Chapter Twenty-Five #5
I look around, take my sweatshirt back off and punch out the window, clearing the glass as best as I can so she doesn’t get hurt. I turn back but her eyes are wide, in shock. “Raven, we have to go, now , Angel, let’s go.”
She doesn’t hesitate and I’m ecstatic she isn’t stubborn for once. One foot out, she lands on the porch, sirens faint in the distance, another leg. She’s out. The flames are lapping now, kissing at my back when I jump and then we jump together off the back porch.
I tug her to me as we stare, in complete silence as her house, the one budding into a home under her care, goes up in flames. Dark plumes of smoke rise furiously, hiding the stars and the tops of the tree, sirens loud as the fire engines arrive, as I hold my angel.
“Get back, to the street line.” A Fireman orders, and I pull us backward into the crowd that’s formed .
I look down, expecting to see tears, but instead her features are entirely schooled and the fury etched across her face makes her look wicked.
Flames dance in her eyes, her face still dirty from the forest floor, twigs still in her dark hair, she looks like a feral woman that is calculating things, planning destruction.
There’s a screeching of tires and a car door opens and slams shut as the firemen work quickly, yelling orders and falling into a familiar synchronism only years of working together would offer.
“Christ! Raven!” Damon says when he reaches us, he checks her out tenderly as he so often does, like a doctor and a lover and he pulls her to him when he sees nothing wrong and she relaxes in his arms. “What happened? How come whenever she’s alone with you something goes wrong?”
“What’s wrong, Doctor , thinking of putting her back in her cage?”
The good doctor stands to his full height. “Don’t fuck with me, Harrington this isn’t the time.”
“Where were you ? I got her out safely. Your appointment was to have ended over an hour ago.”
“I had things to oversee and there was traffic.” He says blankly.
“Traffic.” I repeat, unblinking.
Another roar of an engine and breaks squealing and I hear the all-too familiar, “Baby?”
She dives into Jonas' arms, finally releasing her emotions and he tries to grab her and remove his helmet as they sink to the ground. He looks up at me, “What happened?”
I explain everything and when I tell them I had to break a window because it was screwed shut, they all freeze. That cold look comes over Raven’s face all over again as she digs out her phone from her pocket.
“Never.” Damon says. “I may be a lunatic when it comes to her but locking her in or up was never a choice for me.” He murmurs as we watch the firemen continue their war against the flames.
“For the last year I wanted her to be at home with her family. I wanted her to continue therapy but I believed being in the asylum was doing more harm than good. Then I realized it was the complete opposite.”
I look over at him. “Why were you late? ”
He sighs, rubbing at his chest with his knuckles as though the sight of his ‘Little Bird’ crying hurts his heart. “Whitmore came into my office after the last session, questioning my hire.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Seems he was made aware I was her doctor at Lorne Wood. I told him that yes, I was one of her doctors but not her sole doctor. That even though we’re on the same campus, it was purely coincidental.
I hadn’t seen her until after Chase’s death and she came to seek the school counselor, but weren’t we so lucky that I’m aware of her prior treatments and her episodes? ”
“What did he say to that?”
Damon is shoved before he can answer me by a very angry Raven. “Hey, little bird, what the fuck?”
Her hands fly up, signing faster than I can decipher, but when she makes a “fuck you" motion, one that means shadow , one that means crazy , and then Damon defends himself, I understand that she means she told him she had someone following her and he told her she was crazy.
Jonas holds up her phone and shakes it in our direction. “Someone came in ten minutes after them.”
Tears of frustration spill from Raven and my heart cracks when she begins to point to the ruined home.
You made me feel crazy, Damon.
Anger rises through me as Damon’s jaw opens and closes but nothing comes out. And then, “Raven,”
She signs slower. Her world has come tumbling down, she has nowhere to go and my heart sinks at the pain etched across her face. She sinks back down to the ground, turning to face the desolation. The sight of her soothing herself tears at me in ways I’ve never been torn. Not even on that farm.
Damon gets down to his knees beside her, facing her. “Amourette,” He begins to apologize but it’s her I’m worried about.
She stops rocking for a moment. It doesn’t matter at all anymore, does it? It’s gone .
“She… can come home with me.” I blurt.
“Absolutely not.” Damon growls.
“You all can. ”
Before they can answer, the fire chief comes waddling to us, his uniform drenched, heavy, boots thudding in the wet, sticky mud and he looks completely exhausted. “The owner of the home?”
They all stand up.
His face scrunches up.
“I thought she was in there with you?” He says, pointing at me.
I rolls my eyes. “I’m also her boyfriend, and I can also translate.”
Damon cackles.
I’m going to kick him.
“Unfortunately the ruins to your home are now a crime scene.”
Raven flinches when he says ‘ruins.’ She eyes Jonas and he lifts an eyebrow. With one short nod, she gives him permission to tell him of the evidence they’ve found and we all get to spend the evening with the chiefs of both PD and FD as if I don’t have mounds of student papers to grade.
I eye Raven sitting across from me, still dirty.
I really need a TA.
And how lovely I’ll have a such a pretty little one available in my home now.