#tw:attempted arson

[georgia-jereau]

Not Again.

The day had been a long one. The drive back from New Orleans wasn’t difficult, but Georgia felt drained from a day spent in meetings. It was a good kind of drained, though; the kind that came from feeling like you accomplished something. She was fully content just to change into something cozy and relax for a while. Her heels clicked on the wooden stairs as she went, echoing against the bare, white walls of the foyer. In a matter of minutes, Georgia was stretched out on her bed, wearing yoga pants and her favorite cream, cashmere sweater; with a book in her hands and her wireless headphones in. Her feet were bare, and she glanced over the top of the book for a moment, wondering if she should switch from her signature dark red nails to something else, but she never did. With a small sigh, she went back to trying to read her book, for what was going to be the third night in a row. It was some trashy romance novel, and she’d picked it up telling herself it was somewhere between a pleasure read and work research. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d skimmed a trashy paperback for a good scene idea for the studio. The main heartthrob of the novel was a thief, and try as she might, Georgia couldn’t help thinking about Mal. Putting the book down beside her she stared at her hand, her eyes lingering on his initial tattooed on her finger.

She remembered getting it- Wandering into a tattoo parlor on the strip, a little tipsy but so sure that even if she got angry enough to throw the ring in his face, or into the desert, that she wanted to be his wife. Jewelry or no jewelry. Mal was the family she had chosen. Standing up now, she walks across the room to her vanity, opening her jewelry box and pulling out her wedding ring. Georgia sank onto the small, vanity stool and stared at the small circle of metal in her hand. She’d taken it off after Rosie’s memorial service, not seeing the point in wearing it. The promises behind it felt hollow, the memories tarnished by the fire and their little girl’s death. Still, Georgia knew, in her heart, that Mal would sooner have stood in that house and burned to death willingly, if he thought it would have saved their daughter. She gently slipped the ring onto her finger and closed her eyes tightly. The memories all felt jumbled inside of her now. In her mind she could still remember first laying eyes on Mal, the way her stomach had flipped and her pulse had raced. Tangled with all of her memories of the good, were the bad. Sometimes she felt like she was still there on the front lawn, confused and struggling to breathe, coming to the realization that there was a fire roaring around her and her husband was screaming, begging for her to be alive. She could smell gasoline-

She could smell gasoline.

Her eyes snapped open. This wasn’t some night terror that she needed pills and wine to get through. Georgia could smell fumes, faint, but definitely there. She pulled her headphones out and gently laid them down, straining to hear anything at all. Anything that was out of place. She heard footsteps, and the slosh of liquid in what was supposed to be her empty house. Hadn’t she locked the front door? She always locked it. Had someone been here when she walked in? Had someone been waiting for her to get home? Adrenaline began to pump steadily into her body, her jaw tightening as she tried to quickly pull herself together. Fuck her phone. Who could she call, the cops? Seth? The auto shop? Even if she did call for help, there was no way of telling if they’d get here before whoever was downstairs either finished what they were doing or came for her. No, she was going to have to handle this. Georgia slipped the phone into her pocket. There was no way she was going to let this happen, not again. Quietly as she could, she moved to her bedside table where she had dropped her purse, pulling out her gun, momentarily grateful for the paranoia that had made her keep it on her at all times. 

She stood there for a moment, frozen in her bedroom with her heart racing, wondering with every impossibly long second if she was going to hear the roar of a lit fire again. She hadn’t experienced this the last time. Rosie had been up for three nights with a cough and a low fever and Georgia had been staying up with her, too pissed off at Mal to let him help much. She had been so grateful when the little girl had fallen asleep without too much fuss, snuggled in her crib wearing pale yellow pajamas with tiny white elephants on them. Georgia had stayed there over her crib, humming and rubbing the top of Rosie’s head gently until her little chest rose and fell in a regular rhythm. When Georgia finally dragged herself to her own bedroom down the hall, she hadn’t even gotten under the covers. She’d simply laid down and shut her eyes before falling asleep. When she’d woken up, she had barely been able to breathe, her chest tight from smoke and soot. Mal had been screaming, maybe crying, it was a blur. Her mind had tried to process too much too quickly. The house on fire, her and Mal on the front lawn, the sound of sirens approaching. No Rosie. Georgia walked to her closet and reached her free hand onto one of the top shelves and quietly pulled down the small, sealed box with a rose embossed on the lid. If this place goes up in flames, there’s no way in hell she’s leaving what’s left of her daughter inside. Not again. Not now that she had a choice. 

