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It’s gotten more faint over the years, but there’s a part of me that wonders if I’ll ever truly be over it.
But this flame will serve a different purpose. This is for River, to help her in her quest for vengeance, so it’s more than worth it.
“Make sure you get it everywhere,” Gage is saying to Ash, talking in a quiet, rushed voice. “Don’t just squirt it everywhere.”
“Make up your mind,” Ash hisses back. “You either want me to get it everywhere or you don’t.” He squirts his bottle a little more aggressively, spraying the wall in a splatter.
“You know what I mean,” Gage fires back and then moves on. “We have to be thorough. There’s no way we can make this look like an accident, but we want the whole place to go up in smoke.”
After the other two massive blows to his business, there’s no real way Julian would buy that his boxing ring burning down was just some random occurrence. Even if we went to great pains to make it seem like that.
“Speed over stealth,” Knox says, echoing something River said when we came up with this plan.
“That sounds like the name of a porno,” Ash mutters, and Knox snorts a laugh.
Gage just rolls his eyes. “I’m so glad you’re all taking this seriously,” he grumbles.
“It’ll get done,” River says. “One way or another. He’s going to lose everything, and we may as well enjoy making that happen, right?”
She has a point with that, and if anyone deserves to revel in the destruction we’re heaping on Julian Maduro’s head, it’s River.
Eventually, the bottles are spent, and Gage steps back. He glances at Knox, who nods. We’ve done as much as we can here. The ring smells like chemicals, and all we need now is the fire.
Knox holds up a box of matches with a savage grin on his face.
“Who wants to do the honors?” he asks.
“I’ll do it.” The words are out of my mouth before I even really take the time to consider them, and I surprise myself by saying them.
The group looks to me, and Knox tosses me the box. I pull a match from the box, holding it between my fingers for a second. Then I strike it, and the flames leap to the little bulb. The scent of ash and smoke fills my nose, but I keep my head and flick the match right at a little puddle of accelerant on the floor.
It ignites immediately, and the flames snap and spread, following the trails of fluid on the floor to the walls.
“Fuck,” Knox breathes. “Okay, time to go.”
We hustle out of there, moving quickly. Our ride is parked a little down the road, and we only wait long enough to make sure the building is going to go up completely. And it’s pretty clear that it is. The flames are already climbing, bursting out the windows and licking at the walls of the building, engulfing it in flickering red and amber.
That’s all we really need to see, and we get into the car and peel out.
It’s a quick drive back to the house, and we strip off our masks and some of our gear once we get through the door. River hesitates once her face is free, and it looks like she wants to say something.
It’s so clear how attuned to her we all are because we all notice and turn to look at her, waiting.
She bites her lip, and then her face softens.
“Thank you,” she says quietly. “For helping with this. For putting so much of your own business aside to help me take on Julian.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “It used to scare me, how willing you are to do this for me. But it doesn’t make me afraid anymore. It just makes me feel…”
River trails off, like she doesn’t know how to put it into words. She shakes her head and looks up at us again, glancing around.
“Thank you,” she repeats. “For this, and for everything.”
I stride over to her and take her face in my hands. I look down at her, those dark blue eyes, her sliver hair. The soft expression on her face that we don’t usually get to see when she’s being so determined all the time. It’s new, and I’m coming to cherish it every time I see it.
I dip my head and kiss her, losing myself in it a little bit. River leans up into the kiss, giving back as good as I give her.
When we break apart, her lips are red and her eyes are bright.
“There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for you,” I tell her, my voice soft but insistent. “I mean that.”
And I know the others agree with me.
I don’t look away or try to hide how I feel, and I can see it when River sees the truth in my eyes. Emotion passes through her eyes, something soft and a little bit fragile. I can guess that she hasn’t had very many people in her life who have vowed to take care of her and take up her causes as their own.
This isn’t her first quest of vengeance, but it is probably the first one she’s had where she isn’t doing it alone. Where she knows she has back up and protection and people who give as much of a shit about it as she does.
She can see that I understand that, and that emotion builds between us. River gazes up at me, and I try to put as many promises as I can into my gaze as I look back.
Of course, then Knox has to break the tension by clapping loudly and grinning. “This calls for a motherfucking toast!”
