The Clerk
Copyright© 2026 by R. E. Bounds
Chapter 24: Things Are Fucked Up
“ANNE! SUE!”
I woke with a startle. Hana was curled up next to me, her breathing soft in the darkness, but something—something faint—had stirred me. The kind of sound that teeters on the edge of perception, half-formed in your mind. A whisper that might not even exist ... until it became very real.
A deafening crash ripped through the apartment—something breaking, slamming, shattering.
I sat up, heart hammering.
“ANNE!”
Andrew was there, looming over me, eyes wide, frantic. “Anne, we need to go. NOW!”
He glanced at Hana, who was shaking herself awake. “Where’s SUE?”
“In her bedroom ... she’s in the sack you made her,” I stammered.
Andrew’s hand flashed to his pocket, pulling out a large knife, the metal catching the dim light.
“Andrew—what’s happening?!”
He grabbed me, yanking me upright with a force that made me stumble. “We need to go! Right now! The store—it’s on fire!”
Hana moved the instant she saw Andrew. She was reaching for her gun when she heard him. In one motion, she snatched up her clothes, grabbed something for me, and pulled me toward the living room. Andrew had already vanished into the smoke.
The stench hit us first—acrid, suffocating, choking. Flames were already licking through the apartment door. She crouched down.
It had been splintered at the deadbolt—the noise that had woken me. Andrew had kicked it in.
“ANDREW!” I screamed, coughing as smoke clawed its way into my lungs.
Moments later, he reappeared with Susan, wrapped hastily in a robe, wash cloths clutched in his hands.
“Put these over your noses ... your mouths,” he instructed. Urgency cut through his voice. “We have to move.”
He led us downstairs. The bookstore—a place that had been our life, our sanctuary—was a roaring blaze. Flames hungrily consumed the shelves, curling around stacks of books, devouring everything in their path. Sparks shot upward, falling like fireflies onto the floorboards with sizzling menace.
“Stay against the wall!” Andrew barked as he coughed. The heat pressed in, suffocating, burning my skin before I even reached out to touch it. Thick black smoke coiled into our throats with each shallow breath.
We pressed low, moving as quickly as we could along the wall. Ash floated down like dead snow, embers clung to hair and clothes. The flames hadn’t yet reached the end of the store, but it was only a matter of time.
At last, we reached the store windows at the far end. Andrew grabbed an armchair and hurled it through the glass, shattering it into jagged shards as it smashed onto the sidewalk. One by one, he helped us out: Susan, then me, then Hana.
I turned back just in time to see Hana slipping back into the inferno, pulling Andrew through. He had collapsed. My chest tightened, fear clawing at my throat, but there was no time to dwell.
Without thinking, I ran to them, grabbing his arms to help. Hana’s muscles strained, sweat and soot streaking her face, but together we heaved him over the jagged glass. Susan joined us, and finally, Andrew tumbled onto the pavement, coughing, but alive.
We didn’t pause. Smoke and heat chased us, licking at our heels as we scrambled across the street. Hearts hammered. Lungs burned. Every step felt like running through a storm, but the only thought in my mind was survival.
Outside, fire trucks roared in, sirens slicing through the night. Flames consumed our world—our home, our bookstore, everything we had built.
Hana crouched beside Andrew, hands on his shoulders, urging him to breathe. Smoke-blackened and trembling, we watched what was left of our lives vanish into the night sky.
She looked up at us, eyes wide with worry. “Are you both okay?”
We nodded, silent, hollowed by shock.
That’s when I saw him—Andrew’s dad. He was standing a little down the road, rigid, calm, a presence that cut through the chaos. A Jeep was up against the sidewalk, tires blown out. A bent light post lay across the pavement. Megan—and one of her friends—was sprawled, trapped in the mess of metal and glass.
Andrew’s dad had a shotgun in his hands, trained on both of them.
A red gas can lay overturned near the Jeep. She had done this.
He looked at me, and in that quiet, controlled nod, he told me everything would be okay. Subtle, almost imperceptible—but it sank deep into my chest, easing a fraction of the panic.
The rest of the night passed in a blur.
The sheriff’s department arrived just moments after fire rescue. I watched as Megan and her friend were handcuffed, treated briefly in a nearby ambulance, and then shoved into the back of separate squad cars before being taken away. Andrew had already been rushed to the hospital. Susan went with him and his father, leaving me standing in the aftermath with Hana.
I remember the way she looked at me as they shoved her into the car—a smirk, the satisfaction of someone who believed she had taken everything from Susan and me. Content. Happy, even.
It would be years before I told Susan about it. By then, it no longer mattered. But in that moment, there were no words to describe the hate burning in me.
The EMTs wanted me checked out. Hana would have gone with me—but her place was to protect me, and I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t leave the store. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I couldn’t. I just kept thinking about my aunt. It would’ve broken her heart.
With me staying, Hana walked over to one of the squad cars and pulled a pair of handcuffs from the trunk.
“Things are fucked up,” she said, holding the cuffs out. I lifted my wrists, and she fastened them gently. “The courts should look the other way ... but...” She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to. I could feel her apology in the silence, the discomfort in the way she avoided my eyes. And she was right.
