Chapter Thirty-Eight
CHARLIE
My phone was vibrating somewhere beneath me. Or maybe it was inside my skull—hard to tell with the hangover roaring through my temples like a freight train.
I groaned, blindly groping for it among the crumpled throw blanket and empty water glass beside the couch. The screen lit up, too bright for my burning eyes. I squinted, swiped up with a shaky thumb, and there it was.
TALLY: Happy New Year.
From her.
For a second, I thought maybe it was the whiskey from the night before staging its final act. But no—my heart was pounding, hard and fast and splintering in my chest.
She’d thought of me.
And I was still thinking of her. Always.
My thumb hovered over the screen, ready to fire off something back—anything, even a dumb joke to keep the thread alive—when the phone buzzed again. Same number. Not her.
I frowned, rubbed the heel of my hand into my eye socket, the hangover grit of sleep and whiskey dragging at me. Then I answered. “Yeah?” My voice came out wrecked, rough with more than sleep.
“Charlie—hey, it’s Taylor. From the shop across from O’Malley’s. I’ve been trying to reach you—”
Something in her tone pulled me upright. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s a fire,” she said, breath ragged. “At the bar. It’s bad. The street’s full of smoke, man. You need to get down here.”
For a second, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Then the words hit, and I was already scrambling—feet on the floor, searching for shoes, keys, anything.
“O’Malley’s?” My voice cracked on the name.
“They think it started in the back. I don’t know how bad it is yet, but the fire trucks are on the way. Just—hurry.”
She hung up, and I ran to my truck, fumbling to get the keys in the ignition, my whole body shaking while I tried to process what was happening with the ever-spinning, ever-tilting world around me.
The sirens were already wailing down Whitaker by the time I skidded onto the block, tires squealing as I threw the truck into park in the middle of the street. I spotted it before anything else—the smoke, thick and choking, curling up from behind the bar and catching in the glow of sirens.
But I didn’t stop to gawk because Magnolia was up there, somewhere.
I bolted across the sidewalk, heart pounding harder than it had all night, and shouldered the bar door open with a crack, my keys still stuck in the ignition of the truck.
I didn’t have time to go back. Every second counted as I finally beat the old, crooked door open, the bell giving one sad jingle as it tumbled to the ground with a shimmering crash.
“Mags!” I bellowed. “Magnolia!”
Flames hadn’t reached the main barroom yet, but smoke was crawling along the ceiling like something alive.
I barely registered the overturned stools, the flicker of Christmas lights still blinking along the back shelves.
There were still empty glasses and shrapnel from the party that night, napkins and paper confetti still peppered across every surface.
I ran, legs moving on instinct, straight through the barroom and toward the back stairwell. The metal handle of the door scorched my palm, but I didn’t stop. I shoved it open and took the stairs three at a time, yelling her name again.
“Mags! Answer me!”
The apartment door gave way with a single hard kick. I tore through the rooms, coughing through the haze, checking every corner, every closet, behind the damn shower curtain. “Magnolia!” My voice cracked. “Come on, dammit—”
She wasn’t there.
She had to be downstairs. In the office. Or the green room. Maybe she’d fallen asleep on the couch again after another one of those too-late nights. Maybe—
I didn’t let myself finish the thought.
I raced back down the stairs, two at a time, but pulled up short when I saw a small, trembling ball of fur in the corner landing of the stairwell.
“Jesus,” I whimpered.
Pickle. My sister’s savage, asshole cat was wide-eyed and silent for the first time in her chaos-fueled existence, her matted tail curled tight to her body.
I crouched and scooped her up, and for once in her feral, hellcat life, she didn’t claw my face off. She pressed her tiny body against my chest and let out the saddest, tiniest meow I’d ever heard.
“Good girl,” I said, my voice barely there.
Then I ran again.
The fire had already overtaken the back rooms by the time I stumbled out of the stairwell and into the barroom again, Pickle still pressed to my chest. The smoke was thick now, black and choking.
I could barely see through it, but I staggered forward anyway, hand outstretched toward the greenroom door.
It wouldn’t budge.
The heat behind it was unbearable. The second my hand closed around the knob, the heat lashed up my arm, and I recoiled, eyes burning, lungs heaving.
“Mags!” I tried again, slamming my shoulder into the door.
Nothing.
Panic tore through me like the flames eating through our walls.
I turned toward the office—managed to shove the door open enough to see that it was already gone.
Flames clawed up the walls like a demon out of hell.
The couch was ablaze. The metal desk was the only thing left standing. If she were in there—
No.
I backed out, Pickle whimpering against my chest, her body shaking like mine. I had to get her out. I could drop her off outside and go back in. I’d find my sister. I’d drag her out if I had to. I’d—
Something caught my eye through the smoke.
The portrait. The one I made for her. Moments and memories, tangled and vivid, spilling across the surface like the past come to life. It had fallen off the wall, resting on its side beneath the flickering light of a melted sconce.
I grabbed it on instinct, dragging it behind me as I stumbled through the dark, coughing, the smoke screaming in my ears and in my lungs.
The front door was still lying on its side, and I stumbled over it.
The cold air hit me like a slap, and I ran, depositing Pickle into the bed of my truck with the softest apology I’d ever whispered in my life, begging her not to move or run away.
She blinked up at me, dazed and silent. I propped the painting against the side of the truck like it was the last holy thing in the world.
And I turned to go back in.
But I didn’t make it.
“Sir! Get back!” A firefighter caught me around the chest as I hit the sidewalk.
“No—my sister’s still in there!” I fought, twisted, screamed. “I have to—she’s still—”
“You can’t go in,” another shouted. “The second floor’s collapsing!”
