I opened my eyes, blinking back the blurriness. Shook my head, trying to rid it of the grogginess.

I looked at my surroundings. It was a cave. Cold, damp, and mildly dark—mild because lamps were hanging at various points around the shadowed room.

It was a small and round cave, as most caves might be. I could even hear the lonely, echoing drips of water, one drop by one drop, as they trickled through crevices.

It smelled of moss, and mushrooms, and perfume, and something else. Something acrid. Metallic.

The perfume was coming from Darlene, the beautiful blonde in front of me. Her long, lithe figure stood some fifty feet away.

She was toying with something in her hand. I noted this vaguely, as cobwebs still clung in my head.

"Do you know why you're here?" she asked, her voice soft.

I shook my head again, both in answer and trying to shake out the cobwebs. "Hmm?"

"You're here," toy, "because you have been," toy "very" toy with the thing in her hand, "bad."

She flicked the thing in her hand, and a small flame erupted from its end.

A lighter.

I blinked, struggling to focus on her. On the lighter in her hand.

I tried to stand, but the world, the cave, spun around me. Something was holding me back, restraining my hands behind me.

She was going on. "Do you know why you've been very bad?"

She held the flame to something at her heeled foot. With a bizarre coolness, I settled down with a contented smile, as I stared at her slim calf.

There was another small eruption. She held the flame to a thin wire, and it ignited. Slowly, like a sparkler drawn in the air, it sizzled toward me.

She stood and trailed it. "Do you know why you've been bad, John?"

Her voice held a manic lilt. Her heels clicked against the stone floor as the fuse hissed closer.

Forty feet.

I scrambled backward and hit something firm, and hollow, and full, all at the same time.

I turned to see what I staggered into and flinched.

XXX

Barrels. Three wooden barrels with three painted X's.

Jesus Christ.

Fuck the metaphorical fuse. Darlene had been blasted off her rocker.

Thirty feet.

"Who's Tiffany, John?" Darlene's voice had taken on a higher pitch. More crazed. "Who. The. Hell. Is Tiffany?"

My heart surged faster than the advancing fuse. Faster than the click. Click. Click of her heels.

Who was Tiffany? I didn't know. Didn't care. A someone. A no one. A fling. "A freakin' fling," I said aloud.

Oops.

Twenty feet.

Click. Click. Click.

"Dar," I said, "you have to believe me. Don't do this. I love you."

I tried pushing the barrels back. Shoving the wire aside with my foot.

"You think I care, John? You think I fucking care?"

She was yelling now. Her voice shrill, and feminine, and insane.

Ten feet.

My eyes were wide and wild with fear. I could smell sulfur. It smelled a lot like hell.

She crouched in front of me, her blonde hair falling over her shoulder. She smiled. That pretty Darlene smile I used to know.

I tried to scamper away as she embraced me.

She sobbed in my ear. "If I can't have you, John. No one will."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the fuse crawl behind the first barrel, and there was a brief pause.

Click. Click. Click. The echo of Darlene's heels reverberated through my head like a ticking time clock—counting down.

Fucking Tiffany.

I awoke with the explosion.

I rolled away from the pretty blonde beside me and checked my phone.

There was a text from Darlene.

“We need to talk.”