Page 78 of Missiletoe
“I knew it the moment I saw you. We’ll be perfect together.”
“No, we really won’t.” I ripped the sleeve off Mike’s shirt because I needed something to help stop the bleeding on his leg. Vale really did a number on Mike when he snatched him out of the car.
“Melanie loves the idea of us dating.”
“Does Melanie also love the idea of burning alive while she’s working?” I tightened the tourniquet I was tying around his upper thigh, and Mike winced. “Because you almost did that.”
“No one got hurt. I made sure of it.”
“Fire isn’t a toy you can control. Anything could have happened. You threatened my friends, Mike. You could have killed them.”
He could have killed Vix.
I was struck by the urge to tear Mike apart piece-by-piece rather than continue putting his broken pieces back together. It was touch and go there for a bit, but I managed to hold it in.
“I can,” Mike said in an odd tone.
“You can what? Kill people? I noticed you seem to have no problem with trying, but I’m not giving you a chance to succeed.” I’d nearly gotten him travel-worthy, so I was done with our stupid conversation.
I made to scoop him up and throw him over my shoulder, knowing it would make all of his injuries hurt like hell, but I stopped when he said, “I can control fire.”
Maybe it was because of the crazy twenty-four hours I’d just had, or maybe it was the gross energy coming from his shadows, but I found myself scrambling away from Mike.
If I had animal magic, and Vale seemed like he also might have magic, wasn’t it possible that Mike could have it too?
“No, Paris. You don’t need to be afraid of me. I would never hurt you. I just want to show you something cool.” Mike was on the ground, covered in blood and injuries, but he was acting like nothing was wrong.
It was seriously creeping me out, so I said, “I don’t want to see something cool, Mike. It’s time to go.”
It was definitely time to go, so why wasn’t I moving to pick him up and get the hell out of there?
“No, really. You’ll like this.” Mike pointed to his wrecked car. “Check this out.” He snapped his fingers and the car exploded, blowing the poor tree it had crashed into to pieces.
“Fuck a duck!” I hit the ground to avoid getting turned into a tree pincushion. Fear rolled through me, and I turned to Mike. “How…how did you…” No, I had a pretty good idea ofhowMike had done it, so I changed my question. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I love you. Weren’t you paying attention?”
“This isn’t love, Mike. We don’t scare people we love, and we don’t try to hurt the people around them.”
“I told you I wasn’t going to hurt anyone, and don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t scary. It’s amazing. You’ll get used to it. Now come on, let’s get out of here before that group of freaks you were with comes to find you. This is your best chance to escape.”
“I don’t want to escape. I mean, they aren’t imprisoning me. I want to be there.”
“Of course you don’t want to be there. I’ve been keeping an eye on that house since I moved to this town. Horrible people live there. When I saw those two little menaces with you, I knew exactly what had happened, so I came to rescue you. I’m sorry it took so long, but I had to get more accelerant to plant around their house, because I used all of mine up last night. I have to use it to throw people off because I don’t want anyone to suspect magic. This is a bad place to get caught using magic. Trust me.”
“Why have you been watching Vix’s house?”
“Do you know how many fires they’ve had there in the past year? They never call the fire department for help either. The fire department only gets calls from their neighbors, but that’s only half the time. The other half, no one even finds out.”
“How do you know about them then?”
“I can feel fire. It calls to me. I’ve sensed massive ones here so many times. I have to be careful when coming here though. They have cameras everywhere. So, seriously, let’s get out of here. You’re too good for those people.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“They’ll kill us if we stay.”
“No. They won’t.” They wouldn’t kill me at least. I wasn’t so sure about what they would do to Mike.
