Beck was taking me out tonight for the first time, and I was a bundle of nerves—it would be my first (and certainly not last) experience with arson. 

We’d spent the afternoon at the kitchen table, stuffing assorted bottles with rags while Xuchen caramelized onions, referencing two very different kinds of anarchist cookbooks between the separate projects. The room wafted with the warring scents of gasoline and mirepoix, spoiling any remaining inclination I had towards eating. Though I knew that Xuchen would personally stuff some bread into my mouth if I didn’t ingest anything before tonight. He’d made it his personal mission to look after me since I moved into the collective’s housing complex two weeks ago. I wondered sometimes if Cathy had made him promise to look after me. She always had contingency plans, even for the unimaginable.

Beck assured me it would be a quiet night—no cops, no feds, no skinheads. I knew the warehouse, and she knew the combustibles. She was the group’s arsonist, architect of haunted shells in blackened buildings, storehouses, and checkpoints. She left a trail of char in her wake, wherever she went. And it made her into a living god.

I easily recognized her and her place within the room from my very first meal in the complex. I’d heard all the stories from Cathy, but even if I hadn’t, I could see it on her. Beck was a real pyro—her arms greyed with tattoos, her crew-cut militantly neat, and her sulphurous perfume of lit matches and gasoline. They called her the Powder Keg, but she was as calm and collected as an iced-over lake. At ten years my senior, she had a cool that was inimitable—the kind where she’d seen shit and it left her unimpressed with anything short of disaster. I was obsessed with her.

I twisted on the lids and caps and stoppers on the assortment of Molotov cocktails as Beck locked the remaining napalm in the reinforced cupboard beneath the sink. 

“Soup for my family,” Xuchen said, setting bowls in front of Beck and me. He’d insisted on keeping me on the meal list, even though I assured him I was more than capable of preparing my own food.

The three of us sat, slurping in silence as the giant vat cooled enough to be packed up. A handful of other residents on the meal list passed through, taking bowls for themselves into the sitting room with a quick thanks. I muddled my spoon through wafts of steam, skimming the oil that floated to the soup’s surface. 

Xuchen’s hand on top of mine jolted me alert. “Are you ready?”

I pulled my hand away from his, towards my body. He was the most touchy-feely of the bunch, in a way that I wasn’t yet adjusted to. Though despite the shock, it was nice to be touched again; it was the closest to being held I’d felt in a long time. 

I shrugged. “I guess.”

“You don’t have to go if you don’t feel comfortable, Lauren,” he reminded me. But his eyes were on Beck. “Beck can do this on her own.”

Beck lowered her full spoon into her bowl and leaned back in her chair. “She’ll be fine. We’ll be in and out.” I caught her eye with a thin smile. She bowed to me. “Besides, you need this.”

“Well, I think you’re very brave, going back there,” said Xuchen, “And Cathy would be proud.” 

I nodded into my soup.

—

My two days of bereavement leave had become two weeks when Xuchen first reached out to me. I hadn’t found the energy to contact the collective—that had always been Cathy’s thing—and it had taken a while for them to get the news. 

I’d stayed away from her weekly meetings, her covert communications. I’d only met with Xuchen and the rest a handful of times before he offered me a room in the housing complex. On my own, I wouldn’t be able to afford the rent our apartment. I definitely wouldn’t be able to if I didn’t go back to work, which was becoming increasingly likely. Even the thought of boxes and pallets made me sick. A barcode might be enough to give me an aneurism. 

I was grateful for the roof over my head, even if it came with a dozen roommates who walked on eggshells around me. They’d all known Cathy, in some capacity. I knew there were more acquaintances of hers too, who came and went for the weekly meetings that I still couldn’t bring myself to attend. Even in all the movement and activity of the housing complex, I spent most of my time in bed.

