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“Lee, you’re being ridiculous.” Evie struggled against my hold. I couldn’t hold her and stop him at the same time, and she was my priority. I twisted around to hold her back from coming in front of me, trying to act as a human shield against something she didn’t understand.
“Let me go, Zaqiel,” she hissed.
“Evie,please, I have to protect you.”
Lee was faster than I gave him credit for and more cowardly for attacking when my back was turned. I had only enough time to push Evie away from me before the oil he had thrown on my back was ignited by the lighter.
EVIE
“Zaqiel!”
I’ve never heard that sound before—a scream so pitched with terror that it grated against your skin and sent a trail of goosebumps springing up on your arms.
It took me a moment to realize the scream had come from me.
Zaqiel shoved me away from him only a split second before he went up in flames. They engulfed his back and arms and sent me reeling at the instant heat. Almost unnatural flames of overly bright yellows and oranges licked at his skin and crept around his shoulders and torso, disintegrating his shirt and eating away at his skin.
“No!” I screamed again and reached out for him as he stumbled away from me. I suspected the pain in his eyes wasn’t entirely due to the way his skin was growing red then black and blistering under the flames.
I heard the beginnings of a laugh, a few short notes before it grew frantic.
“What did youdo,Lee?” I cried.
The laughing stopped, his eyes turned to me, and I shrunk under his gaze. He radiated a madness, danger, and general misbalance that crossed the air between us and filled me with discomfort that made me tremble.
“How does one woman know an angel, I wonder?” he said, tapping himself on the chin with the lighter. “Unless she, too, is one of these supernatural beings.”
“Lee—”
“You’re next, bitch,” he cried.
The roar that came from Zaqiel set me on edge, and when he turned on Lee, I had to move back a few feet from the heat radiating from the flames on his back.
“Stay away from her!” he cried, and although I reached out to him and called his name, I don’t think he heard me. What could I have even done anyway? I could feel Zaqiel’s pain from his movements, the way he held himself, but somehow, he still found the strength to grab Lee by the throat and hurled him out of the alleyway and onto the street.
The timing was either perfect or really bad, depending on how you wanted to look at it because as Lee flew across the street in an arc, he was collected by a passing car before he even hit the ground.
Even as the brakes were screeching, bringing the car to a halt, Zaqiel fell to his knees. I pulled my top off and wrapped it around him the best I could, extinguishing the flames and ignoring that my hands burned every time I made contact. Zaqiel had finally succumbed to the pain and was writhing and screaming in a way that shattered my heart and made it feel like it was being wrenched from my chest. His screams were unnatural, pitches and tones that beyond broke my heart as they destroyed my soul.
The burning effect was quicker on him than it was on my hands and more severe. When the flames were out, he stayed on his knees, his breaths were labored and heavy, his back and shoulders rising and falling, almost black save for the angry red blisters dotted through the burns. There was nothing left of his shirt, and his chest and lower half of his face were no better. I fell to my knees next to him, wanting to hold him but not wanting to hurt him any further. As I watched cracks appear in his skin between the burns, ash flaked away even in the slight breeze.
“Zaqiel, oh my God, what can I do?”
He was no longer screaming, but the labored rasps of his breathing and the silence were almost as disturbing.
“Evie…”
“I’m here, Zaqiel.” I choked back a sob, wanting to be strong for him when he needed me, but all I could see was the man I loved being taken away from me much too soon before we’d even had a chance to have a real life together.
“I’m sorry,” he coughed. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“I don’t care about that, Zaqiel. I don’t care about any of that. I just want you.”
He chuckled before wheezing again. “I’m dying, Evie.”
“No! Don’t say that.” I leaned forward so I could look into his eyes, and when he managed to open them, the pain in his was reflective of the pain in mine.
“Can’t heal… not from these burns.”
