the wedding.
Nobody picked up.
The high-speed ride from DLC’s skyscraper to my wife’s school was short when you drove the way I did, cutting through traffic and blowing more than a handful of red lights. I didn’t have the time to call Bazoli for a police escort. Not when I could barely form a coherent sentence.
It felt like an eternity when I arrived at the outskirts of St. Victoria.
The flames melted into the late afternoon sky, the scene almost otherworldly.
Parking haphazardly by the gates, I leapt out of the car and straight into the woods. Numerous fire trucks were at the scene. Firefighters hosed down the area with water.
Orders were echoed in a loud speakerphone. Teachers escorted students out of the premise, some coughing and some crying.
I whirled around, trying to locate her in this mayhem.
I dialed Darla’s number again, fear gripping my vocal cords as I searched around the perimeters for her. My one sane brain cell urged me to slow down and think rationally—the people around me were horrified, but nobody looked physically hurt, which meant maybe my wife had made it out in one piece. “Fuck, come on! Pick up!”
Her voicemail kept playing and I stood there, flanked with terror. I tried to enter the school while it burned. A firefighter stopped me and a teacher got involved too. Both grabbed my arms and tugged me back.
“Principal Hill,” I ripped away from the hands halting me from going inside. “Where is she? I don’t see her!”
The teacher paled. “No one saw her come out.”
I almost howled in pain.
Malicious scenarios sawed through my mind.
Darla trying to escape but being locked somewhere. Darla coughing as she inhaled smoke. Darla fainting inside the establishment. Darla burning alive because no one saved her.
Darla, Darla, Darla.
I stood near the decayed porch steps, my fingers knotted in my hair, expressing to her voicemail all the desperation I felt in nonsensical sentences.
I might have begged her to call me back.
I might have said I’d punish her for driving me out of my mind with worry.
I might have even asked her out on a date because the only thing I wished for lately was the time of her day and night.
And when seconds turned to minutes, the universe pulled my strings once more, yanking me out of my perturbation.
My name was murmured in a gentle voice, accompanied by a cough, “Zeno?”
CHAPTER 26
Twist of Fate
Darla
My legacy burned to the ground.
St. Victoria, the only place where I felt like my true self, was destroyed. Save for the crypt and the north, east, and half of the south wing, the rest was forever wrecked. A sopping mess of water, rumble, and mud.
The sky was kissed with a warm, orangey glow that was both arresting and haunting.
Someone set fire to the edifice while I was in the midst of my weekly Girls in Leadership meeting. We’d only been fifteen minutes in when the fire alarm rang bloody murder and the smell of smoke infiltrated the interior like a bad omen.