It was Beck that invited me to finish my wife’s work. In the months before her death, I’d watched Cathy collect the names and contact information for our co-workers, snag a spare building plan, keep tabs on closing and opening shifts. I’d been prepared for the eventuality of the building coming down, but I’d always thought she would be the one to do it.

Now I was the one who knew the warehouse best, and Beck said she would like my help. She’d been Cathy’s friend, I knew, so I said yes. Though I think it was for pity, above all else, that she invited me along.

—

That evening, Beck and I packed the bottles and jugs of gasoline into the rear crates of two road-bikes. We set off after dusk, both dressed head-to-toe in black. She’d loaned me a scrap of dark cotton which I tied over my nose and mouth. I was struck by a sudden calm in my anonymity.  

Beck carried all the mollies in her crate, while all the matches were stuffed in mine. I wondered if she worried about carrying all that fuel, but she biked along, nonchalant. Bombproof, that one.

Between the two of us, and what we carried, I couldn’t help but wonder if a single spark would make all that potential energy explode. I was already chemical—reactive, temperamental, a real piece of work. And I wondered if there was something deeper that smouldered beneath Beck’s surface.

I followed a fair way behind Beck as she led us just past the city limits. The gullies at the side of the road were full of scrub and glittered with broken glass, while the city behind us sparkled like another shattered thing. And then up ahead, the warehouse loomed darkly like a chunk taken out of the night sky. 

The building was lonely on the packed-dirt prairie. Intermittent buses shuttled workers in and out from 6am to 6pm. After 7pm, the building was padlocked and well emptied. Beck had triple-checked with me to assure that was the case. But still, I worried. I’d always been a rule-follower; I kept my head down. It was Cathy who was the contrarian, the insurrectionist. And here I was, still wanting to believe in nonviolence. Still pretending peace was an option.

I told Beck that, as we pulled our bikes right to the front doors. She skidded to a break in the empty parking lot and crossed her arms.

“Of course we still believe in peace,” Beck said, “What do you think we’re doing this for? How could you spend one day with us and not know that? Have you even met Xuchen?”

I shook my head. “I—”

“No—.” Beck leaned forwards against her handlebars. “I’m not doing this with you if it’s for the wrong reasons. Not if that’s what you think this”—she gestured to the crate of mollies— “is about.”

My shoulders drew inwards. I picked at a flake of carmine paint on my bike’s frame. I didn’t know where to look—not at Beck, and certainly not at the building before us. “It’s just that... people work here.”

“People DIE here, Lauren. You know that.”

I hated that reminder. “They have no choice; they have to make a living.”

“And they will. Their families will collect severance pay instead of life insurance, and we can direct them to aid in the interim. We’ve done this all before, okay? It isn’t about vengeance or violence or anarchy.” When I didn’t answer, she sighed. “We’re doing this so no one else has to go through what you did.”

I took in a deep breath and nodded. She checked her phone and pushed her bike back on its kickstand. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

I trailed behind as she surveyed the perimeter, nodding tight-lipped as she scanned the site. “No cameras,” she said, and I shook my head to confirm. 

She grabbed us each a red jug of gasoline from her crate and cradled a trio of Molotov cocktails with the other arm. I slipped a box of matches into my pocket. 

“Alright, where are our windows?”

I led her around the building, pointing out the offices, the mail room, the back door where Cathy and I used to take our smoke break. Beck determined the best windows to start from and produced a tarnished steel crowbar from her backpack. I stood back and watched as she knocked out the glass panes in one swing, leaving the theftproof steel grate intact behind it, then artlessly splashed an arc of gasoline into the room beyond.   

We laid out rivers of fuel along the office walls, tossing long streams into shattered window after window. Once those offices caught, and the files and records went up like flashpaper, the rest of the building wouldn’t stand a fighting chance, even if the fire sprinkler system was operational. The warehouse was essentially cardboard—meant to move into town, leach the local economy dry, and move out, lining the pockets of rich men from another country. 

We stood back a moment, satisfied with our set-up, before Beck handed me the first coke-bottle molly. “Kiddies first.” 

