It cut out. I handed the phone to him, but Nate said, “No. I’ll get a new one. That needs to stay how it is. I don’t want to risk deleting it by accident.”

Logan cursed. “What’s the plan?”

I looked around the room. They were all waiting, all looking back at me. There were varying emotions in each of them. Logan was bristling. He wanted to fight. He was always down for anything. Nate was calm. I could see he was just ready for anything. I glanced at Sam. Other times she might’ve been fearful and slightly looking away. She wasn’t this time.

She was looking right at me, and I could see her anger. There was a flame in her eye that I hadn’t seen in a long time.

I sighed. Then I told them the plan.

We waited for a night Nate was certain his fraternity was going to be out of the house. Then he snuck inside. His job was to search every room, every closet, the bathrooms, even the showers. He searched every inch of that house. When a flashlight was turned on and then off, and it was repeated, that was our signal. The house was empty.

Logan was next to me. He expelled a deep breath, then took off. Both of them went through the house. They dumped gasoline over everything. When they were done, they tossed the containers inside and headed back to me.

This was it. This would change everything.

No one said a word. For a moment, we just stood there and thought about what we were going to do, then I held out my hand. Logan pulled the box of matches from his bag. For a second, everyone paused. There was a gravity in the air, a sense of stillness about what we were about to do, but I wasn’t going back.

Logan tried to break a smile. He tried, but failed. He sighed. “Is this like fourth down, and we’re going for the goal?”

I took out a match. No one else spoke. I shook my head. “No. This is kick off. They brought us to the game.” I lit the match. “This is just the beginning.”

I tossed it and watched it burn.