Up In Flames (Monsters in Uniform #4)

CHAPTER 1

Nina

Cool. I’m about to find out if it’s possible to die of mortification. Lots of people die in shame-inducing ways, my own father included, but not too many can say they actually kick the proverbial because of humiliation.

Guess I’m an overachiever.

I clutch the tree trunk harder and close my eyes as my heart threatens to beat through my chest. The bark digs into my skin, leaving divots, but I’m not about to let go. Heights are fearsome to begin with. Plus, if I move the wrong way, I’m going to give anyone passing by a show.

This is so not the high I wanted to go out on, though, to be fair, I have been trying to find a way into the Global Records books ever since Missy Gray snuck over her sister’s copy in the sixth grade.

We pored over feats of daring and stupidity, trying to think up ways to get our names typed in one day.

Turns out, I’m going to be listed as the first overly-plump writer to die of embarrassment while stuck in a tree with her bare-naked coochie waving at the world through the extra-large tear in her jeans.

Whatever. Could have been named “poet of the century” or “literary wonder of the modern world.” But “most idiotic stunt of the millennium” has a nice ring, too.

Moral for the day, Nina: be more specific with your goals.

I shift on the branch and try to ignore the centuries-high drop beneath me.

Mr. Mittens, uncaring that he’s responsible for the position in which I find myself, extends his leg on a spindly branch next to me so that he can give it a few licks.

His claws rake my fabric-covered thigh as he scrunches his foot in pleasure.

“This is all your fault,” I mutter as I clutch onto the trunk in front of me even tighter.

Though, maybe not. My father died while pottying.

Could just be a family curse to go out in humiliating circumstances.

After he’d been in the bathroom for an hour, my mother insisted we kick open the door since the 1950s lock refused to open for the skeleton key kept hidden on top of the frame.

When the door hit my dad, presumably in the knees, the reverberation knocked him off the toilet.

And, yes, our first sight of his corpse was his bare ass.

See? Things can always be worse. Half your ass is still covered.

My inner voice is demented one hundred percent of the time, but it’s also right. I could be a corpse and fully naked, not just indecent and ready, willing, and able to die to avoid whatever comes next.

“Hey, look, is that Miss Adams? Hi, Miss Adams. Whatcha’ doin’?”

“Hey, Nicholas,” I call down to my neighbor’s nine-year-old bundle of noise and dirt, shifting so the worst of the rip is hopefully covered by the branch I’m perched on. “Do me a favor, sweetie? Can you ask your mom to come out for a second? And bring her cell phone?”

I’ve left mine in my bedroom. When Mr. Mittens jumped from the window I’d opened to air out the bedroom, something I like to do at least once a week, I panicked.

I mean, Mr. Mittens might be a cat, and he might have nine lives, but he’s also been known to fall on his head from the top of the bookshelf in the living room. Weekly. Not all cats are graceful.

Which explains why, when he jumped out the window, I leapt right after him, not a thought about personal safety in my pretty little head.

I didn’t consider that the thin branch would better carry his small weight than my own full-figure splendor, but once it bowed under me and screamed, I quickly scrambled toward the trunk.

And here I am. I can’t jump back into the window because the branch will break, plunging me to my death.

And I can’t climb down because the jump out the window ripped open a huge flap in the center of my obviously too-tight jeans.

Seriously. Texas could fit into the tear.

“Okay.” Nicholas scampers off. I watch his tawny hair and thin body scoot back to his home. I hope he doesn’t forget his mission in favor of picking up a slug or something.

“This is a pretty pickle,” I tell Mr. Mittens.

“If I weren’t so afraid of landing ass-up, I’d jump.

Well, I’d jump if someone could lay out a nice bouncy house floor beneath me.

Maybe.” Though I’m not sure, because I’m sort of, kind of, terrified of heights a lot more than I ever admit, even to myself.

Unlatching my hands from the trunk probably isn’t happening.

The cat yawns and extends his other leg for a wash.

My arms tremble from trying to hold on. I’m not used to using my arm muscles.

Or any muscles, really. I mean, I’m sure I’ve been given them for a reason, but I’ve never needed to put them into action.

Maybe I should have gone to the gym more often?

If I live through this, I’ll get a membership.

Memberships count, right? I mean, I don’t actually have to work out once I pay, I’m sure.

