Chapter Eighteen
Z ara and Marly left almost an hour ago, and I’ve been fuming ever since.
And I don’t even know why.
It isn’t my fucking business how her personal life goes, whether she has freedom or not, she’s an endgame right? So why the fuck am I pissed at the thought that she doesn’t get to choose her future. That she’s bound by rules and laws and told what she can and cannot do.
It’s not my business.
My business is figuring out how to get her to break those rules for me.
I shouldn’t care about her in any other way than that.
But there was no lying about how I reacted to her. I can’t make that shit up and being as hard as a fucking rock with her pretty body laid over me was unexpected but not unwelcome.
Marly is fucking stunning, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, with her silky blonde hair and tan skin and eyes that you could drown in, but that doesn’t remove the reason I need her. I knew I was attracted to her the moment I saw her at the carnival, and it’s only grown from there, with every new piece she reveals about herself, that attraction grows.
I’m still fucking semi hard now, just thinking about her body on mine, my fingers on her skin, watching it pebble and react to me. She’s stubborn as hell, she won’t admit she feels it too.
But I need her to break.
I need her to make it to that fucking finish line. I can ignore the rest, I can ignore the need to protect her, to worship her, I can push away the feelings because what are feelings when everything you ever cared for was burned to ashes? Literally.
Rolling my neck side to side, I down the rest of my beer and throw the bottle toward the trash before I start to make my way to the Plymouth.
Once inside, her sweet scent invades my nose, clinging to the damn air. I’m not going to lie and say hearing her laugh didn’t almost end me. It almost lost me the damn race because hearing that laugh was like watching the sun rise. Distracting and dizzying, like a fucking drug I needed more of.
Granted, I’d snapped out of it pretty quick when I saw I’d been overtaken, but it was that fucking laugh that had me continuing after the race was ended to take her to the one spot I don’t take anyone.
The overlook is a sacred place to me. It’s a place I visit often, a place where I can be silent and see it all. I wonder if she saw it too, the divide between the two sides of West Rock. I wonder if she saw how fucking wronged this side of town has been. In the daylight it’s far more obvious, but I like to visit at night and pretend it isn’t as fucked up as it looks.
I know the world is a harsh place to live, I understand life isn’t fair but at night, when I have a blanket of stars above me and a whole world at my feet, I like to pretend it isn’t quite as bad as it seems.
Marly represents everything that has been taken from me, from my community, and I almost feel guilty for reacting to her the way I am.
“Yo, Riv,” Jake pounds on the window before he yanks it open, “You’re leaving?”
I could leave. I could go back to the garage and jack off to the feel of her spread over me, I could imagine the feel of her hair across my skin and her laugh in my ears or I could be sane and stay here where my people can keep me grounded.
“Nah man,” I climb from the car, “Just taking a minute.”
He taps the roof of the car as I slam the door shut.
“Shit man, I thought you were gonna lose that race.” Jake laughs, “What happened?”
My jaw clenches, “Got distracted.”
He scoffs, “You don’t get distracted.”
I shrug and reach for another bottle of beer knowing if I have it, I’ll have to leave the Plymouth here for the night. It’s a safe space, open but safe, a staple for us here, a place to go.
I pop the cap and down half of it, “I had it, didn’t I?”
“Obviously,” Jake throws himself into a chair, “But it was close.”
I grunt in reply, lowering myself onto a log that’s been dragged from the woods. People are still partying, looking at the cars lined up that raced tonight, the owners showing off their engines.
“Where you go with Marly?” Jake asks.
“Just away from here,” I tell him, “Gotta do what I need to.”
Silence greets me from his side.
I almost open my mouth to defend myself, but a flash of orange and yellow light catches my attention. I whip my head toward it, seeing some fucking asshole waving around a branch that’s currently alight, the flames spitting and hissing as he waves it around ahead of him.
Fear has me on my feet and the closer he gets, the more my heart starts to thump. He howls with laughter as he waves the flaming branch around, embers flicking off and onto the ground, instantly catching on the dry earth but I do nothing.
I’m paralyzed.
The flames overtake my vision, it’s all I see, licking towards the sky, illuminating the dark, bathing everything in a fiery, ominous red glow. It hisses and it crackles, eating everything it touches.
Sweat breaks out across my entire body and the heat of it burns so deep, I feel it boiling the blood in my veins.
And then the laughter reaches my ears, a cackle of delight as the flames move across my vision.
“What the fuck dude!?” I hear someone yell. But I’m moving already, scrambling away, my feet scuffing across the ground to escape. I just need to get away.
The burn scars across my body react, the phantom burn brought on from the memories making me want to scream.
All I see is the barn burning, the screams of my brother echoing through the night, the rain that did nothing to stop the flames.
I trip over the log in my haste to move away from the fire, landing hard on my back and pain flares through my body, my teeth snapping together to stifle the need to call out.
“Shit, I’m sorry man!” Another person speaks but I can’t get out of the past. All I see is the skin melting off bones, all I hear is that scream and wood splintering and flames roaring.
And then there’s the smell.
It’s oil and gas, it’s wood, but above it all, it’s hair and skin.
It’s the kind of smell you’ll never forget.
The light goes away but I’m still on the ground, my eyes closed, my memories assaulting me.
“River!” It’s Jake’s voice, just like that night, pulling me back. His hands have burn scars too, caused by the fire and pulling me out of it. He held me back when I tried to go back in, even when we all knew my brother was dead, that there was no way he was walking out alive. He held me when I screamed, my skin on fire and lungs burnt.
His arms band around me, holding me down as I try to scramble away and quickly after, the flames disappear altogether, smoke rising toward the sky as the hiss of flames meeting water sizzles in the air.
“Let’s get you back, brother,” Jake says, “Come on.”
It’s sometime passed midnight, it’s quiet, dark and I’m alone.
I’ve showered and taken my meds, but the pain remains, a phantom burn that sets my skin on fire whenever I touch it, so laying down is impossible. I reach for the ribbon on the counter, pulling it between my fingers, the silk soft against the roughness of the callouses and scars. I wrap it around my hand, watching it move, like a satin snake, around and around my fingers it goes. And then I curl it around my wrist and move it up my arms, over the scars and the burns. Except where I’m expecting pain, I’m met with sweet relief. Like the silk is a balm, it soothes the imaginary burn, so I keep going, moving it over every part of my flesh that is mottled and raised and angry.
Sighing, I lean back in the chair, bringing the ribbon toward my face where I inhale, her scent lingering on the material.
There’s an urge to go to her, to appease this desperate need to touch her, and feel her, and hear her moan my name. It’s fucked. I’m fucked.
Tonight was a reminder. I never had a fear of flames until the night her brother killed mine, I didn’t suffer panic attacks or have PTSD. I didn’t have nightmares, but now even my sleep is filled with memories of that night.
And yet she somehow soothes the angry demons vying to get free.
How do I get both?
Blood needs to be spilled and some of it will be hers.
I drop the ribbon and look toward the windows. The decimated barn sits beyond those trees, nothing but ash and coal now. A charred pit full of corruption and pain.
The Winchester’s took everything from me, it’s only right I take something back.