Austin looked me up and down, told Ronna and Mike we would reschedule, and jammed me into his car to go home. I kept trying to call Pixie and her phone unfailingly went to voicemail every time.
My stress had even spread to Austin. “Should we call someone to check on her? Is your dad around?”
I shook my head. “Nah. I mean, he might, but he won’t be in any shape to help. I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe she took a nap?”
Austin adjusted his rearview mirror and accelerated a little more, going over the speed limit.
“She’s not really a nap kind of person.” He changed lanes to go around a slower driver.
“Yeah. I don’t know. I feel like she wasn’t telling me something. And we just tell each other everything, you know?”
“I know. I hear you two chatting every damn night.” He was trying to lighten the mood, but all I could do was tap my fingers on the dashboard and redial Pixie’s number.
By the time we got to the apartment, I didn’t have to tell Austin to leave me at the door of our place. He just did it.
A text pinged through. It was from Pixie.
I need you to come home.
I heard the sirens getting closer and closer. I took the stairs three at a time and the key slipped out of my hands twice in my haste. I flung open the door and it bounced against the wall. I could see the fire across the way immediately. I sprinted to the window in time to see Pixie’s panicked face outside the window.
I had her arm before I knew my hand had moved. My insane reflexes that got me so much basketball attention had now reacted before my mind was even in gear.
I grabbed her wrist with my other hand as her body weight swung me over the window. My hips slammed into the sill as I struggled. My hands felt slippery. I was the only thing keeping her from falling to her death. I ignored the giant movement behind her and registered the noise of something hitting the pavement, but my focus was Pixie.
She wasn’t talking, just trying to find something to get a grip on with her feet. I knew I wasn’t going to let her go. If I felt like she was slipping, I was going with her. Headfirst.
I felt a strong set of hands on my shoulders. “What? What can I do?”
“Help me grab her!”
Austin was there. He wiggled his upper body through the window and reached down. I pulled on Pixie to bring her a little closer, because actually Austin’s arm span wasn’t as long as mine. Once he had a grip on Pixie’s hands, too, we pulled together. I saw her scraping her knee on the wall, but it didn’t matter. We pulled her into the window as the few onlookers clapped.
She fell on top of me. I wrapped my arms around her. Both our hearts were hammering. Austin hugged us both as well.
“What the ever-living shit went on here?”
“He didn’t get you. I’m here. I’m here. He didn’t get you.”
Pixie hugged us both back and nodded with me. Whatever she’d done to get on that ramp had terrified her. I eased her off of me. “Does anything hurt? Your shoulders? Your arms? Your knee is bleeding.”
Austin sat up. “I’ll get us the first aid stuff.”
“I’m okay. I’m okay.” Pixie took my help to stand as we checked to make sure everything was actually working.
She touched my arm. “I scratched you. I’m so sorry.”
I pulled her into a hug. A few seconds into it I heard a high-pitched meow.
Pixie pulled away from me and carefully swung her knapsack around to the front. She opened the zipper like a bomb had been in it. Instead, a little striped kitten was the source of all the careful attention and the noise.
“He’s okay. I’m okay. Is Bic…” She surveyed the open window. There were reflections from the lights of the emergency responders bouncing off of it.
I peered over the sill, holding out an arm to Pixie to keep her from seeing the wreckage below. Bic had hit hard, possibly headfirst.
“He’s not going to hurt you ever again.”
PIXIE
The sound of a man’s body hitting the pavement five stories below shouldn’t be in a love story. We never did anything the right way—he and I.
The fire painted Gaze’s face with an orange glow. I didn’t want to look to see what had happened, so he did. I watched as his childhood dripped off of him like perspiration.
His jaw tightened as he clenched his fists. I watched as he mouthed something to the form below.
I swallowed my own childhood as I made way for my next words, “Is he dead?”
“Yeah.” He spat from the window, and I would bet my life that he’d hit his mark below. He was great at spitting. “Too fast for him. Too easy for him.”
I leaned toward the window, all of a sudden compelled to see.
He turned and blocked the open window, grasping my shoulders. “Nah. You don’t get to carry that image in your head. I’ll do it for both of us.”
I moved closer to the window, which was also incidentally into his arms. He was an amazing hugger.
“Maybe I should be crying? Am I doing this right?” I bet I was in shock.
He petted my head from the crown to the middle of my back. “You can cry if you want.”
He wouldn’t judge me. Never had. Never would.
“We just murdered a man.”
And then the truth flowed from me, like it always seemed to with him. He was like speaking to my own reflection. Things were only between the two of us. “No. He deserved it.”
He got me. He knew what I was asking. I wanted a trophy of this monster’s death. Deserved it. God help me, I’d earned it.
I hugged him again and listened to his heartbeat as the building next to his sizzled and burned. The beat was steady despite the burden it carried.
I hoped we only had to share this one death.
_______________
There’s a specific set of rules that must be followed when a man dies. Questioning police come around. I answered the door both times they came knocking.
No one mentioned me inching across the platform or the fact that Bic followed me and that led to his death. The neighbors were good at keeping information to themselves.
The conversation with the officer was pretty predictable until Officer Clarke wanted to know about the ramp between the buildings.
“The downstairs neighbor said he saw you going back-and-forth across a ramp when you were kids, and I couldn’t help but notice the remains of what appeared to be one piece of a car tow ramp on the ground below. Know anything about that?”
Gaze had a quicker response than I did.
“We used to have a plank to toss the ball back-and-forth when we were little. I did have to go out on it once to save a bird, so that’s probably what old Frankie was thinking about.” Gaze ran his hand through his hair and then gave me a look.
I knew he was trying to protect me. My old apartment was hollowed out, the ash a giant gaping hole in the building next door. The firefighters had to use tons of water to get the fire under control. I saw residents looking out of their windows a few floors below, so I knew the whole building wasn’t still outside milling in the parking lot. I felt guilty about the fire, but I still couldn’t come up with a better idea, even now with the luxury of time and a clear head.
Austin came up next to me and put his arm around my waist. I leaned my head against his shoulder.