She walks around to the door in back. Unable to get a good angle on the padlock with the screwdriver, she pries the hasp off the wall instead. When she gets the door open, she steps inside.

Real Deal pokes his head in as she thumbs her Zippo. Red Dawn, Devil’s Gold, Thunder King, Big Mama, Titan. The glow from the lighter reveals floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with boxes of rockets, crackers, and Roman candles. The air is spiced with the tang of black powder, and signs warn NO SMOKING.

“Christ almighty, be careful,” Real Deal says.

Yuma pokes around for a cash box but comes up empty-handed. Approaching headlights send Real Deal into the trailer too. He pulls the door shut and hisses at Yuma to douse the flame. They stand silently in the dark, so close together they feel the heat coming off each other.

The one-two punch of tension and relief when the car passes does something to Yuma. She’s suddenly tingling in all the right spots and has an idea of what might calm the whirlwind that’s been spinning inside her all night. She grabs Real Deal’s hand and puts it on her pussy. Real Deal protests, something about too risky. “Shut up,” Yuma says and goes to undoing his belt while he works on hers. They do it standing up, her bent over the counter, him coming from behind. She gets off in only a couple minutes, and he pops right after.

Real Deal makes himself presentable and steps outside. The road is empty in both directions, the body shops, retread-tire outlets, and used-car lots scattered along it snoozing away. Real Deal adjusts his pecker and smiles to himself. What a trip. He smells something acrid, and Yuma dashes out of the trailer. A fusillade of ear-splitting screeches, whistles, and bangs shatters the quiet, and a ball of fire shoots from the trailer’s door and blossoms into a spray of hissing sparks.

Yuma, waiting at the edge of the lot, laughs at the terror on Real Deal’s face as he runs to join her.

“Happy Bicentennial,” she says.

The din increases in volume, boom upon boom, screech upon screech, and the geyser of sparks shooting out the door is so intense, it resembles the tail of a captured comet. A huge explosion makes the Fiends flinch, and part of the trailer rises on a mushroom cloud of green and silver glitter and spins end over end to crash to the ground twenty feet from them.