“When the Nix boys take on a job, we go that goddamn extra mile.”

As the smoke blew past, John Wesley snatched up that man’s stubby little forearm and took a big ole bite right out his flesh. The man yelled and stumbled, John Wesley scurrying back into the darkness of the house, smoke and fire coming out from damn near everywhere.

TJ called out to her little brother while her eyes watered. She could barely make out the face of the little man. He came up fast with a pistol, aiming right toward where she stood looking for where John Wesley had gone.

TJ tried to raise the big gun. But it was too late.

That short little fucker shot her twice, sending her ass reeling hard onto her back, the ceiling roiling and burning like an oven. Son of a bitch. So this is how easy and fast it all goes?

*   *   *

Lillie called in the fire as Quinn ran up to look at the dead man. He checked out the surrounding houses for a flicker of movement, looking to all the high wraparound porches, as good a place as any for someone to take a quick and easy shot. It was the old man who was dead, only eleven years older than Quinn, but looking all of eighty with his wrinkled face and white hair, black eyes staring up into damn near nothing. There would be another Nix lurking about, probably the one who’d gone up to set the fire. The smoke trailed up into the morning sky, flames showing from inside the windows.

Quinn pulled his gun, taking the stairs up to the top of the house, yelling to TJ Byrd. The front door was open with a rush of black smoke spewing out. He could feel the heat baking his face and singeing the hairs on his arms.

He rushed inside, calling out for the kids, and hearing nothing. The flames were zigzagging about, painting the walls over half the house. The entire house creaking and bending in the heat, the metal roof pinging and popping above him as he kicked in every door he could find, arm over his mouth, eyes watering and the heat searing his face and scorching off the stubble on his jaw.

When he felt the house was clear and the stilts began to rock under him, he bolted from the door and ran down the steps, finding half his shirt on fire and ripping it off his body, stomping on it good with his boots.

The cold air felt fresh and clean and he bent at the waist to try and catch his breath. He only had on a thin T-shirt now and the wind blew hard at his back.

Lillie walked down the narrow street, while loose sand skittered across the crushed-shell drive like a broken fog. Dusty Nix stood by his old Chevy not forty meters from her.