I stalk through the hallway, following the head of copper hair weaving between people while on two crutches. I can’t count how many books and sheets of paper have turned to ash in the days Blaze was gone. She bolted out of class as quickly as she could, thinking she could blend into the lunch crowd and evade me entirely.
The thief has another thing coming.
I haven’t gone to McGill’s office every day since they took her, demanding to know where she is, just for her to try to run from me.
The distance quickly closes between us. Even though Blaze protests when I lift her up, no one intervenes as I whisk her into theclosest room, bearing the brunt of her attacks via crutches.
Reminder for next time: make sure she’s free of weapons before kidnapping her.
“What is wrong with you? You can’t just do that!” She shoves me away as I sit her on top of the kitchenette.
Hello to you too, Blaze.
The break room is ten by five feet, if that. Nothing but a long bench hugging the right-side wall, a single stool, a bar fridge, and a mini sink.
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to pick someone up—or deprive them of their walkers, Osman?”Her arms flare around, enunciating her words.
There are several things I notice while she pretends to be angry about my tactics rather than something else on her mind.
One, she still hasn’t jumped down or told me off for locking the door.
Two, she isn’t slapping my hands away as I pull her backpack off, lowering it on the floor next to mine.
Three, she went in reverse. In a span of three nights, she’s returned to the gaunt girl whose shineless hair fell flat against her scalp and whose skin was devoid of any warmth. Sunken cheekbones, hollow eye sockets, colorless lips. Broken blood vessels line her throat, puckering the skin with a pinkish hue that didn’t come from me.
Wrong.
This is all wrong.
“What happened?” The words rumble through my chest.
My hand reaches for her throat before I can think it through. Her pulse almost feels as weak as the night I visited her in isolation.
She rams the palm of her hand into my shoulder, and I let her.Mostly because if I push for an answer, she’ll never tell me. And I’m already two seconds away from losing my shit. Arguing won’t improve those odds.
“Why do you care?” Blaze’s icy glare drops the temperature by thirty degrees.
“Why do I care?Why do I care?Are you out of your mind? If you’re still asking me that question, maybe my methods of showing you should be more extreme.”
How much more obvious can I be? I accept the possibility that I was too subtle about it before. But since I’ve come here, the only other thing I can do is tear my heart out of my chest and wrap it in a bow.
She’d probably miss that hint too.
I told her that it was always her, and she willalwaysbe the one for me. If that were a lie, my first time being intimate with a woman wouldn’t have been on an examination bed.
“No, I’m definitelynotout of my mind.” The lines around her eyes crinkle as the klepto narrows them at me. “I have done nothing but think for the past four days, and I salute you, Osman.” Blaze leans in closer, jaw tensed, looking like she’s ready to start an explosion with me as the single casualty. “Well fucking played. You really had me there.Let me take care of you.I’ll be gentle.I could never hate you.” Shaking her head, Blaze curls her lips into disgust. “Fuck. You. Kohen.”
I rock back on my heels. What the fuck is she talking about?
“The Science building?Genius.It’s better than anything I could have thought up—which isn’t surprising. No one thought you caused the explosion with Mrs. Crichton’s things, so what better way to get back at me than by burning the department she works in? You tookthe fall in the shed, evened the score, so no one looks further than me.Genius.”
My chest tightens. It’s hard to even look at her. AftereverythingI did, the thief thinks this is a game? A sick, perverted scheme to get back at her for tearing up my room and four days in the can?
“Maybe you didn’t understand me before,Whitlock.” She flinches, but I keep going. “I don’t say anything I don’t mean. If you want a liar, go run to Kiervan. If I wanted to get back at you, I could have ten times over—you steal, you drink, you fight, you use. You’re the perfect crime already, and I wouldn’t have to lift a finger.”
She doesn’t want me as much as I want her. She won’t turn the world upside down for me like I would for her. I would turn this earth into cinders—strike a single match and set this horrible world ablaze—if she asked me to. I’ve accepted all this because everything would be worth it as long as she feels something other than hatred toward me.
She didn’t love me last week or right now. She may not even love me a decade from now. But I will be wherever she is, even if she doesn’t want me. Man will always follow the light where there is darkness, and she is fire. The world is cold and empty without her.
