Page 93 of Into Pitch

Then, at twenty-one it seems he had been reevaluated and deemed improved. That his emotional regulation was within acceptable range and he was rehabilitated.

I wonder when that switch between sixteen to twenty-one occurred where he learned to mask so well. You would think with the manipulative note they would realize that he would do such a thing, but who knows. I’m not a doctor, so I can’t say one way or another. I would think it would be common sense though that he might not be all that he appears at face value. Let alone let the man go into a field of medicine.

I drop the file onto the bed and lean forward to place my elbows on my knees, my head dropping into my hands as I think.

His father beat him and his mother let it happen. Then, to settle the score he just burned the whole world down around him.

And fuck do I understand it.

I see the lines now.

It makes me think of Heath and Peter. Of the way Alex went so very still when their names left my mouth. It wasn’t exactly empathy, but I do believe it had been alignment.

I close my eyes and inhale shakily. He was just a fucking kid and no one bothered to save him, and that I understand more than anything.

I gather the files back up and hurry back to the drawer, carefully placing them within where they belong. Tucking away something fragile instead of something horrifying. When I close it, my hands linger on the wood.

I’m not afraid.

Because instead of running, my thoughts spiral in a new direction—one I don’t have language for yet.

If this is how he was made…

What, exactly, does that make me for staying?

I exit back into the living room, and for the first time since he left, the silence doesn’t feel empty. It feels like a giant ass question, and I don’t know if I’m brave enough to answer it.

Three days alone in the middle of nowhere does strange things to a person.

The first morning, I was angry. Pacing and muttering to myself like if I said his name enough times he might materialize out of spite.

By the second night, the anger dulled into something heavier because I had read his files. It had sat in my chest and pressed down until breathing felt like work.

By the third day—

By the third day, I was bored.

And bored is a dangerous thing to be.

I stand in the sunroom with my arms crossed, staring at the blank canvas propped on the easel ahead of me. Light pours in through the wide windows, spilling over the forest beyond in greens and golds that are alive. Birds darting between branches like nothing in the world has ever gone wrong.

The audacity of it all.

Alex gave me everything I could need to paint and it is all still here from the last time I painted. Sighing, I cross the room, dragging a stool behind me and pick up a brush.

I don’t sketch anything out, just as I hadn’t with the first painting in this room. I go straight for the black with heavy, thick strokes that eat the white of the canvas whole. I drag the paint across with force, bristles scraping rough like they’re protesting.

I find I really don’t care.

I reach for the orange next. Not the bright, playful kind. It’s deep and violent, mixed with umber and red until it looks like something that devours. I layer it in jagged streaks, letting it bleed and clash.

Beautifully dangerous flames.

They rise fast under my hands, licking upward in sharp tongues that twist and curl. I paint them reaching, hungry and uncontrolled. And beneath all that hunger is the shape of a house I’ve never seen or known.

Subtle at first, just lines emerging through smoke. A roofline buckling with windows that are blown out hollow. I don’t bother making it modern or pretty, I just make it seem old.

Wooden siding with narrow windows. A structure that looks like it’s been standing too long and knows it’s about to lose. I add thick smoke that coils into the sky, swallowing everything above it. The flames wrap around the structure like arms, pulling everything inward.