"burn Those Who Burned Me!" Novels & Stories

Wear me, or let the world burn. The pressure in the air solidified. The hunger had a name. I held the shard up to the moon. And the decision I made would either save us all… …or bury us in the dark.

I'm happy. "This girl is on fire... This girl is on fire... She's walking on fire... This girl is on fire everybody stares at she goes by... Cause they can see the flame that's in her eyes... Watch her as she's lighting up the night nobody knows that she's a lonely girl and it's a lonely world but she gon' let it burn baby, burn, baby..." The crowd are so wild, what the? OMG! I'm so honored. "This girl is on fire, this girl is on fire, she's walking on fire..."

Something permanent. And if that meant walking through fire? Then let the world burn. I wasn’t losing my son to silence again. Not this time.

Elena walked back to the bonfire with sand in her shoes and Noah's warmth still pressed into her skin like something she'd never asked for and couldn't give back. She almost turned around twice. Didn't. The fire had gotten bigger—someone had thrown on more driftwood—and the group was louder, drunker, easier. A girl was doing a terrible impression of their Spanish teacher and everyone was losing it. Normal. God, so embarrassingly, achingly normal. Elena stood at the edge of the circle and blinked at it all like she'd just surfaced from underwater.

That is the real game of love. “Expect to be injured and injure at the same time. But don’t expect a free ride.” All these thoughts flooded my mind and I found myself lifting my glass of soft drink and sipping air instead of the drink. Sammy noticed it and joked instantly. “Madam you sip but your drink is just the same.” I felt a shamed as I realized for the first time that I had not drank my soda even an inch. However, I managed to conceal my disappoint with a smile. I bowed my head down as if to screen something then I heard a groan.

"Don't bother inviting Joshua to the funeral. I don't want him anywhere near it. Our bond just wasn't meant to last in this life, Rue. It'd be great to see you again if there's life after this." My eyes went wide as I watched that frail figure leap from the 17th floor. "Margaret!" I screamed in pain. At the same time, I could hear the familiar wail of fire sirens.

Half an hour later, Dennis sent a message that read, "Apologies, Derek. You were the one who suggested burning your wife alive to save us the trouble. You were too slow in withdrawing your men, and now she's nothing but ashes. "That being said, in view of the Church family's sincerity in giving us half your territory, I've instructed my men to wrap her up and return her to you for memory's sake." Not long after, a bag of ashes was sent to Derek. Along with it was my divorce agreement and recording pen. The recording pen contained audio of the words I had whispered to keep him conscious when I rescued him back then. Clutching the ashes, Derek laughed and wept like a man unhinged.

Then the poetry. Handwritten. Sometimes sonnets. Sometimes messy, jagged pieces that felt like they’d been ripped straight from his chest. One read: If I could be the rain that slips down your shoulder, If I could be the sky you look up at in rage I’d let you strike me down, again and again, If only to stay close to your fire. I threw that one in the trash. Three hours later, it was tucked inside the cash register. And then came the books. First editions. Stories I’d loved. Stories I’d once read aloud to Damien in the Blackwood library when we were young and tangled in something that felt like forever.

My chest caved like a fist crushing bone. I gripped the wheel of my desk so tight I thought it would break. My knuckles split, blood smeared, but I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel nothing but fire crawling through my veins, fire that screamed her name, fire that wanted to burn Rome, burn Valerio, burn Giovanni until nothing but ash. I whispered through my teeth, low and sharp so it cut my tongue: “Burn it all. Burn them all.”

But because my sister, Raven Webster, thought Snowviper was too terrifying to look at, she stole Blazewing for herself. A month later, the whole world turned hotter, and the heatwave apocalypse began. Snowviper's power, just like his name, could lower the temperature within ten feet of him, creating a living shield against the burning world. Blazewing, on the other hand, carried the opposite—heat and fire. Raven took Blazewing, but she died of heat stroke in the heatwave apocalypse, while I survived thanks to Snowviper's cooling power. In her final moments, Raven was convinced I had stolen her husband. She whispered poison into Snowviper's ear, and he killed me.