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The thought of Julia sends a chill down my spine. I’d never been good at making friends, but Julia could charm anyone. She was my parents’ pride and joy.
She was my everything.
Until she wasn’t.
Maybe I was always drawn to Van Gogh because he was everything I wanted to be. He lived behind a cloud of darkness. No one told him what to do. He lived by his own rules.
He was truly free.
Something I would never be.
Even now, a state away from my past, I’m a prisoner who can’t fail, or Blake the Snake will expose me and send me to prison. I will lose everything and end up just like my sister.
Looking around the woods, I don’t see Van, but I know he’s there, watching, waiting for me to close my eyes like before.
Van Gogh may not care about me anymore, but luckily for him, it doesn’t matter.
I keep my promises—I just deliver on them a little shittier than I used to.
Grabbing a marker from my bag, minding Blake’s obnoxious snoring, I take the protein bar out and scribble Coward on the wrapper.
Reese
I wake to screams, and not the dramatic kind, like a bug flying into someone’s tent, either.
These screams are blood-curdling panic.
“Help us!”
I jump to my feet and find the tent empty and the door open. Blake is gone, and from the sound of his distant screaming, he is in someone else’s tent.
I told you he was a real sweetheart.
Crawling out, I’m met with a face full of smoke and a blazing fire circling Ashley’s tent. But it’s not the screams or the raging fire preventing their escape; it’s the fear from the words painted in ash on the ground: Betrayer.
I didn’t need to look down at my feet—at the spot where I left the protein bar. I knew this was Van Gogh’s handiwork. The ash lettering is his signature, but it’s not the one he uses when punishing those who wronged him.
For that, he leaves a sunflower burnt into the ground—where the protein bar lies in the center, right next to my missing shoe.
It’s a warning—one he’s never used on me.
He’s coming for me, and I better be ready.
For what, I don’t know. All I’ve ever done is protect Van. Undoubtedly, last night’s encounter upset his moody ass, but surely not enough to kill me. I was joking, after all. Van should be used to my humor, even if we haven’t seen each other in years.
But seriously, what did he expect me to do? Hug him? Fall to my knees and kiss his tight ass for finally gracing me with his presence after he up and disappeared, leaving me waiting at our meet-up point like a total idiot? Uh, yeah. I might have been happy to see him, but not that much.
“Reese! What the fuck are you doing? Help us!”
I tear my eyes from the protein bar and look at Blake’s panicked face. The fire isn’t that tall, nor is it thick. Blake could easily throw his blanket on it and get out, but Blake didn’t spend a summer watching the silent arsonist paint the town he loathed with fire. Van Gogh controlled the flames as if they owed him a debt. He fanned them until the screams started, but it wasn’t until his victims cried out for help with their guilty tears that he allowed their escape.
He always left them a way out, but to take it, they would lose everything else. As soon as they were free, their most prized possession would go up in flames.
It was their punishment—though I never knew for what, but each of Van Gogh’s victims escaped with their lives.
This fire—the one he set for me—is my punishment. I have wronged him somehow, and as soon as I put out this fire and get myself to safety, I will lose everything that matters.
But then again, so will Blake.
