Page 24 of Fiery Little Thing
Sarah clears her throat and fumbles for the piece of paper behind her. “I meant to ask you a question.” The answer is going to be no. “Our annual ball is in a month, a couple weeks before finals, and we’ve all been preparing for it formonths. It’s going to be—drumroll, please.” She taps the desk beside me. “Haunted House themed! We spentforeverdeciding on something, but figured we’d make it spooky with smoke machines and spiders.”
She places the flier in front of me. Sure enough, it says Seraphic Hills’s Annual Ball in big, bold letters and a punch of spiderwebs in the background. Fitting for an old nunnery.
I look blankly back at her.
Her smile falters for a second before she slaps it back on. “I was actually wondering…” Sarah’s cheeks flush red, and it looks unappealing on her. “You know, everyone needs a date for prom?”
I blink.
She chews on her bottom lip. Does this actually work for guys?
“I was thinking… since you don’t have a date, and Finn and I just broke up…” All this hesitation isn’t cute. I’m just bored. She steps forward, and my skin crawls from her proximity. “Maybe we could go together.”
I throw my bag on and leave her with one parting word. “No.”
She’s wearing my ring.
She’s wearing my ring, and she’s looking smug about it. The little thief thinks she won this game we’re playing, as if she’s somehow in control of what’s happening.
The ground was laid for us, but I was the one who set the kindling and struck the match. Blaze keeps trying to escape the parameters I placed for her; she almost got away once, but didn’t get far enough. She never will.
It’s more than just that.
Blaze woke up this morning, and every morning for the past seven days, looked at my initials on the back of the ring, and slipped it on her thumb even though it’s two sizes too big for her.
Blaze woke up, put it on, and walked aroundwearing my initials.
The thief twists the ring around her thumbas she walks across campus, completely unaware of her surroundings. We’ve been at each other’s throats daily, which is unsurprising. But she’s been growing increasingly jittery, starting fights with anyone who looks at her for longer than a heartbeat.
Blaze wants a fix, and it seems the girl who has no money and nothing but her legs to trade for drugs is doing exactly what I thought she would do: find the dead man named Elijah.
She beelines between the throngs of students, all trying to stay out of the rain and leave to enjoy their few minutes of freedom before we’re all forced to attend our mandatory after-school study session or sports training. She tightens the scarf around her neck and starts shouldering her way through the crowd. It doesn’t take long until she reaches Elijah, who’s leaning against the wall and talking to a couple of other people who hang out behind the church.
I watch the scene unfold from behind one of the stone pillars on the peristyle surrounding the courtyard, safe from the elements. The church crew all leave Elijah a few seconds after Blaze arrives, and he looks down at her with a self-satisfied smirk when she closes the distance and rubs her hand over his chest.
Her lips curl into the perfect smile, and her blue eyes soften and round as she looks up at him like he means everything to her. My skin heats as I watch her twirl a lock of hair around a slender finger. Why the fuck does she never look at me that way? She’s known that fucker for what? Five minutes? And she’s looking at him in the way I could only dream of.
Since day one, she’s only ever thought of me with disdain. She’s only ever seen me as an inconvenience. A nuisance she wants to get rid of. Blaze hates me, and I’ve done everything possible to change that. Yet she goes and throws it all in my face.
My fingers curl around my lighter, and I’m hit with the sudden urge to test out how flammable Elijah’s school uniform is. It’d be a win-win for me; hurting him and sating my demons at the same time. I need to smell the smoke and watch chaos unfold in a dance of vermillion and yellow.
Nothing about what she’s doing to Elijah is genuine. It’s not about him, but what he has. The only thing that makes her smile is the same thing that will kill her, and I won’t stand for it.
My heart hammers against my ribcage as I watch their interaction, the smile on his face growing with each word she says. I inch closer to the edge of the pillar to eavesdrop on their conversation, but the rain and howling behind me are louder than the echo of their whispers.
He raises an eyebrow when he speaks to her. Whatever she says makes his eyes widen with excitement, then he reaches behind her and grabs her ass.
I start walking before I can weigh the pros and cons of smashing his head against the stone until he becomes unidentifiable. My knuckles go white with how tightly I’m clenching my fists, but dick for brains doesn’t notice the warpath I’m on, too distracted by Blaze to realize he’s about to fucking die.
I stop short before I reach them because she turns around… and there’s white powder on her fucking nose. When did either of them pull that shit out?
“What the fuck is going on here?” My feet start moving again, and I yank her away from him.
“Let go of me!” she screams. How many times have I heard her say that? Ten times, give or take? Probably more.
“Dude, don’t touch her. Chill.” Elijah’s two brain cells clearly are too busy fighting for first place to work, because he steps towards usandreachesfor Blaze.
“There are twenty-seven bones in the human hand. Breathe in her direction again, and we’ll find out whether I can break them one at a time.” He’s mad he isn’t receiving payment for fulfilling his end of the bargain.