I looked up.
The windows above the bar buckled inward with a groan, and then—crash.
The roof caved. Wood splintered. Smoke roared.
And with it… all of it.
Magnolia.
My sister.
My whole damn world.
I dropped to my knees, hands clutching at my hair, eyes wild. The street tilted under me. My lungs refused to work. My throat tore open on a scream I didn’t even feel coming.
I was alone.
For the first time in my life, I was really, truly alone.
***
I sat in the back of the ambulance, the scratchy wool blanket doing nothing to stop the shaking.
Pickle was pressed against my chest, wrapped up in my hoodie like a burrito of trauma.
Her ears twitched at every siren wail, but she didn’t move otherwise—only blinked up at me, weirdly calm for a creature who normally tried to murder me with her bare claws.
“Who would’ve thought, huh?” My voice broke. I swiped at my face with the back of my hand, snot and ash and tears smeared across my skin. “In the end, it’s just me and you, kid.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out like a sob. My whole body folded inward as I clutched the damn cat tighter. I couldn’t stop crying. Couldn’t stop seeing it—that second floor crashing in. Couldn’t stop hearing the fire roar like it was alive and taking everything I loved with it.
A red blur whizzed past the paramedics, and before I could blink, the screaming started.
“My bar! That’s my bar!” Magnolia’s voice tore through the smoke. “Oh my god—my cat! Please, someone, my cat’s still in there!”
She latched onto the nearest firefighter, shaking his arm like she could drag him inside with her, hair flying every which way, eyes blown wide with panic.
I shot to my feet so fast that Pickle nearly tumbled out of my arms. “Magnolia?”
Her eyes snapped to mine.
She froze.
I froze.
And then we were moving—crashing together halfway like neither of us could stand another second apart. I dropped the cat—she let out a noise of pure betrayal but didn’t budge—and wrapped her up tighter than I’d ever held anyone in my life.
“You’re alive,” I rasped, my face buried in her curls.
“So are you,” she whispered, her voice shredded from smoke and screaming.
“I thought I lost you. I thought I was…” The rest broke apart in my throat.
We clung to each other in the freezing night, smoke still clawing at the sky behind us, the bar smoldering at our backs, the world still on fire—but she was here. And so was I.
Lee came sprinting up from the far side of the block—barefoot, half-dressed, all panic and purpose. His curls were smashed flat on one side, like he’d rolled straight out of bed and hadn’t stopped running since.
His hand found the small of Magnolia’s back the second he reached her, steadying her where she clung to me.
She softened under his touch, her trembling easing as she turned toward him.
For a heartbeat, her eyes lifted to his, and something unspoken passed between them before she folded into his chest.
“Where’s my brother?” he demanded, voice rough.
Before I could answer, Pickle came launching out of nowhere and scrambled up Lee’s bare chest like a feral mountain climber with claws.
“Jesus Christ,” he hissed, catching her awkwardly. “This cat has nine lives and no boundaries.”
He glanced up at me over the cat’s fur, his expression flickering—relief first, then fury, then raw concern. He passed Pickle back into my arms, gentler than I expected.
“Charlie. Where’s Dane? Magnolia said she left him in the office when she…” His voice trailed, eyes snapping back to her before he forced the words out. “Before she came to see me.”
I shook my head, still holding onto Magnolia’s arm like she might slip straight back into the flames if I let go, completely ignoring the bomb he’d just dropped. “I don’t know, Lee. I tried. I tried looking downstairs, but the smoke—it was too thick.”
The words scraped out of my throat like gravel.
My voice cracked again, and this time, I didn’t stop the tears.
“I found Pickle in the stairwell between the bar and the apartment. I thought—” I pulled Magnolia tighter and said, again, “I thought you were dead. I thought I was alone. I thought you left me.”
Magnolia made a broken sound in her throat and hugged me back with everything she had.
Lee stood there, grief and confusion twisting his face, his arms hanging useless at his sides. For once, he had no words, no easy quip—only that haunted look in his eyes that said he understood. We’d all lost something big.
Maybe not each other, but something.
The wind cut sharply across the street, smoke still curling up from the wreckage as the fire crews battled the last of the stubborn flames. The sirens had quieted, but the crackle of ruin still echoed in every corner of my mind.
Eunice and Vance Wilder came rushing up in pajamas and tightly wrapped robes, faces drawn with worry. They didn’t speak at first, only pulled each of us close, as if they could somehow shield us from what we’d already seen.
In hushed tones, Eunice took Magnolia aside, her voice low. Vance did the same with Lee, his hand firm on his son’s shoulder, nodding as if already forming a plan—whether to rebuild the bar, find Dane, or simply figure out how to keep us all standing.
“Y’all come on back to the house,” Vance said after a beat, loud enough for all of us to hear.
I looked to Magnolia, needing her cue. Her eyes were flat, her shoulders slumped, the fight gone out of her. She gave the barest shake of her head.
“All right,” I said. “The fire chief wants to talk to us anyway.”
She didn’t argue as she stared back at the crumbling shell of the bar like she was watching a funeral.
As the Wilders led us to their car, I turned for one last look.
O’Malley’s stood in ruin—smoke curling from the remnants of the collapsed second floor, windows blackened, the old neon sign hanging sideways like it, too, had given up. The whole place looked like the life had been sucked out of it—like it had been sucked out of my sister.
It wasn’t only a bar. It was where my momma was born. This is where I said goodbye to my parents, where I climbed the narrow stairs to that stifling little apartment and tried to piece together a life after everything fell apart.
And now, watching it burn, it felt like everything had fallen apart all over again.
Like maybe the life had been sucked out of me, too.