Read Fire for Free Online Page B

shouldn’t have been admitted to the nightclub in the first place.
    ‘You should’ve seen Wille—’ Lucky goes on, but Jonte interrupts him.
    ‘Shut it.’
    It silences Lucky instantly. He starts fiddling with a new joint.
    ‘Nessa …’ Wille says, putting his head to the side in an attempt to look cute and succeeding very nicely. ‘Why don’t you want to party with us?’
    ‘Because tonight, I turn into a superhero with a secret mission,’ she tells him gravely. ‘Sooo sorry.’
    Wille just laughs, oblivious to any subtexts.
    Vanessa catches Jonte watching her with his dark, intensive eyes. At times, she feels that he knows too much about what is going on. Or, at least, that he’s somehow more aware than he should be.
    The ugly cuckoo clock starts calling the hour. Vanessa has to leave.
    ‘You’re so lovely,’ Wille says. ‘Out-of-this-world lovely. You know that, don’t you? The best fiancée a man could hope for. The best in the entire world. Too good for me.’
    Vanessa looks at him. Maybe his unruly blonde hair needs a cut, but Vanessa fancies the way he looks. She kisses him before getting up from the sofa, a lingering kiss.
    ‘I’m off home now,’ she says and turns to Jonte. ‘OK if I borrow your bike?’
    He nods, tugs at his cap. Jonte can’t refuse her anything. Vanessa knows too much about him. Things that he wants to stay secret and fears that she will give away to Wille. Like: Jonte has slept with Linnéa, Wille’s ex. And Linnéa pocketed Jonte’s handgun. And that was the gun found this winter in the dining area, next to Max.
    Vanessa zooms along the road with soft air rushing past her bare legs. It feels good but is nowhere near enough to cool her. Most of all, she’d like to lie down in a deep freeze, hands crossed on her breast, like a vampire in a coffin.
    The bike is just as useless as its owner. The handlebars are wonky and pull to the left, and the whole thing rattles alarmingly at the slightest hole in the road. Vanessa is positive she hears lots of little tinkling noises, as if she’s leaving a trail of lost bits like screws and nuts.
    The white, rendered stone wall around the cemetery glows spookily in the strong moonlight. The others are already there, waiting by the gate.
    They all look tense.
    Vanessa, on the other hand, feels almost relieved. At last, something is happening. They will have something to worry about, other than when the demons will strike next.
    The bike bumps on something and wobbles. Vanessa is nearly catapulted off before she manages to swing it roundand skid to a halt in front of the others. Fucking bike from hell! She kicks it as she jumps off. She feels a sharp pain in her big toe and swears some more under her breath.
    Vanessa doesn’t even have to look at Linnéa to know that she’s grinning. She longs achingly for the old days when she would have shared the joke with her.
    Linnéa has promised them that she no longer reads their thoughts. Explained that she only kept her power a secret because she didn’t want them to be scared of her. But nothing she can say will ever heal the wound. Vanessa now questions every good moment they have spent together. Did Linnéa read her mind all the time? Was that why she always seemed to know what to say? After the dining-area fight against Max the two of them had become so close. Or had their friendship started even earlier?
    Vanessa often thinks of the Saturday night when she had turned up in Linnéa’s flat. They had been laughing together at everything sick and bizarre that had happened in their lives. She only realised how much that memory meant when it was ruined for her.
    At first, she had been furious with Linnéa and that made ignoring her much easier. Later, it became harder and harder. Vanessa is amazed at how much she misses her. But as soon as she considers forgiving her, what Linnéa did comes back to her and the old anger erupts again.
    It’s all so totally awful. To be without Linnéa is as