Page 31 of Burn
I wave the flame back and forth, making little tufts of black smoke waft over her, careful not to actually burn her more than she can handle. It’s mesmerizing, the way it licks her, tasting her just as I have. The fire is me, and I am it.
Press harder. Burn her!
The erotic peacefulness is shattered withhimreturning. His words shake me, shocking me, and I drop the lighter from my hand on a deep gasp.
“No, no, no, no.” I say, pulling my hands away from her, cupping my ears to block him out but it’s no use. He’s not outside my head, he’s inside.
She’s a whore just like all of them. Look at her begging you to hurt her. Filthy whore! Burn her!
Rocking back on my heels, I close my eyes and shake my head, fighting him, not wanting to listen to him. I can’t listen to him. I will not hurt her more than she wants me to.
“Zeph?” Phoenix’s voice sounds to me all confused and scared. “Zeph, what’s wrong?”
She scrambles up, coming to me on her knees, making the mattress dip under us, moving my body enough I have to open my eyes so I don’t fall. She’s right there, her nose to mine, her eyes peering into mine with utter concern.
“Phoenix, please back off.” I growl, not worrying if I scare her. She needs to get away from me before I give in to him and the push he always gives me before I ‘work’.
“Why? What’s wrong?” She asks, grabbing my hands, trying to pull them from my ears.
Do it. Pick up that lighter and burn her for good. Ruin her like the whore she is.
“No!” I scream, launching myself backwards, falling from the foot of the bed, tumbling on the floor, rolling away from her and the object that I could hurt her with.
I need to get away from her, from him, from everything, even though I know I’ll never be free ofhim.
The sight of her pulling herself up, covering her front with the sheet as she tries to climb off the bed breaks me. She’s reaching out for the monster, that on the first night we met had planned to burn her too, and not in the gentle way I just have.
She comes for me, and I jump up, running down the hallway into the bathroom where my clothes lay in a heap on the floor. I need to get dressed, I need to leave, and I need to be far away from her. The door slams closed between us before she reaches me, breaking the sight and sound of her from my senses, and I collapse on the cold tile floor, my hands on my head, my eyes squeezed shut, and tears forming, threatening to fall for the first time since the night I became what I am.
~~~~~
It was a quiet night, and I was ten years old. The sounds of mom’s latest fuck boy drilling her into the bed on the other side of the wall from my room were silent. It was so peaceful that I could hear the rats behind the plaster, scurrying around, looking for food, starving as I was.
The only thing I could smell was the acidic odor of her black tar burning in the old metal spoon she kept in her bra like a fucking treasure. Why she heated it before shoving it in her veins was weird and beyond me, but whatever. She was fucking weird, at least she became that way after the drugs fried her last living brain cell.
As I drifted off to sleep, my stomach grumbling from days without anything in it except my own spit, the serenity of the night was broken. The scent in my nostrils of sizzling heroin turned deeper, hotter, and thicker. It was smoke. Black smoke wafted in under my closed door, then sucked itself back out, like a snake’s tongue flicking in and out of its mouth, tasting the air.
My old bed creaked as I climbed off it, my little bare feet feeling the unusual warmth of the wooden floor under them as I slowly walked to the door and reached out for the knob. It was hot to the touch, and it burned my hand, yet I still tried to turn it, finding it locked, as always.
All those fantasies of people burning alive, and that’s how I’m going to die.
“Well, come on and take me!” I screamed at the smoke as it puffed in and out at my toes, heating the knob more, creaking against the door.
The screeching of the sirens pulling up outside were nothing compared to the sounds of the fire trying to bust down my door. It hissed and screamed as the wood turned black and bowed inwards. I backed away from it on instinct, but it did nothing to protect me when the barrier broke away and the flames flew in.
“No!” The one pained and panicked word from me was all I got out before the large man in a yellow suit with a mask on his face burst into the room and grabbed me.
With a shattering of the lead glass, he busted out the window behind me with an axe and threw us from the empty hole in the wall to the hard sidewalk below as he shouted to me. “I’ve got you little man.”
Chapter
Sixteen
It’s been a week. The longest week of my life since I collapsed in Phoenix’s bathroom and cried for the boy I was and the man I’ve become. A whole week that feels like an eternity without the addiction that is her.
He’sbeen with me though, an ever-growing presence, talking to me, mocking me, trying to force me into things I don’t want to do, yet crave to do. I’m fucked in the head and the more he whispers and yells, the more unhinged I become.
The nights are long and lonely, and the days are full of more of my regular work. I’ve offered to be on call every shift that I can be, to keep my mind and body occupied as best as I can. In between fire calls I’m in the gym, lifting more than I should, all while starving myself, cutting my muscles even more until I’m down to almost no body fat, and a raging beast of lean power.
