“Want another blanket?” I asked, already hunting around the room before she could respond. We needed more blankets. A dozen more at least. How’d we only have one damn blanket in the living room?
“A fire?” Her bright green eyes flickered toward the stone hearth.
The smoldering embers that lived in my chest where my heart should be glowed to life. I moved over to the fireplace and crouched down. Slowly, methodically I stacked wood from the nearby rack. I held the tinder in my hand, pulling out my lighter and flicking it to life. I let the flame lick the starter, waiting for the moment it caught, then I pushed the kindling beneath the arranged logs. The fire spread slowly, faint orange building to a bright yellow as the logs succumbed to burning.
Standing up, I walked to an overstuffed chair across the room and dragged it close to the hearth, then I made my way to Lucy. She could walk fine now, the wound had healed beautifully, though she was still restricted from heavy lifting. But something in me needed to pick her up. I wanted to feel her weight against my arms; solid proof she wasn't some hallucination my fucked-up brain had conjured. When Kane had carried her into the house the day she was released, I’d been insanely jealous.
"Come here," I murmured, sliding one arm behind her knees and the other around her back. She weighed almost nothing. It seemed impossible to me that a grown woman could be so petite. The blanket stayed wrapped around her lower body, swinging beneath her as we moved.
"I can walk, you know," she protested, but her arms wound around my neck anyway, her face tucking against my shoulder as if the position was familiar. Comfortable.
"Yeah, and I can say the Alphabet backwards. We all have talents." I carried her the few feet to the fire, reveling in her delicious scent and the softness of her hair as it brushed the skin above my shirt collar.
The chair was worn but plush. Lucy settled against it, pulling her legs up and arranging the blanket. “This is better than the couch,” she sighed happily, wiggling a little to get perfectly comfortable.
I dropped to the floor in front of her, pressing my back against the chair. I cocked one leg up and straightened the other, my boot perilously close to the fire. Grabbing the longest poker, I stoked the flames, causing sparks to fly above the logs. Heat pushed against my jeans, warming the denim to almost uncomfortable levels, but I didn't move back. The hotter the better, even if it left a mark.
"Warmer?" I asked, pushing and lifting the wood, trying to decide if it was ready for a feeding. Deciding it was, I leaned forward and snagged a new log, tossing it onto the pile. It caught quickly, flames licking up around the bark, hungry and eager.
"Mmm," she hummed, and I glanced up to find her watching me, not the fire. Her eyes reflected the dancing light in the hearth, turning the green irises into molten gold.
I stared at her, unable to look away even as my neck screamed in protest at the awkward position. The silence between us wasn’t uncomfortable but expectant. Like the moment before lightning strikes, after the thunder has already boomed. I found myself wanting to tell her everything about me, from day zero all the way to day now. And I didn't talk about my past, not ever.
But something about Lucy made me want to be an open book.
Finally breaking eye contact, I turned away, focusing on the fire to ground me. When I spoke, the words poured out of me.
"I was eight the first time I set a fire. Not on purpose, at least not entirely." I resisted the urge to look at her again. I didn’t want to know if her expression changed. Didn’t want to know if she was judging me already.
"It was my second foster home. Decent people, I guess. Didn't hit me, fed me enough. Had this Alpha, the dad. He smoked. Kept this engraved silver lighter on the kitchen counter." I stared into the flames, seeing not our fireplace butthat small kitchen with its yellow walls and the constant smell of burnt coffee. "I stole it. Didn't even really think about it, just slipped it into my pocket when no one was looking one morning."
I felt Lucy shift in her chair. She didn’t say anything. She just waited, listening.
"They weren't bad people," I explained, needing her to understand this part. "I was just bored. Empty maybe. I remember the sound of the flint striking. I remember the smell. I remember the second that flame came to life, I felt fuller. Like I'd finally eaten enough food and I wasn't starving anymore."
I ran my hand through my hair, a nervous habit. The fire popped suddenly, sending a small ember onto my jeans. I brushed it away absently, unbothered by the momentary sting of heat. Still, Lucy stayed quiet behind me. A solid presence at my back, spurring me onward.
“The foster dad went crazy looking for the lighter, but I never copped to stealing it. One night, I got in the hall closet to play with it. Didn't really mean to set fire to the old winter jackets." I shrugged, as if accidentally scorching a closet was no big deal. "But once they started burning, I couldn't look away. Couldn't move. It was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. After that, I kept lighting fires, literally and figuratively burning through any foster home that would take me."
Now, I needed her to say something. Finally, I glanced back again. Her eyes were trained on the fire, her hands folded against her lap. Her expression was almost wistful.
“Do you understand what I mean, Lucy? About finding something that finally makes you feel full?” My tone was earnest. I was glad Nitro wasn’t here to give me endless shit about being a pussy.
But then she nodded, and her opinion was the only one that mattered.
"When I was in Seattle, two nurses took me to an art museum. I didn’t have to wear a protective suit or even a mask,” she said, her voice soft but steady. "There was this one piece of art I couldn't stop looking at. It was... food too."
I turned my body to look at her properly. Our eyes met, and there was that understanding again. The one that struck me like a physical blow at the Cirque. Lucy got it. She got me. I didn’t have to pretend.
There was a hunger in some people, one that transcended meals and physical need. It was a vacancy that had to be filled with something that nourished the damn soul.
"What was the painting?" I asked, suddenly desperate to know.
"You want to know the funny thing?" Her lips curved slightly. "I don’t even remember what it looked like. I stood in front of it forever, but I only remember how it made me feel.”
We stared at each other, and I felt stripped bare. In that moment, with the firelight between us, I was just that long ago kid who'd found something captivating inside destruction. And somehow, impossibly, Lucy understood. Her face never changed, it never flickered with disgust or fear.
The dancing flames painted her paleness, highlighting every delicate feature.
