An uncontrollable urge to set something else ablaze slithered through my veins. A car. A building. Our damn house.
I dug my hands into my pockets, feeling the edges of my lighter. Just a flick, and I could create chaos—a raging, rising inferno that fit my mood. Maybe I’d expand my horizons. Maybe I’d target something that breathed. What would it feel like to watch someone burn? The idea turned my stomach, but not just with disgust. The twisting and knotting held morbid curiosity too.
I straightened, pushing back the predatory need for destruction and killing. I didn’t burn people. That was just my fucking Alpha side toeing closer and closer to the dark sides of my soul.
Besides, wanting to burn shit right now wasn't about Xander’s mortality; it was about the reality of our lives. We were all falling apart, all limping towards the edge of catastrophe. Every day it felt like a part of me was stripped away. Soon, I’d be nothing but bones. How well would bones burn? I could probably break into a funeral home and take a nap in a cremation furnace to find out.
The fire crackled and popped, as if encouraging me to go die a horrible, volcanic death.
I lifted a palm over the flames. I dropped it nearer, eyes fixated on the way the fire sizzled and sucked oxygen, rising higher, wishing to consume everything. It couldn’t though, not stuck in the metal barrel. I almost felt bad about caging something so wild. I could tip the barrel over. I could let the fire have some fun.
As I pushed my palm closer, the flames licked at my flesh with greedy tongues. My skin began to sizzle, the sweet smell of burnt hair and flesh drifting up. This was my sacrifice to whatever deities ruled our chaotic existence. This was what I craved: to feel something raw, something visceral, something akin to dying, but not quite dying.
Because coming near to death was when I felt most alive.
So why had Xander’s brutal crash bothered me so much?
I grinned maniacally, allowing my fingers to press into the burning core of the fire. Pain blossomed and rose up my arm, a sharp thrill racing through my body. I reveled in the searing heat, lost in the way it reminded me I was alive, just like the fire was alive. With each second, the sensation melded into a strange pleasure, drowning out thoughts of what could have happened to Xander.
Fuck it all; I was as alive as the flames that consumed the air!
But within that intoxicating moment, doubt seeped in, feeding on my exhilaration. My brother hadn’t perished tonight, yet something had still crumbled within me. I snatched my hand back as reality crashed over me and the pain lost all pleasure. Fire couldn’t heal; it couldn’t mend the invisible scars that lingered in my chest. What did I think would happen if I burned something? It wouldn’t create life; it would just destroy.
I looked at my hand, agony radiating up into my elbow and shoulder. I was going to have to call John to treat the burns.Shit.
My pulse raced, my mind frayed. I struggled against the temptation to keep hurting myself. My hand throbbed along with my heartbeat, but still, the flicker of the fire urged me to consider how easy it would be to lose control—how simple it would be to embrace the madness swirling in my mind.
Burn the world. Burn it all down.
Maybe I wasn’t as strong as I thought.
I should go inside and check on Xander, yet my feet were cemented to the ground.How much more could we all take? How far would we fall before something lifted us back up? Or would relief never come and we’d keep plummeting, slamming into rock bottom?
The thoughts echoed relentlessly.
Fire didn’t make me question life. Instead, it gave me answers. It had done so ever since I’d lit a closet on fire as a kid and found myself enamored.
I stared into the barrel again, trying to dissect the war within me, but no clearer grasp of my situation presented itself.
In lieu of understanding, the dark urges bubbled up again.What could I torch?The condemned motel off Clark County Road. The pizza place off Sunset that closed their doors last week. That park on Spring Mountain that was stupidly unsafe, but the city refused to rebuild it. I ran through possibilities, all the targets I’d catalogued while driving around Vegas.
I needed to release the festering, heated anger. And fast.
For now, I chose to watch the fire.
NITRO.
Lying flat on the rooftop, I stared into the endless blue sky yawning above.
With one hand, I played with the old butterfly knife, opening and closing it quickly. I didn’t care when the blade hit my skin; I let it bite as it wished.
I fucking hated it when Xander crashed. Sure, if the others got hurt, I’d be bummed out, but Xander was different. Every time he had a brush with death, I thought about how he’d brought us all together in the orphanage. Without him, we might not be DemonX at all.
I tipped my head back against the hard, hot shingles, letting the warm sun spill over my face. I felt safe up here, and the delicate snap of the knife’s blade kept me grounded. Each flicking motion was like a breath, inhaling light and exhaling shadows that clung to me. Only, no matter how many times I ‘breathed’, I could still feel the pull of something darker.
Slice at something more than air.
Cut and make it bleed.