With one arm hugging the box of ashes close to her chest, she began to move. The hand with the gun was pointed straight out as Georgia made her way down the hallway, moving slowly and her eyes wide, like it might help her spot the barest hint of movement and give her an edge of some kind. When she heard the sound of glass breaking she very nearly screamed. Instead she froze at the top of the stairs, listening as whoever was in her house began breaking what she could only guess was her bottles of liquor and wine. There was no way for her to know how many people were in here. Taking the stairs quietly, she kept listening. There was no talking, or laughter that she could hear, but the sound of movement was becoming clearer. One set of footsteps crunching through broken glass was her best guess, and she hoped she was right. Very gently, she put down Rosie’s ashes on the table by the front door. With both hands now wrapped around the gun, she moved carefully. The smell of gasoline was making her nauseous and the floor was wet under her feet. If she slipped and fell she was fucked. Just as she made her way towards the living room, she saw the back of his head, dark hair shaved close on the sides with a mop of it on top. He was wearing a cut she didn’t recognize and that’s when she realized what was going on. The Rogues were making another move.

“Turn around or I’ll shoot.” Georgia snapped, relieved her voice wasn’t shaking even though her throat was tight with fear. The man raised his arms and turned slowly, looking more annoyed than frightened which pissed her off. His eyes were a pretty blue, but too bright like he was on something or just really enjoying himself, and he had freckles across pale skin. There was some kind of ink on his neck, and it looked like a pitchfork with flames but that didn’t mean anything to her. He looked young and that made her more nervous than anything else. In her experience, young meant reckless. “The fuck are you doin’ in my house?” she asked, her accent more pronounced as her focus was set on what was directly in front of her. She could see what he was doing, the question was why her house. Did he know about her? Was he sent here to just burn the house to send a message or to kill her? She couldn’t risk assuming that he hadn’t known she was upstairs. 

“Put the gun down, sweetheart. You’re not gonna shoot me.” he said, taking a step forward. This wasn’t a fucking game. This wasn’t a joke, or a scare or something that he could charm his way out of. What happened if he rushed her? The floor was covered in broken glass, gasoline and spilled liquor and she wouldn’t be able to fight him off. Georgia squeezed the trigger and the bullet hit the sliding glass door over his shoulder, the glass shattering onto the floor. The man jumped and his eyes widened and Georgia wanted to smile, glad that he realized she wasn’t fucking around, but she was still too frightened. 

“I’m not your fuckin’ sweetheart, and you wouldn’t be the first prick I’ve shot.” she said, and she meant to shout but her voice just came out rough and angry, too constricted to give her any real volume. The man looked at her and then glanced over his shoulder, towards the now broken door that led to her patio and yard. “Don’t even think-” she began, but he did. The man bolted for the doors and Georgia fired again. It must have grazed him because blood hit the floor, but he kept moving. The would-be arsonist jumped through the empty door frame and began running. Georgia moved quick, adrenaline pumping so hard she was only distantly aware of the glass underfoot. He was running across the patio and then down to the open gate. She got to the patio and fired the gun one, two three more times as he ran. There was a grunt and he stumbled a bit, but he didn’t stop running. Georgia turned, trying to get to the front door, to see where he had gone. She couldn’t just let him get away. If he was alive that meant he could come back, possibly with more people. Too much was going through her mind and her body was demanding she defend herself. Kill or be killed. There was too much glass, blood and gasoline on the floor beneath her, and as she reached the front foyer she slipped, falling hard on her hip. There was a crack as she landed on her phone and the gun went off again as her elbow hit the ground, a bullet lodging in the hall closet door. Pulling herself up, wincing, she flung open the front door just in time to hear a distant revving of a bike coming to life. “I will fucking kill you!” she shouted after him, though her lip was trembling and her voice shook with emotion and adrenaline. “You come back here and I will fucking BURY YOU, motherfucker!” she shouted, tears biting at her eyes. 

Georgia stood there for a moment, staring and looking around, wondering if more were going to show up or if that asshole was going to come back. The adrenaline began to wear off and she lowered herself onto her front steps, wincing as she took pressure off her feet, bloody and embedded with bits of glass. Her cream sweater had blood and gasoline all over it and her hip was throbbing. As her body began to come down from it’s fight or flight, her body began to shake and she had put the gun down carefully beside her before pulling out her phone, the screen cracked but luckily still usable. She scrolled and punched a button to dial, raising the phone to her ear with one hand while the other began to pick glass out of her feet. The blood that dripped onto her white wooden steps matched her nail polish. The usually cool brunette sniffed a bit and tried to calm herself before speaking as the person on the other end finally picked up.

“Hey, it’s Georgia.” she said, trying to sound more together than she felt. “Something’s happened. I need some help.”