One complaint. One call. That was all it would take. I’d be locked in a cell, no questions asked. It wouldn’t matter that everything I loved was burning to the ground behind me, that I’d barely made it out alive. None of that would matter.
I’d still be put in a cell.
Meanwhile, the fire department fought with relentless speed. They had to. If it had spread, it would have consumed the entire block: neighboring storefronts, apartments above them, everything we loved. SoHo itself could have been gone. Every last bit of it.
We went to the hospital later that night. I finally got checked out—Hana made me. She was sweet, but forceful. I got the do it or else look—the kind of look a spouse gives you when they’ve had enough. The kind of look you didn’t argue back about—you just did it.
Andrew was okay—mostly smoke inhalation. He also needed a few stitches from the glass that cut him as we pulled him through the window, across his forearms and along his stomach.
I sat on his bed whispering that I loved him, when his dad walked in. Andrew was being discharged; he was taking him home.
He told me that Susan and I could stay there too—at their place. It wasn’t exactly set up for women, he admitted, but they’d make it work. Then he promised to board up whatever was left of the store in the morning.
But we ended up staying with Hana that night. A deputy sat outside her apartment, the engine of his car idling quietly, keeping watch through the remaining dark hours until dawn.
I got up at some point and sat next to Susan as she slept, staring out the window, unable to stop replaying the fire in my mind, haunted by Megan’s smirk, the destruction, and the hollow ache that lingered in its wake.
I don’t know when Hana woke up, likely realizing I was gone. She just came and sat beside me, curling up against my side, arms around me, holding me without saying a word.
It was the next day, and it had already been long, even though it was only early afternoon.
“Anne?”
I looked up and nodded weakly.
“Did you hear me?” Jeffrey asked.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “Can—can you please repeat it?”
We were sitting in Sheriff Collins’s office—me, Hana, Susan, and Jeffrey. I was back in transport restraints, a standard station-issued set. The rigid black lockbox made my wrists ache, and I kept fidgeting, trying to shift the pressure. Hana had loaned me clean clothes: simple pants, a soft top, and flats that fit snug. Susan wore something similar.
“We can do this later,” Jeffrey said gently.
“No,” I said quickly. “I’m sorry. I just...” The words cracked in my throat. “I just want to kill her. I want to put her in a box and set it on fire.” Tears stung my eyes. “We’ve never hurt them. Never. But she and her friends are bent on destroying us. But, right now, I’m okay with hurting her.”
I looked at Sheriff Collins. He knew I was just mouthing off. But I tugged at the cuffs anyway—just to show him it wouldn’t happen, even if I wanted it to.
Jeffrey waited, watching the dynamic between me and the sheriff before he spoke again. “As I was saying—the boutiques had upgraded their security systems. High‑resolution cameras. The coffee shop as well. Law enforcement has been reviewing the footage since last night. There’s more than enough to show Megan and her friend deliberately set the fire.”
Hana snorted softly. “How dumb can these girls be?”
“They’re not dumb,” I said quietly, staring at the floor. “They just think nothing will ever happen to them. They do whatever they want, whenever they want ... and people protect them. Money gives you that.”
I nodded toward the interview room down the hall—the one where I had spent so many hours with my hands cuffed to a metal table. “That’s why she’s in there right now with more than one attorney? Right?”
Sheriff Collins met my eyes. His silence was confirmation enough. Megan, her mom, her family had been using the same dirty money she’d earned illegally to shield herself from the fallout of the crimes she kept committing. It was pathetic, but it was also how the world worked. I didn’t kid myself.
“She’ll get off,” I whispered bitterly. “They’ll argue the videos are inconclusive. Or can’t be used in court. They’ll say I drove her crazy with years of threats, and she’ll get some minor charge that won’t stick.”
“The videos will be forwarded to the state prosecutor’s office,” Jeffrey said firmly. His voice was calm, deliberate—his lawyer voice. “Megan and her friend are looking at multiple counts of attempted murder. They knew you and Susan were upstairs when they ignited the accelerant.”
He continued, “And with Officer Bridges on the property at the time—considered on duty—that introduces additional charges related to attempted murder of a law enforcement officer.”
My stomach twisted.
“And then,” Jeffrey added, steepling his fingers, “there’s the issue of the structure fire itself. Setting your bookstore on fire wasn’t just an attack on you. That fire could have spread to every connected building on the block. Under state law, that constitutes separate attempted murder charges for every occupied unit in potential danger. The prosecution is going to stack those counts—because they can.”
I swallowed hard. The room felt suddenly small, tight around the edges.
Jeffrey leaned forward. “Anne,” he said gently.
I lifted my gaze to meet his.
“She’s looking at years in prison,” he said. “Serious years. And not club fed. Her friend is facing the same.”
Just then, a sharp, furious shout echoed down the hall—a woman’s voice from the interview room.
We all turned.
Jeffrey let out a dry chuckle and pointed toward the sound. “That,” he said, “is most likely her reaction to her attorneys explaining the same thing I just explained to you.”
He shifted his attention back to me. His expression flattened, every trace of warmth replaced by a clinical steadiness—the kind attorneys use when they need you to hear the truth without cushioning.
“Anne,” he said, calm and absolute, “she’s fucked. Whether she believes it or not—it doesn’t matter.”