Page 51 of The Fire We Crave

“No,” she cries, raising a hand. “You can take them off in the bathroom.”

“We’re showering?”

“No. You are.” She gets the garbage bag, and with a few snips of the scissors, turns it into a skirt. She wrinkles it up into a circle and then kneels to lay it open at my feet. “Step into it.”

I look down at the garbage bag, then her, convinced I’m being punked. Because there is no way it’s fair that Quinn is on her knees in a sundress I can see straight down the front of and it’s not for sex. “What?”

“Just step in,” she says.

“If this is some asphyxiation kink, babe, you need consent for that.”

“Would it shut you up?” Quinn asks.

“I mean, I’d be asphyxiated…unconscious, so, yes, it would.”

The world spins a little, and, as if she’s given up on reasoning with me, she tugs the garbage bag up my body. “You made me a garbage bag dress?” I ask.

She uses some medical tape on the edges and snips it in a few places. Then she runs an entire band of tape around it twice to hold it in place under my armpits and around my pecs.

“No,” she says proudly. “I made you a shield for your dressing so you can get in the shower to clean yourself up. You smell like a brewery.”

For a moment, I simply stand. “You’re looking after me.”

“Wasn’t that our deal?” she asks.

“But I asked you to leave.”

She shrugs. “You asked me when I was leaving. I said I’d leave tomorrow. I feel like my deal to help you stands until then.”

I reach out and touch her cheek. Her skin is so fucking soft. “Thank you.”

“Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but I don’t have to leave tomorrow.”

At least, that’s what I think she says.

Because I forget the rest.

And when I wake, she’s gone.

15

SMOKE

I’m on fire.

So hot, I can feel the skin being pulled off my body. It’s like a perverse barbecue.

Or like that scene at the end ofIndiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, when the Ark of the Covenant opens and everyone’s faces melt.

And yet, even with the fierce and debilitating pain, I can’t rouse myself from sleep.

Until I hear my name called.

It’s Quinn.

She’s hanging clothes in the yard, and she turns and smiles at me before calling out my name. “Ronan.”

I sit up with a gasp, and the world spins as I realize I’m alone in bed.

---