“At least spray it on your tits,” a voice yells.

I drop the hose and walk away.

Cindy’s sitting on the sidewalk. Light glints off her black hair, and I’m flooded with relief. I just need to take her home and call this in, I think, get her a cab, and—

“Shit,” I say when I get close enough to see her face.

“I fell,” she says, holding up her hands so I can see the scraped skin of her palms.

She must have bitten her lip, too. There’s blood running down her chin.

I glance back at the house. All around us silhouettes dance to disjointed rhythms under string lights strung across the cast-iron sky.

“I’m fine,” she murmurs when I lift her by the elbow. She grins and there’s blood caked between her teeth.

“Jesus,” I swear.

“What happened to your leg?” she asks in a drunken slur. “And your shoes?”

“Long story,” I tell her. But the short of it is, I couldn’t get a handle on the bucket in heels, so I had to leave them and stand on its edges in bare feet. I’m pulling out my phone, feeling guilty about not accompanying her home, when she squirms out of my grasp.

“Teddy,” she breathes.

“Shit,” I swear. She must have called him while she was waiting for me.

“Cindy, what—?” Teddy grabs her by the arm when she stumbles, and examines her face, the blood on her lips and chin. “Are you okay?”

“Me? I’m great! We went to a par … ty!” She draws out the last word and smiles, showing the blood between her teeth.

“What the fuck, Marlitt?” Teddy turns to me. He’s clenching his jaw so hard the bone juts under his skin.

“What are you doing here? And why”—he moves to get a better hold on Cindy, who has one hand on his shoulder and is spinning around him lazily—“did you bring Cindy?”

“Later,” I say. “There’s something you need to see.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Now. And I’m not leaving Cindy like this.”

“Fine,” I say, hearing the drunken petulance in my voice but unable to alter it. “Then I’m calling Oliver. See how you like it.”

I take out my phone clumsily and search through my contacts.

“Jesus, Marlitt,” Teddy says. I hold the phone to my ear. It’s ringing. “How selfish can you be?”

“Me?” My mouth drops open. “I’m the one who got set on fire,” I hiss. “And then dropped from my case.”

“Yeah, right.” He sighs. “And instead of trying to heal or realizing that the guy who did that to you might be in this building”—he gestures to the brick house, every window ablaze with light—“you march in there—without backup—and not only that, you take Cindy with you.”

“The candles…” I murmur.