The smoke was already pouring in through the vents and down into the house. She’d told John Wesley to get low and crawl to the door after they’d smelled the smoke. They could hear the cold wind, the crackling of the fire, and footsteps above them. Soon came the squealing tires, the gunshots, the yelling.

“Where’s the gun?”

Chastity disappeared and TJ pressed her body around her little brother, believing the girl was finally gone for good. But then Chastity was back and handing over that AR-15 she claimed she couldn’t sell out of sentimental value.

TJ checked the magazine, jacked it back into the gun like she’d learned out at her Aunt Tabitha’s land with all her hippie, lesbo friends hooting and hollering, swilling cold beer from the can.

TJ got off her knees and went to hunting where she heard that sound. She didn’t need any light, moving with the creaking, finding it up close by the window where she saw a man’s old boot dangling off the roof and trying to find some purchase on the porch railing.

TJ raised the gun and squeezed the trigger, hearing an oof and a big thud. More scrambling up above as the man’s boots thudded right up over them, moving crossways over the roof. She raised the gun and shot more, the shots so loud they made her ears go numb and silent, an electric hum in the room after she stopped.

“Quit,” Chastity said, yelling nearly up into her ear. “Stop it now. You’re ripping apart my house.”

“Little too late to worry about that,” she said. “Get John Wesley and get to the back door. We’re getting the hell out of here.”

TJ lowered the big gun, trying to listen for anything. But it was stone-cold quiet again.

“Chastity?”

Nothing.

“Chastity?” TJ said. “Goddamn you.”

Cold air rushed into the room and she looked over to find the front door wide open and hearing more yelling outside down on the street. She started to cough from the smoke spewing out from the vents.

“Chastity,” she said.

When TJ turned back, she saw the man with a gun, holding his meaty little forearm up around John Wesley’s throat. “Get me that Chastity Bloodgood and I won’t blow your little brother’s gosh-dang head off.”

It was the man from the gas station back in Cut Off, blood on his filthy face and across the front of his shirt. As he walked toward her, the little man and John Wesley, both about the same height, disappeared in the smoke. TJ felt like she couldn’t breathe as the ceiling started falling down around them.

“You’re the sorry bastard that killed our mother.”

“Better ask ole Chester Pratt about that,” the man said. “We ain’t nothing but hired help.”

“Y’all just did it for the money?”