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What good was it if Icouldn’t. Fucking. Move.
I bared my teeth, carefully maneuvering the lighter between my fingers so I wouldn’t drop it, flicking the flint wheel until spark and flame erupted from the metal. The heat of it singed my finger hairs, scorching my skin.
Shit.
I flicked the top closed and the flame snuffed out, the slight burn on my finger smarting with a dull pain.
“Yes,” Rook crooned. “That’s it.”
I tipped the top back on the lighter again and struck a new flame, watching it dance above the wick.
My gaze strayed to the wooden arm of the chair that I was still tied to. It was solid. Ancient. Probably fucking half petrified. But it waswood.
The lighter stilled as the shake in my fingers steadied and whatever had been knotting in my chest unfurled. My lips parted, realizing there was one way I could still get out of here.
I couldn’t twist my wrist enough to burn off the leather restraint. Or even catch the cloth gauze around the wounds there aflame. I could only touch this flame directly to the wood.
And if it caught, the fire would spread up the arm of the chair, burning everything in its path. The leather restraints. The tied cloth.Me.
All I needed was that one arm free and I could untie the rest of me.
…but it was going to hurt.
“Only for a second, AJ,” Grey’s smooth voice reassured me. “You got this.”
“Whatever it takes,” Corvus purred in my ear, the vibrations of his rich timbre shaking loose another tear from my eyes. I sniffed, clutching the lighter tighter.
“Burn it all,” Rook urged, and when I opened my eyes, he was there.
His hand guided mine, pushing the flame ever closer to the wooden edge of the arm of the chair.
The tattoo over his knuckles…
The rings on his fingers…
He was so real.
So close.
I’d do anything he said if he’d just promise to stay.
I shut my eyes, trying to feel him, leaning into the madness. Willing this beautiful hallucination to carry me through as I pushed the flame to the wood and grit my teeth.
I bit backferal screams as I peeled my burned flesh from the flame-licked wood, the burning leather strap around my wrist stretching like pulled taffy until it finally released its hold on me.
The heat made rational thought the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. So hot. Too hot. Sweat coated my face, my chest. Ran down my arms. Doing absolutely nothing to douse the flames getting steadily larger as they ate the wood from under my arm.
I shook, my eyes rolling back at the ceaselessburn. If there was a hell, this was what it would feel like.
Darkness threatened at the edges of my vision, but I breathed through it, unable to look at the pink, red, white, and black menagerie of pain that was my left hand and forearm.
I choked on stomach acid as the fire worked its brutal magic, scorching the sensitive underside of my forearm for another few seconds before the cloth tie burned enough for me to pull through that too. I lifted my wrist to my mouth with a sob, biting down on the still burning gauze wrapped around my wrist to tear it off, screaming through my teeth as the cinders also left little burns on my lips. I spat the gauze out and cursed when it landed on my thighs.
I shuffled enough to let it fall between them, down to the piss pot below.
My arm shook violently as I pulled as far away from the fire as I could, taking my first full breath in what felt like a century, my entire body convulsing as the burning sensation rang through my entire being. Shot bright spots against the backs of my eyelids.
The wood cracked and sizzled.
