The Burning Side

Chapter 2

APRIL

The Morning After the Fire

BEFORE OPENING MY EYES, I can—incredibly—smell Juniper Breeze from my high school summer job at Bath I’m a married woman.

No, Leo, I won’t marry you. Run.

But I nod and follow him to the car.

After the roar of the fire and the hubbub of my parents’ house, the silence is earsplitting as we wind our way down Farm to Market Road 407, the city fading behind us.