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Chapter Twenty-Eight
Aika
The freezing night air is sobering, which is worse than whatever I felt inside the building. It seeps into me, chilling me to the bone and making me acutely aware of each speck of blood on my skin.
The world around me spins as I pace the cobblestone street.
My face is wet.
From the snow?
From tears?
From blood?
The flames soar higher in the air, and the numbness I felt in the warehouse abandons me entirely.
My chest hurts.
I can’t breathe.
Raising a fist, I slam it against my breastbone again and again, trying to stop the pain.
I’m worried I’ll have to miss you, too.Mel’s voice is the next to torment me this evening, carving into me like a jagged knife to my rib cage.
Was she right?
Of course, she was.
If I keep going this way, I’ll… I’ll end up dead. Just like—
I hit my chest again, this time in an attempt to make my heart stop hurting.
She’s dead.
Echoes from the night we learned about Zaina’s death come ebbing back in, threatening to suffocate me.
A scream escapes my lungs, and I stare up at the stars, cursing them for staying so still. For being so consistently unhelpful. Were these the same stars that Zaina saw the night she died? Did they watch her burn? Did they care?
I light another match and throw it at the already burning building in front of me.
I need more.
More heat. More flames. More...something.
Grabbing the last bottle of accelerant from my bag, I hurl it toward the building and watch as more flames burst and break free from the warehouse. They fly toward the street, the sky, anywhere they can to escape, angry and wild and reckless.
Like me,I think and begin to laugh, a tortured sound, followed by another scream.
I’m pacing again, shaking my head and cursing everyone and everything around me. How? How did it come to this?
“You left me!” I cry aloud, stumbling back from another outburst of flames and glass.
“You left me to become...this!”My voice breaks on the words.
Zaina had always kept me from falling, from diving in too deep and drowning in the waves of the chaos in our lives. But now?
I take a shuddering breath, willing my lungs to stop punishing me.
