My gaze fell to the floor and all those disgusting boxes of frozen peas. I’d tossed them out of the freezer, not caring where they’d landed, but some of them had stacked up together, almost like . . .

Bricks.

Once again, I flashed back to that night with Fletcher and how we’d taken refuge in those metal barrels as the warehouse had exploded around and then collapsed down on top of us. I didn’t have a barrel, but in this case I had something better—frozen peas.

I knew what I had to do now.

Time was running out, so I yanked the neck of my bloody T-shirt up over my mouth and nose, blocking out the billowing clouds of smoke as best I could, as I went around to all three of the freezers, throwing the tops open, reaching inside, and grabbing all the bags of ice and the biggest, thickest boxes of frozen food I could find.

I worked as fast as I could, and then, when the freezers were empty, I dragged all the bags of ice and boxes of food to the very back corner of the restaurant and grabbed my duffel bag from where it had landed.

Then I started building my frozen-food fort.

I stacked the bags of ice around the corner, bringing them in as close and tight to my body as I could, then piled the boxes of frozen food all around me, until I had a makeshift wall that was about three feet high. I sank down behind the wall, sitting on my duffel bag, and pulled my knees up to my chest. Already, the flames had eaten through the double doors, and the eerie, orange-red glow had intensified, as had the heat.

My throat burned from the searing, smoky air, and I coughed and coughed, but there was one more thing I needed to do before I shut myself off from the flames. So I turned to the wall pressing against my back.

The bricks had already started to shriek, scream, and shudder from the fire racing through the restaurant, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d be screaming in the same sort of agony before this was all over with. But I couldn’t let myself think about that, so I made my body as small and comfortable as possible, then reached out and put a hand on a single brick, right at the level of my nose and mouth. With a small trickle of power I loosened the brick from the gray mortar and wiggled it out of the wall. I doubted that anyone outside could hear the movements, but the steady scrape-scrape-scrape of the stone sliding free sounded as loud as a drum to me, beating out the fact that I was still alive.

I pried the brick loose, set it aside, and peered out the small, narrow opening. The back of a Dumpster stood in front of me, its dull, gray metal hull blocking my view of the alley and anyone who might be lurking in the corridor. I was so desperate for oxygen that I couldn’t even force myself to wait a few seconds to see if someone was coming to investigate the noise. Instead, I shoved my nose up to the opening and sucked down gulp after gulp of air. It was foul stuff, reeking of the empty beer cans, cigarette butts, and bags of fast food that had long ago spoiled in the Dumpster, but some of the fog cleared from my mind.

So I breathed in all the fresh air I could and listened. Above the crackling flames, I could hear sharp, excited murmurs echoing back and forth through the alley, although the gunshots had stopped. The cops were still stationed out there, waiting for me to stumble outside and die. Even if they weren’t in Madeline’s pocket, they’d want revenge for my supposedly killing Dobson, and they’d be all too happy to empty their guns into me until I was dead.

BOOM!

Something exploded inside the storefront, the flames spewing all the way back here and cranking up the heat that much more. I sucked in another lungful of air, then turned back to face my makeshift fort.

There were so many bags of ice and boxes of food that they hadn’t started to melt yet, but it was only a matter of time before they did. So I reached out with both hands and touched the closest one—another box of frozen peas—then focused on my Ice magic, on all that cold, cold power buried deep inside me. I concentrated, and silver lights flared in both my palms, centered in my spider rune scars. I drew in a shallow breath, not wanting to inhale too much more smoke, then unleashed my magic.

I sent my power racing through all the bags and boxes stacked around me, filling in all the cracks and crevices between them with my elemental Ice. Slowly, the cold crystals of my power began to spread, until I’d sealed all the bags and boxes into a solid, frozen mass around me. But that wasn’t going to be enough to save me from the fire, so I pushed out another wave of Ice, making the crystals spread out from the top of my frozen-food fort and the brick walls all around me at the same time.

It was difficult, especially with the smoke washing over me and the flames creeping closer and closer, but I forced the Ice out in wave after frosty wave, until all the separate sheets met directly over my head, completely sealing me off from the fire, and creating the crudest sort of igloo.

But I didn’t stop there. I might be walled off from the fire, but the flames still flickered outside my crystal cage, casting bright, twisting glows in all directions, as though I were staring into the center of a lit candle. Before long the fire would wash over my igloo, cooking the food and me too if I wasn’t careful, so I poured all my strength, all my energy, all my power, into making all those sheets and layers and wedges of Ice as thick and cold and hard and solid as I could.

I didn’t know how long I did that. It seemed like hours, but it couldn’t have been more than a minute, two tops. But all too soon, I exhausted what magic I had, and I slumped back against the wall. This was the choice I’d made, for better or worse, and now all I could do was hope that I’d been clever and strong enough to save myself.

Otherwise, I would soon burn to death, just as my mother and sister had before me, and die in the Pork Pit, just as Fletcher had before me.

So with my frozen-food fort complete, and my magic gone, I put my nose and mouth up against my breathing hole, closed my eyes, and waited for the flames to come.

*  *  *

There was nothing to do but keep breathing, hoping that every lungful of foul, disgusting, garbage-scented air I drew in wouldn’t be my last. I didn’t know if it was the smoke or my exhaustion, but I found myself thinking back to the fight at the warehouse all those years ago. I didn’t think that I was dreaming, but I fell into the memories all the same. . . .

We’d gone from being in trouble to being buried alive.

I didn’t know how long the explosions had ripped through the building. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, but the concussive boom-boom-booms seemed as though they would never end. Just like my joyride inside the barrel, which rocked and rattled like a roller coaster as it was pushed every which way by the force of the explosions. All I could do was brace my arms and legs against the inside of the container and hope that it would soon be over.