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“They’ll sure have something to remember you by now,” I said, bumping into Blake’s side as we looked up at the apartment that was once her home.
I had promised her it would work out and would make damn sure to keep my promise.
People ran all around us, crying and screaming as they evacuated the building. Sirens sounded, filling the air but not loud enough to drown out the cries of the people around us.
I took it in. I hadn’t felt an environment with such terror in year.
It was breathtaking.
It caused my skin to heat and my breath to expand in my chest.
It was a perfect cover. So chaotic. So noisy that no one would even glance twice at us, all too worried about saving the people inside and trying to tend to the wounded.
Fires were noisy too. Noisier than I remembered. There was a deep rumbling noise coming from the apartment—the sound of everything inside being burned by the fire. It sounded almost as if we were waking some mythical monster.
Fire licked at the sky, the heat from it was causing the temperature around us to rise significantly. It would soon be unbearable. Not a soul would be able to get near.
Exactly what we needed.
I wondered if it hurt her to see it like this. If it hurt her to leave the life she had carefully built behind. To see all the memories that she had built in that place, burned right before her eyes.
But when I looked down at her and saw the flames reflected back in those emerald eyes of her, I had a feeling that she felt more free in that moment than she had in years.
Because just like me, those memories had been shackling us to the places we were. For me, Rolf and the guild had shackled me to this earth. All the memories of the kills I had completed, all the memories of the kills he had done while I was watching, all of them were like straps wrapped around my shoulders and torso, weighing me down.
If my memories were straps, hers had to be barbed wire, digging into her skin and cutting it open every time she even dared to breathe.
Those memories had made us who we were, but with them, it was impossible to move forward. Impossible for us to let go and build a life of our own. Not with the weight of them weighing us down.
So we had to get rid of them.
“Do you think they are in there now?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“They would have watched first, tried to catch us when we were distracted. I’m guessing they arrived when the fire started and are taking note as we speak.”
Her head tilted to the side, like she wanted to look over her shoulder, but she quickly righted herself and narrowed her eyes on the building in front of us.
“You made sure everyone evacuated before the fire started, right?” she asked, her voice low.
Just like Blake to think of the people surrounding her instead of herself.
I let out a hum, looking back up at the building. Parts of it were already starting to crumble and fall to the ground just a few feet in front of us. Some people ducked for cover and screams filled the air, but we just stayed, reveling in the chaos.
There was power in making the world reflect what you felt on the inside. Cathartic to finally hear the scream outside of your head, to watch as your nightmares took physical shape.
“The alarm was set about seven minutes before the blaze started. Most everyone was already out of their rooms by then and going down the emergency exit,” I said. “There were a few stragglers, but I think most of them are out now.”
She nodded.
“Will you miss it?” I asked. She wouldn’t meet my eyes until the question was out of my mouth.
It made me wonder if she was finally having second thoughts.
She nodded slowly. “It was the first place I had to myself. The first place I had alone. It wasn’t anything to write home about, but it was mine.”
