Fiery Little Thing

by Avina St. Graves

“Oh, Blaze,” he says mockingly. “I already know you burn so pretty. And if it isn’t by me, you’ll just do it to yourself. But your death is mine, Thief.”

Oh, I also may have punched him during my first week here. And threw a chair at the douchebag security guard, Boris. And got caught with rat bait before I got the chance to put it in the star quarterback’s food after he asked me whether the curtains match the drapes.

Me and the Lady can throw hands out on land if she intends to kill me. What happens after is none of my concern.

My eyes cut to Kohen, imagining storm clouds following him to every beach he visits.

“Why do you want to know? Planning on coming over to watch 10 Things I Hate About You and touch toes underneath the blanket?” He sneers at me. “I don’t want hand, foot, and mouth disease.” My jaw drops in disbelief. “You’re saying you look like that naturally? How about we go on that walk back to Principal Fifth-Divorce, and we can see about giving you shingles instead.” “Please,” he scoffs. “I’d probably catch chlamydia just by standing next to you.”

Charming looks, sweet in his smile, and lethal in his words.

I gasp when he shifts his leg and it brushes against mine—and the parasites in my stomach are at it again. My body is fucking ridiculous. I need a new one. The disconnect between my brain’s hatred for him and the barest touch sending sparks up my spine is going to send me to a ward with all the conflict going on.

“Did you hear me when I said he’s abusive? Pushes me around? Keeps trying to choke me?” Not to mention he lit my hair on fire when we were kids, broke into my house and started going through my stuff, and left me a dead bird on my front porch then had the audacity to ask if I liked his present. Let’s not forget the time he stole some of my clothes after PE and left a knife in my locker a couple years back.

A string of extra bad boyfriends landed her in this place after the last one convinced her to start dealing, and then she tried gouging his eye out when he cheated on her in her own bed. Her reaction was justified, if you ask me.

If I weren’t trying to get something out of him, I’d gut him for how touchy he always gets with me.

I pissed around after school for the past four years to walk her home because half the time she’s plastered, coming down, hungover, or simply unobservant. Not once has she thanked me or shown a modicum of appreciation. The dumbest thing I’ve ever done was to assume she wouldn’t just fuck any guy who waves a bag in her face. I don’t care if that’s her mom’s MO or any other woman’s game; that shouldn’t be her game—not after everything I’ve done for the ungrateful shit.

When Elijah turns to look at her too, I quickly do the math on whether it would be worth spending a night in solitary if I got the chance to crack his skull. I bet he’s fucked her as well. Fuck. I ball my hands into fists. Blaze prefers everyone but me.

She truly does astound me. She’s either so delusional and has no idea how much verbal diarrhea comes out of her mouth, or she genuinely aspires to do everything possible to get her ass kicked.

The little thief had a whole shelf in her room dedicated to everything she thought I didn’t know she took and the things I let her take—not that she knows any of this.

I’m fucking sick and tired of waiting for her to stop being psychotic for two minutes for once in her life so she can open her goddamn eyes. I’m done being patient, and I won’t sit by and watch her show non-homicidal interest to everyone but me. This shit is going to end. She’s going to get in fucking line, or else she’s going to see what happens when I feel cornered.

“There are two more months left of school. If you last until graduation without any drugs or alcohol, I will give the entirety of my trust fund to you.”

Maybe if I didn’t constantly feel like I’d been hit by a truck, I would get an epiphany about the course my life was going down, and then everything would suddenly be in order.

I had no expectations about kissing Kohen, but I always imagined it would be exactly like this: searing hatred that makes the air so thick with tension, feeling as if he’s lit a match between us and we’re being enveloped in smoke.

Nothing about this is loving. It’s packed to the brim with poison and cinders that make my veins boil with need. This is the first time I’ve been kissed sober, and I’ve never felt more intoxicated.

“Fucking hell, Blaze. Are you trying to die?” he growls under his breath and yanks my head back with a fist in my hair. “A murder charge would look good on you,” I sputter between strangled gasps, staring up into his disgustingly beautiful eyes.

“Think I could fuck the brat out of you then, Thief?”

