“Don’t go in there guns blazing or you might… start blazing,” he hissed. “At least he’s conscious.”
I nodded. Trey was right. I needed to be calm, or the guilt and the pain would make me boil over. I hated that Ayaz was hurt because of my fire.
He’s a child of the god. His wounds will heal.
Courtney appeared at the door, her skin pale, her usually-perfect hair matted and dull. Her eyes narrowed as they landed on me.
“Get out.” She backed up and slammed the door.
Quinn shoved his foot into the door, catching it just in time. His nose hovered inches from hers. “We’re seeing him, Courts.”
“She’snot coming in here. She burned him.” Courtney slammed the door against Quinn’s boot. “Get. Your. Foot. Out.”
Trey added his foot to Quinn’s, using his shoulder to muscle the door open wider. “I get that you’re scared, but Hazel isn’t the enemy here. We’ve got bigger problems than her fire. Like that black-ass pillar in the auditorium and the fact our parents are going to try to finish the job they started twenty years ago.”
And discovering we’re the children of the god,I finished for him inside my head. I guessed now wasn’t the time to spring that one on Courtney.
“I don’t care! Ayaz is my boyfriend andshe’s not coming in.”
“Forget about Hazel for a moment. Look at me, Courts.” While Trey maneuvered the door open with his shoulders, Quinn slipped behind him and reached for Courtney, his fingers trailing under her chin. “It’s really important that we see Ayaz. You know I’m not one to exaggerate and be overdramatic, but our very future could depend on it. Do you think I’m lying?”
After a moment staring at his serious, freaked-out eyes, she shook her head.
“Okay then. Let us in.”
“Not her.” Courtney spat. “She burned him. No way is she going to finish the job.”
I’m done with this.
“Get the fuck away frommyboyfriend,” I snarled, slamming my body into the door and thrusting my palm into her face. I wasn’t going to burn her, but she didn’t know that. Courtney screamed and dropped her grip on the door. Trey shoved.CRACK. The door slammed against the wall.
“He’s not your boyfriend.He hates you.” Courtney careened across the room, toppling over the back of Ayaz’s bed and landing in a heap on the floor. I stepped over her and plonked down in the chair beside the bed. Behind me, I was dimly aware of Courtney yelling while Trey hauled her away. I heard her yell in anguish. I didn’t care. The world narrowed into a dark tunnel – at the end of which was Ayaz, broken and burned and maimed beyond belief.
Because ofme.
I refused to see my mother and Dante’s bodies after the fire. I needed that last image of my mother’s halo of flames to be the one burned into my memory, to be the flag of my guilt and anger. Anything more and I’d have come apart completely. And so I was unprepared for the trauma of Ayaz’s injuries.
He lay on the infirmary bed, naked apart from some areas of his leg where his jeans had fused to his skin, the fabric garishly bright against blackened chunks of flesh. His legs didn’t look like legs anymore, and around his torso, his beautiful tattoos had been reduced to weeping blisters. Someone – Courtney, I guessed, since Old Waldron was with the teachers – had started to dress the wounds, but the job looked insurmountable. There was just so much damage.
Ayaz breathed through a mask, his body shuddering with each gasp. I thought he was unconscious, but then his dark eyes swiveled toward me.
His whole body jerked with shock, which caused him to let out a pain-soaked scream.
A tear fought its way out of the corner of my eye and rolled down my cheek. I’d never wanted this to happen. He was never supposed to get hurt.Never.
Fire burns. But that’s what happens when you unleash your monstrosity on the world. People you love get hurt.
“Fuck, Ayaz.” My hand hovered over him, my fingers itching to touch him, to feel the softness of his skin against mine. But touching him would only bring us both more pain.How will his body ever heal from this?
How will he ever forgive me? How could I ask him to? He’s lost to me now.
I turned away, disgusted with myself. I shouldn’t be in the room with him. Courtney was right – he shouldn’t have to look at the face of the one who did this to him.
“Wait,” he croaked out, his voice muffled by the mask.
The word tugged at me.Don’t turn around. Don’t give him a chance to—
I turned around. Of course I did. I would do anything that boy asked of me.
