Dan had been pressuring Taylor to move in with him. Aria had known about Taylor’s resistance to doing so for weeks now. But tonight, she tried to relieve the boredom of trying to fall asleep – neither of them was tired – by digging deeper about the real reasons why. To Aria it made no sense at all why someone in Taylor’s position wouldn’t jump at the first opportunity to get off the street, especially given everything Taylor had told her about Dan so far. With Omkar in her life, Taylor’s frequent absences felt less like abandonment than they did before. Given how effeminate he was and how out of the closet he seemed, it shocked Aria that Taylor was still so ashamed for people to know that he was gay. She tried to counter his shame by telling him there was nothing wrong with it, but nothing she said seemed to sink in. Eventually, the conversation slowed and she heard the louder, labored breathing of his sleep.

Later that night, the shrill sound of Palin’s bark startled them awake; the hysterical alarm of her intonations sent a wave of dread up and down both Taylor’s and Aria’s spines. They threw off the weight of their sleeping bags in preparation for conflict before they even knew what the conflict was. It was Taylor who realized first what was happening.

“Holy shit … Oh my fucking God, we gotta get out of here … Quick!” he yelled to Aria, flailing to collect whatever things he could in time to escape.

The entire car lot was alive with fire. Its molten veins had already claimed Mike’s tent as well as the Camaro where EJ used to stay. And it was reaching to swallow everything else in sight. Before Aria could make sense of what was happening, she grabbed the shoulder strap of her backpack and pulled it free from beneath the seat. She yanked the hood of Taylor’s sweater to make him run with her, so tightly that he was forced to abandon most of his things.

The heat from the fire had veiled the air in an elemental static that distorted vision. They ran through the only visible break and climbed over the fence as fast as they could, unable to make out whatever it was Ciarra was screaming. When the cold began to offer solace, Aria knew that she had run far enough to ensure that she could stay beyond the span of the flames. She turned back around.