Bianca

“clutching whole homes in its grasp.
The people of Malibu knew how to evacuate. They’d done
this before. They would do it again.
By the time the fire was contained—the mansion turned
to a charred, wet frame, the neighbors’ homes singed and
covered in ash, the sky stained gray, firefighters wiping
their brows—the lady of the house was nowhere to be
found.
Nina Riva was midflight.
She would read about the fire later in an American paper
and clutch her chest, relieved no one had been hurt. She
would think of the damage and the distress it must have
caused.
But she would understand that it was one fire, in a long
line of fires in Malibu since the dawn of time.
It had brought destruction.
It would also bring renewal, rising from the ashes.
The story of fire.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Malibu Rising