Page 26 of Fiery Little Thing
“You tell yourself you use and steal because you like the high of it, that it makes you feel alive, but that’s a lie. You do it because that’s the only time you feel you have control over your life.” Two sentences. That’s all it takes for her chest to expand as she takes a deep breath. “You act out because you want the attention—at least, thatwasthe reason, wasn’t it? Maybe Mommy will come home if she hears you need help, and everything will return to how it was. Now you act out because no one listens to you. I am the only person in your life who hasn’t turned their back on you, and you know it too.” Her eyes mist over, but she only raises her head higher. “And I know you want me to pay.”
Her throat bobs beneath my hand. “Don’t look so proud of yourself, Osman. Anyone with eyes can see I want payback for what you did.”
“Not just for your house. You want me to pay for everything,” I say, hating the following words. My father was my alibi that day because the entire Osman line knows my parents never let me leave the house unless it’s for school and practice. Kiervan is the only person who’s aware that I snuck out of my window at night.
“You made my life hell!” she yells, shoving my chest.
Blaze is still fucking alive because of me. How many times have I saved her now? I don’t understand how one person can be so difficult. This girl wakes up every day and chooses to be a pain in the ass.
I take a deep breath to reign in my temper. Blaze has no idea how patient I’ve been with her, and still she continues to test me. “Don’t useanythingfor two months, and my entire trust fund is yours.”
She blinks once. Twice.
“I think I’m tweaking. Say that again.”
I grip her chin and angle it up so there isn’t an inch of her face that I can’t see perfectly—the same face I saw shoved against Duke’s. I run my tongue over my teeth, then say, “There are two more months left of school. If you last until graduation without any drugs or alcohol, I will give the entirety of my trust fund to you.”
Her lips part, and her blown-out eyes widen. “You’re shitting me, right?”
“If you so much as inhale a speck of that shitor get a secondhand high, it’s over. You lose.”
“I don’t believe you,” she whispers, searching my face like she’s waiting for me to say it was all a bad joke. But I don’t.
Seconds pass while we do nothing but breathe in each other’s air. Blaze’s pulse is going rabid against my thumb, and her violent blue eyes stay on mine, not breaking the connection for a second. This is all I wanted from her: cooperation. But then she ruins it when she rolls her eyes and shrugs me off. I step back, letting her get away.
“Yeah, right. Good one.” The thief scoffs, shaking her head. “You’re such a fucking cunt, Kohen.” Blaze opens the door and gives me one long, pitiful look. “You’re going to die alone.”
She’s wrong about that too.
I follow her out of the room to find Elijah waiting against the pillar in the courtyard like a slimy creep, jacked up on whatever it is he gave Blaze, and ready for his payment—and I hate her more for it. He looks my way for a hesitant second before wiping his hands on his pants, moving to follow her down the hall.
I grab him by the strap of his backpack and throw him out from the peristyle and into the rain while I remain beneath the shade. Curling my fists until my knuckles hurt, I watch as he falls back on his ass, soaking his uniform in mud and water. The confused daze lasts a second until he scrambles back onto his feet, but I push him back into the rain, where any chance of burning him alive is gone because of the elements.
“What the—”
I square my shoulders and draw my lighter, flicking the spark wheel to let the flame dance over the silver metal. Then I say with eerie steadiness, “You don’t want to see what happened to the last person who got too close to my fire.”
His face falls. “Look, dude, I don’t mean to—”
“I’m going to say this once, and only once.” I take a step forward, and he skitters back, eyes bouncing around the place, searching for help before they land back on my lighter. “Run or burn.”
Subtle shivers rack through my body despite the heater running on full blast—and I’m pretty sure I’m seconds away from breaking my jaw from how tense it is. My entire body is sore as shit, and my head is pounding, but at least the nausea is gone. I guess that’s why they call itSuicide Tuesday. I would much rather die than go through the shit I went through yesterday again.
I tried seeking Elijah out yesterday, because why go through a comedown when you can keep going? But the little coward ran in the opposite direction. I was even willing to give him a handjob in the bathroom for it.
His loss.
Just kidding, it’s my fucking astronomical loss.
So, I had to suck it up and try to live through the comedown, and almost died choking on my own damn vomit. It’s not as bad todaybecause I’m running on pure rage. Elijah is two seats to the right of me and hasn’t looked up from his hands since the history teacher hid herself behind her desk so we can have “study time.”
Just in time, the person between us gets up from her seat to go to the bathroom. And who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?
“You’ve been avoiding me,” I growl under my breath as I slide into the seat she occupied. He’s not attractive enough to be treating me like this.
His frantic eyes cast to mine, and then he twists his entire body to look at the table behind us before jerking straight upright. What the fuck?
“I wasn’t.”