I guess I’m a simple-minded girl who wants a strong man; none of his other qualities matter. The fact he ruined my life? Nope, my pussy doesn’t give a shit about any of that.

I’m the one who wins this war. I don’t need an army to take him down when he has holes in his armor.

So when I come, there aren't just fireworks and overfilled champagne. The earth rumbles, the ground opens up, hellfire tears through the sky, and I throw my head back to scream his name. Not his. His. Kiervan’s. Checkmate, asshole.

HAhahhahhahaha

Then she touched me—well, she slapped me. But she chose to put her hand on me. Me. And god it makes me giddy to think she willingly put her hand on me. She chose to slap me.

Blaze doesn’t appreciate the gravity of what I told her last night. A thread is sturdier than the shit I was hanging on to last night.

She’s beautiful, violent, vulgar, and batshit fucking crazy.

I don’t need her smitten by me. I don’t need her fawning all over me and falling to kiss the ground I walk on. Fire has no master. Blaze is no different. If I wanted a dog, I would have gotten one.

I don’t want or need people to listen to me. I’m perfectly content on my own. Here, no one is letting me down or pissing me off. No one is calling me a liar or belittling me to the point I start to question my own sanity. Alone is where it’s good. Alone is where it’s safe.

Everything she said earlier was wrong. I’d kill myself before I’d kill her. Ever since we were kids, she always thought I hated her when I was just trying to get her to like me. After a while, I hated her for hating me and being so fucking dense, not understanding my intentions. By the time I was old enough to realize the fault in my logic, the damage was done.

I won’t fight for someone who puts me in last place, just like everyone else does.

Yesterday, I felt like death. Today, I feel like her counterpart: violence and loathing.

Yes, Grandpa Jonathan, your little problematic princess is coming for you, guns blazing—emphasis on the blaze.

A pawn whose power comes from his mouth—which makes him the worst pawn of all.

If it wasn’t for all the shit she’s pulled recently, I could almost die happy under those homicidal eyes. Her face is so beet-red, I’d almost feel inclined to call her cute—but the word is too mundane to describe what she is. Alluring. Bewitching. Catastrophic. Certifiable. Just to name a few.

“I didn’t ask for your bitchiness.” “It’s on the house.”

I inch closer just so her scent can get into my head and fuel the beast that’s been starving for her since the first day I met her on the playground, decking a kid two years older than her for calling her a carrot. I knew then that I was happy to burn if it was because of her.

if you don’t spread your legs for me right now, I’m sending us both to prison.” It’s a leg workout with how hard I’m squeezing my thighs together, and it makes the examination sheet crinkle beneath me. “I’m not doing shit for you.” “That’s part of the problem, isn’t it?”

My brain short-circuits. He can’t say shit like that to me. Take care of me? What the fuck? Those four words are all it takes to get me to fold for this lunatic?

there aren’t many hills I’m willing to die on, but as of today, there is a mountain I’m willing to conquer—and I’m no hiker.

Stay still and let me take care of you. That’s what he said to me.

His lips move like they have finally found their counterpart. They taste like lost dreams. I savor it because if all of this is a sham, at least when I die, I’ll know what it feels like to be important to someone.

“What happened to rest, ice, compression, and elevation?” I pant out the acronym for R.I.C.E, not sure he can understand the words I’m saying. “That’s why your legs are on my shoulders and not shaking against the bed.”

“It will always be you,” he whispers against my skin and brushes a kiss over my lips. “You’re a necessity to me.”

Kohen is the only constant I’ve had my entire life. Whether he was sick or injured, he’d always be waiting for me by the tree on my route home. Kohen walked inside my bare house, met my mother, saw me high, saw me hungover, saw me over every other man but him. I’ve hit him, screamed at him, framed him, did things I know would hurt him, and he’s still here.

“At the beginning, middle, and end, you’re the only one I’ll ever want. You’re mine, Blaze.”

Maybe it wasn’t hatred for Kohen that I felt, but hatred at life in general.

“I’ve seen every single part of you. All the broken parts—even the parts you hate, and I’m still going to stay.”

Kohen’s soft lips graze the shell of my ear as he whispers, “Hate me all you want, Blaze. But I could never hate you.”

I told him I’m not a damsel in distress when I’m a walking cry for help.