I thumbed the bottle around in my palm, finding a grip against the faceted glass. “Yes, because it takes so much experience to toss a bottle at a wall.”

I think Beck grinned, but couldn’t be sure, beneath her bandana. “Hey, I haven’t been a virgin firebug for a long time.” In any other scenario, I’d have thought she was flirting with me.

The Molotov cocktail was cool in my hand. I looked into those smashed out windows, and even in the darkness, I saw Cathy. She was there. She would always be there.

After a moment of silence, Beck said, “Whenever you’re ready.” She said it in a gentle way; the gasoline was drying out, I knew. I didn’t have time for reflection. It was time for direct action.

I breathed out a long breath, like before diving into cold water, and nodded. “For Cathy,” I said. Beck struck me a match, sizzling into the darkness, and held it to the rag end of my bottle. Flame climbed the cloth, opalizing the napalm in firelight. I drew my arm back and with the force of my full body, tossed the bottle at the wall.

I’d known how a firebomb works, of course, but there was nothing like throwing a molly for the first time. The arc of the bottle’s flaming tail painted a line across the night. It shattered with a sound like chimes, and I held my breath. A bloom of orange licked across the wall like a tiger lily.

The blush of flames jumped easily to the gasoline, running down the length of the wall we’d doused. They scaled the plaster and poured through the broken windows. Once inside, their whisper grew to a crackling roar. A slow heat blazed across my face, dewing my forehead. 

Beck’s hand on the front of my shoulder woke me from my awe, as she prompted me to step back further. I hadn’t realized how close I’d been standing. We didn’t speak as we walked the perimeter, smashing windows and chucking mollies until the entire building was engulfed. It cracked and groaned like a living thing.

We stood back and watched our handiwork and I thought maybe I could see why Beck loved this. She surprised me by letting out a triumphant laugh. “Bye, bitch,” she said. 

She patted me on the back, and held her hand there for a reassuring moment. I surprised myself by turning in towards her, leaning my head onto her shoulder.

Then, from the expanse of city, a slow moaning siren droned, just as expected. In a while, emergency vehicles would strobe purple light up the highway, leaking towards us across the few kilometers of scrub grass. 

Beck started back towards the bikes, but she looked serene as ever. “We’re done here,” she said, tucking the emptied gas jugs into her backpack.

The heat and smoke were acid in my eyes, leaving me blinking as we kicked off the ground and pulled back up the road. The whine of sirens and the pulsing of lights, still barely pinpricks, made my heart pound. 

We took a turn off the main road that cut towards town, onto an unpaved side road. Gravel rattled my teeth and numbed my arms on the handlebars. Beck led us up the curve of a small hill, past stands of aspen, then pulled over into a gully at the side of the gravel road. We laid our bikes down in a copse of trees and nestled ourselves into the grass. 

Beck stretched and yawned. “We’ll be fine here. Give it a few hours and we’ll pull around the ring road without any questions.” 

I pulled the scrap of cloth down off my face and let out a low, slow breath. It was done. From there, we could still watch the flicker of flames, reduced to the size of a campfire from afar. The siren sounds were only a distant ringing in my ears as the first vehicles pulled up to the warehouse.

From an inside pocket of my coat, I pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes and tapped one loose. Beck raised her brows. I held out the box in offering, but she shook her head. 

I lit the smoke with one of her matches and inhaled deeply. 

“You know,” I said on the exhale, surprising myself. “I worked half a shift before the floor monitor told me what happened.”

Beck was silent for a long moment. “What’d they call it?”

“Operator error.”

“What bullshit.”

I nodded. 

We sat in silence, watching the warehouse choking thick smoke over the prairie. The diaphanous clouds muddled the night sky, winking out the stars. When I laid back and closed my eyes, there were blooms of flame flickering still on the back of my eyelids. 

Beautiful blooming tiger lilies, a bouquet for Cathy.