Page 114 of Fiery Little Thing
“Exactly why I need to get you to the hospital,” I pant, wrapping my arms around his torso without warning. My back strains in my attempts to get him up, but Kohen tries to push himself up after a couple seconds of delay.
A whimper breaks past my lips as he slumps against me, but I try to hold firm and shuffle us closer to the car.
“If you don’t clean up, we’ll get caught.” Kohen’s voice sounds distant. Even on his deathbed, his brain is still turning, analyzing and plotting.
I huff out a breath as I walk us backward toward the car, careful not to slip on the gasoline. “I—No. You’re bleeding out. Just—just shut up. I’m getting you out of here.”
He says something I don’t understand as we struggle down the steps, and my arms give out as soon as we’re next to the Honda. He drops onto his back, then attempts to push himself up onto his elbows like he wants to get out of the car.
“What are you doing?” I ask, stuffing him into the back seat. “I need to get you to a hospital—”
His bloodshot eyes meet mine. “If they find my blood, they’llwin,” he mumbles, swaying with the effort to lift his head.
“If you die, they’ll win!”
“Please. I want to see a fire one last time.”
I bite back a sob. “You aren’t going to die,” I insist.
“Please.”
One word. That’s all it takes.Please.
I slap my hand over my mouth to swallow down the sob thatwants to come out. Somewhere in the back of my mind a voice tells me that it’s his dying wish, and if the roles were reversed, he’d burn the heavens and save me at the same time.
Tears stream in a constant pour down my cheeks as I make sure his legs are in the car before slamming the door shut. Quickly, I throw the bags Kohen filled into the trunk and round to the front of the house to take one last look at the place where my family prospered while I starved. I fish out the box of matches from my pocket, and picture the girl I could have been if life hadn’t fucked me the way it did. But I can’t grieve someone who never existed.
“You won’t need a jacket,” I say beneath my breath as I light the match, recalling my grandfather's words when he left me inside the frozen tub. “It’s warm in hell.”
The match falls into one of the puddles of gasoline that’s decorating the house, and the entire hallway lights up in golden flames in the blink of an eye. I sprint back to the car without appreciating the sight of my past turning into cinders, feeling my soul scream in terror for the man in my car.
I fire up the engine and turn back to look at Kohen, only to find that his eyes are on me, not the destruction painting the manor in gold. “You’ve always burned prettier, Blaze,” he whispers. “You’ve always been my fire.”
It smells of death in here.
The beeping, the coughing, the soft murmurings, the squeak of rubber soles against the lino. The man in the bed behind the curtain divider is snoring away softly. I curl up and try to soak up the morning sun that trickles through the hazy curtains along the backwall of the shared hospital room.
A nurse comes in to check on Kohen and scribbles away notes in her chart like she does every half hour. I gave up trying to ask how he is an hour ago when I kept receiving the same response.
He lost a lot of blood.
He needs to sleep off the anesthesia.
We just need to wait and see.
I’m trying to follow the motto of “Do not bite the hand that feeds,” but it’s fucking hard not to pickpocket every person or take the random things that I pass by. The urge to steal is stronger than it’s been in months. But it isn’t the only battle going on in my mind. The need to sneak out of the hospital doors to find the closest dealer has sunk its teeth into my marrow. Only three things play on a loop in my mind, so loudly it blocks out every other thought and sound.
I need to steal something.
I need to get a hit of something—anything.
I need to save Kohen.
But I can’t do any of those things because I’m stuck watching him waste away right in front of me.
It should be me lying in that bed, not him. I thought I knew what being a failure felt like, but this is something else entirely.
Blood streams around my nail bed as I continue picking at the skin with my teeth. His heart rate monitor looks steady, but what the fuck do I know? The doctors said his surgery was a success and he should make a steady recovery. They also mentioned some more medical shit to me and showed me pictures that I’ll leave for Kohen to translate for me if he wakes up.
