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"Let go of me!" she hisses, trying to pull away from me.
"No thanks," I say, tipping my chin at her. "Offer rejected."
She tries to dart away, but I hold her a little tighter and murmur my next words against the shell of her ear. Her hair smells like strawberries today, and I suck it in greedily.
"I will burn this goddamned place to the ground if you don't stop it," I tell her.
She looks at me like she's not sure if I'll do it. She should know better than that.
I grab the lighter—rolling the wheel and pressing the button at the same time—and bring the flame to her abdomen, a couple of inches away from her. She stops struggling. Well, technically, she stops moving entirely. She falls victim to Elsa and freezes to the floor. I stop walking too, and it becomes a whole thing.
What is her deal with a little bit of fire?
I've got to rid her of this asap. She's missing out.
"How long do you think it'll take them to find a fire extinguisher?" I murmur down to her, letting my breath tickle her hair. "Remember to stop, drop, and roll, baby girl."
"What in the actual fuck is wrong with you?" she hisses, snapping out of it to cock her head at me.
"What do you think happens when you don't comply around here?" I clap back. "Do you think you get to go home? No one leaves this place, Avery. They will tie you down to the table and force a tube down your throat to feed you. They will set up IVs. They will bring in doctors and specialists. I don't know how many more ways I can say it, but you aren't going home, not unless it's in a cap and gown or in a pine board box."
"My father will take me out of here," she tells me.
Lord, is she really this dense?
Apparently so.
"If it comes down to it, Headmistress Graves will lie through her bleached teeth. Look at all the stops they're already pulling out, baby girl. They will make sure your daddy finances the next wing in this place. She'll tell him you're making progress, that you are doing better, until they can figure out what to do with you. You think you're the only person who's tried to leave the Academy? No one leaves, not unless they graduate or they die. End of story."
Her mouth drops open like it hadn't even occurred to her that Headmistress would lie to make a buck, my sweet, naïve Firefly. It always takes a baseball bat to beat that lesson into the new students' brains. Chryseum isn't like the standard preparatory or reformatory schools. No one here follows the same rules or abides by the same standards. This place is literally the last resort, and they take advantage of that fact.
"Now come with me," I tell her. "We're going to the basement."
"No," she shakes her head, "it's forbidden."
This again?
I shrug. "It's only forbidden if they find out. And they're not going to find out."
She doesn't move.
"What's wrong?" I ask her with a grin. "Afraid of being alone with me?"
"You've threatened to set me on fire enough, I should be," she deadpans.
Ouch . . .
Burn.
Ha!
"I'm not going to set you on fire in the basement," I tell her.
Not until you beg for the flash paper, and I light you up.
She doesn't look convinced, so I add, "There's no open air down there, and I don't feel like suffocating today, m'kay?"
It's a half-truth, but she doesn't need to know that. It's true that there are no windows in the basement, but I've set plenty of fires down there, just like I used to with . . .