Come on, Mari. What’s taking her so long?

I close my eyes and try to picture rainbows, bouquets of pink roses, a sunset beach on the lake…

and end up thinking about my unpaid car payment and rent.

I’ve already spent my advance on cover art and editing for the next novel in my series.

At this rate, I’m going to have to get a real job in order to afford working at my dream job.

Ugh. And now maybe hospital bills, too. I don’t know how far I perch above the ground because I can’t measure anything worth a damn on the best day, but I’m pretty sure I’ll break my legs if I try to scramble from branch level to the earth.

That would really suck since the only thing I’m qualified to do other than write dark vampire romance—usually—is to waitress at the café, an activity which would most definitely require the use of both my legs.

“Hey, Nina. What on earth are you doing up there?”

“Oh, just having a good think about my misspent adulthood,” I call back to my neighbor, who’s finally arrived.

Mari isn’t known for moving fast. She’s a sylph of elegant grace who just sort of floats from place to place.

Strangely, though, the dark-haired siren is the most dependable, organized, and efficient person I know.

“Interesting place to do it. You could have just come over for a glass of wine. We could have talked it out. Still could,” she says carefully, as if she’s afraid that maybe I climbed out onto the branch in order to save myself from future car payments and real employment.

“I’m not trying to do away with myself. I followed Mr. Mittens when he jumped out the window. You know how he is.”

“Is that Mr. Mittens?” She squints up through the leaves. “Hey, baby boy. How’d he get through the window?”

“I was airing out my bedroom.”

“Didn’t you secure him first? You know what he’s like.”

Great. Judgment. Just what I need.

I grit my teeth. “Of course I secured him. I put him outside the room before I cleaned, just like I always do. I don’t know how he got back in.”

“I told you not to take out those old screens.”

“They were rusty and gross. I couldn’t stand them another minute. Look, can you just call someone to get me down? I’m stuck.”

“Yeah, and half your ass is hanging out of your jeans. Good thing the branch covers the most important parts of you. Didn’t your mama teach you never to go bareback in case you have to go to the hospital?”

That’s Mari. Always focusing on the thing I don’t want to think about.

“Mar, so help me…”

“Yeah, yeah. I got this. Keep your shorts on.” And she bursts out laughing at her unintended joke.

She’s still laughing as she connects to what I guess is emergency services on her cell, because she spills out her address and tells them about her neighbor up the tree.

“And Mr. Mittens is up there, too. He’s the one who should be rescued first, since Nina has better balance.

I’ve never met such a clumsy cat. If someone doesn’t get to him soon, he’ll splatter on the pavement.

The tree is right by the sidewalk. Can’t miss it. ”

It is, too. And—shit—there’s a crowd forming all along the concrete pathway. And cars—they’re pulling to the curb of the sleepy, barely two-way-wide street. Everyone wants to see what Mari and Nicholas are looking up at.

Great. Because I wasn’t embarrassed enough. Maybe I’ll be featured in the Global Records book as being the only overly-plump writer to die twice of mortification while perched in a tree with her ass hanging out.

Yay for me. See? Overachiever all the way.

“Five minutes,” Mari says. “They’re sending over a couple of firemen with a ladder. You’re in luck. The squad’s doing exercises in Regent’s Park. Full uniform and everything.”

Regent’s Park is just around the corner.

It’s a wide swathe of green lawn and walking paths, a duck pond, and jungle gyms. There are pedal boats that people can rent by the hour, and a refreshment stand, too.

The Mossburg Fire Department, or MFD to the locals, spends a lot of its time putting out grease fires inside the stand since the refreshment franchise only hires high school kids who don’t know the first thing about either safety or cooking.

But that’s pretty typical in Mossburg, North Carolina. We’re all about teaching the young to fish rather than giving them a trout or two. It makes for great adults—eventually—but it’s hard as hell on the current crop of already-grown citizens.

A sudden snapping sound gets my attention. There’s a guy with glasses and a combover holding an old-fashioned camera that shoots real film.

“Hey! Quit it, Dale!” I yell. “Mari!”

“On it. Hey, Dale, you hand over that roll right now, or I’ll shove it down your throat, you feel me?

” Mari ploughs her way through the crowd toward the Mossburg Gazette’s finest, and only, photojournalist, but he just takes off at a run.

I watch him disappear down the street of small Victorians and cottages.