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I feel clean and whole andgood. The longer I stare, the more intense the sensations — and yes, part of it is drunkenness, because God knows everyone can tell I’m a fucking lightweight, but this… It extends beyond that. It’s as though the power draws up from the grounds of Lochkelvin in ways that are elemental, in ways that I can’t even begin to understand.
This fire feels like soap to my soul.
Finlay turns the radio up, primal beats pulsating darkly. He too is captivated by the fire, happily crowing as it rages higher and higher, and I wonder if he also feels its cleansing power. We carry so much guilt — all of us do to a certain extent, but most especially me and him. We’d been united once by deception.
I can see, sometimes, why Antiro thinks it’s better to just burn everything and start again. It’seasy. It’s so easy, and destruction comes with that delicious hit of liberation. Facades crumbling. Cruelty beckoning.
But creation? That’s harder. There’s a higher price tag. It takes effort. It takes blood, sweat, tears, and time. Destruction can happen in seconds. Creation takes lifetimes for something that, by its very nature, will never, ever be perfect.
Destruction isn’t progress, no matter what Antiro proclaims.
Striking first isn’t progress.
“You feel so hot, little saint,” Rory murmurs against my cheek, his knuckles stroking my jaw lightly. “Little pyromaniac. Does fire always burn you up?” He lowers his mouth to the corner of my lips, a teasing breath away, before sliding them fully onto me.
I spin around to meet him, looping my arms around his neck to tug him closer. Against the backdrop of flames, our kiss deepens. I arch into him, letting him hold me upright, and his mouth slips down, down past my lips, to my neck, to my throat, to the small dip behind the loosened tie at my clavicle.
His lips graze my skin and I find myself giggling in delight, giving myself up to him. Caught between his arms, I throw my head back and laugh toward the sky. Demons won’t pester me tonight, not when I have the most powerful angel in the realm protecting me, whose silver tongue and secret magic promise to slay them all. I grip hold of Rory’s blazer and relax into the soulful beat of the music in the background, my nose nuzzling Rory’s jawline as I watch Danny lob a reel of bunting into the heart of the fire like a lasso.
I breathe in the darkness and danger, and love it.
Maybe we aren’t the good guys, after all. Maybe we’re too dark and degenerate to be pure enough to be good. But then, so what? It feels good not to be good all the time. We can be gray and shadowed instead. All I know for sure is: we might do bad things, buttheydo worse.
Rory and I slow-dance on the grass. And even though the fire erupts like tangerine lava behind us, he never takes his eyes off me. They glitter, pure adoring silver, as he clutches me to his chest.
The moment is perfect. Dancing in Rory’s arms beneath a blanket of stars, the other chiefs chucking the last of Antiro into the bonfire to build it bigger and bigger. The triumphant crowing beside us when the fire sparks in appreciation at a certain piece, relishing it and burning it up faster than the rest with greedy, hungry crackles. I nestle my head in the crook of Rory’s neck, watching the firelight flicker across Luke’s softened face.
He’s not whooping like Finlay and Danny but his expression is lighter, almost radiant. He continues to throw items onto the fire at a steady rate, one by one, feeling no urge to chuck large handfuls at a time. It’s like every piece of poison is his enemy, and he wants to watch each one burn with equal pleasure.
“What is going on?!” From the entrance doors, Arabella’s voice pierces the air loudly, and I sigh dreamily against the warm column of Rory’s neck. This couldn’t have lasted, just for a little while longer…? But then there’s a giant inferno running riot on the grounds of the castle, and perhaps rightfully she sounds horrified. It makes me want to laugh. Arabella races down the stone steps and crosses toward us over the dewy grass, her shoes only loosely tied, as though they’ve been yanked on before rushing straight from the girls’ tower. She’s wearing pajamas, I note, dark tartan bottoms and a cozy white top, but she still managed to shrug on her Lochkelvin blazer with its shiny Head Girl badge to make herself appear more presentable. “What are you doing?!”
I pull away from Rory, though his hand doesn’t leave my waist. She gazes up, aghast, at the fire burning unchecked in the middle of the lush, grassy grounds. Finlay starts laughing like he can’t contain himself.
Arabella’s eyes narrow. “Are you drunk?”
“Areyou?” Rory asks coolly. “Would explain the little stunt you pulled earlier today.” He delves into his bag and tugs out a bent black cardboard sign with the blood-red Antiro symbol etched across the center. Arabella stares at it in shock, watching as Rory hurls it listlessly into the blaze.
“Youwere littering on school premises,” Arabella declares in a disapproving tone, her wide eyes transfixed by the rising flames.
“And this shit isn’t?” Rory asks with an arch of his brow, lifting the bag high enough to catch her attention.
Arabella scowls at him. “We improved it.” She shakes her head faintly. “I can’t believe you’re doing this. You really hate us, don’t you?”
“That’s right, Belly,” Rory drawls, languidly tossing a rolled-up banner into the flames. It unravels in midair and the words “Antiro Forever” are consumed in an instant. “It’s not about truth or justice or any of that good old-fashioned stuff. It’s all aboutyouand howyoufeel.”
“We don’t deserve this.”
“You know what’s undeserved? Smashing the vigil of a dead woman to pieces — a student’s mother — because you disagree with her politics. That, to me, seems pretty fucked-up, Belly.”
“So you admit it, then —yourswas political, too. So why is ours so offensive it deservesthisand yours isn’t?”
Rory drops the bag beside him and strolls over to her. He leans forward, and in a silken tone, answers, “Because one was made by students to pay their respects in commemorating a woman’s death… and yours may as well have said, ‘We did it.’”
Arabella swallows, blinking furiously. She takes a step back from Rory, then turns her attention onto Luke with a barely disguised sneer.
“You lot should be smarter than this,” she says delicately. “You could at leastpretendto support us, that way we’d leave you alone.” Her gaze hardens on Luke. “Otherwise you may as well top yourself now, because Antiro’s coming for you — or don’t you read the news?”
An incredulous huff of laughter falls from my lips.You may as well top yourself? What the actual fuck? And she’d been the one sayingIneeded psychological help…
