“Wildfire?” Her voice was like a clean light surrounding him, somehow keeping the worst of the memories at bay. He shook his head. Another shrug, nonchalant, as if all the moisture hadn’t evaporated from his mouth. Sarah stepped next to him, the scent of honey and milk radiating from her sun-warmed skin. She slipped her hand into his, intertwining her slim, elegant fingers with his brutish ones. If he had any shred of decency, he would have moved away, not tarnished her further with his presence. But the terrifying pull of his childhood, the bombardment of memories, had him tightening his grip on her hand. “Tell me,” she said. And so he did. His throat constricted, his voice sounding odd to his ears. Ragged, hoarse, as if he’d been gargling battery acid. He told her about that night when he was ten and had woken to the sound of a crash. Didn’t know what it was. Sat up in bed. There was a whooshing, roaring sound. Crackling. Could smell gasoline and smoke. “I could see a glowing orange imprint outlining the door and the inset of the panels. I guess because the wood was thinner there. Thick black smoke was streaming in through all the seams and crevices like a bad horror movie. The windows in the trailers had been jerry-rigged. They could only be opened two inches max, enough to let in air, but nothing more. ‘A safety measure,’ Grandma Flo had said. She didn’t want johns or boyfriends creeping in on the sly, fucking for free. It was those windows that had turned the Desert Rose Ranch into a firetrap. The gauzy hot-pink drapery ignited like dry summer grass. Turned the Ranch into a hellish inferno.”

“But you got out,” Mick heard Sarah say, her voice bringing him back to the present, to the feel of the desert air moving across his face.

“Yeah. I got out.”

“How?”