Flash Burned (Burned 2)

I didn’t have the spirit to step into the bedroom I’d shared with Dane. It was wholly representative of him, decorated to exude his personal style, his strength. I didn’t even want to enter the dressing room adjacent to it—with all of Dane’s clothes neatly arranged—which was why I’d had Kyle leave the bag here.

My dad said, “How about I make some tea?”

“You’ll never find it. You know how OCD I am about the placement of everything.” It wasn’t as though he could open the pantry and it’d jump out at him.

“I’ll take my chances,” he muttered, then wandered off. I could tell I broke his heart. That pained me as well, but I couldn’t help it.

Nor could I avoid thinking that if I hadn’t let my anal, everything-has-its-own-place mentality cause me to tuck away my allergy and birth control pills in a nightstand table—rather than having them right out in the open, next to my glass of water—I wouldn’t have spaced on taking them.

But that was all moot now, wasn’t it?

Kyle returned with my things and I went into the full bath outside the dining room and changed from the outfit my dad had brought to the hospital, which I figured he’d picked up at the golf shop at his club. I winced as I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Decided it’d be best to take a shower, which was possible since the bandages covering my palms and for

ehead were sealed, waterproof ones. Unfortunately, freshening up did nothing to alleviate the dark circles under my eyes and the vacant look in them.

Plus, I’d lost weight. More than one might imagine for being in the hospital for a week. My cheeks were a bit sunken and my skin had a sallow tinge to it. Precisely the same as after Vale had kidnapped me and bloodied my face.

Dane would go through the roof again were he to see me like this. And there was no doubt in my mind he’d want to kill someone—and this time, he probably wouldn’t be able to stop because I screamed for him to do so.

That, too, was neither here nor there. Leaving me with an empty sensation burning in my stomach.

After fixing myself up, though my hair remained damp and loose about my shoulders, I walked the corridor toward the great room. My dad followed me with a cup of hot tea.

An odd numbness settled deep in my bones. I felt a little lost in the house in which I’d lived the past two months. It was foreign without Dane. Just a building that held no warmth, no hospitality, no sense of family.

As I stood in the oversized doorway, I surveyed the space. Dimly lit and cast in bluish-gray tones. Eerily striking despite the lack of intimacy it held. Much too quiet, without the doors against the far wall opened to let in the sound of the rapid creek water, the whistle of wind through the trees, and the crunch of leaves under the feet of forest inhabitants.

The room itself was perfection personified. Everything had its special, specific place. Flawlessly arranged.

Most of the furniture and accents were items Dane had picked up on his world travels. Nothing I’d necessarily consider personal effects. Unlike the carefully selected artwork and decorations in our bedroom, these were acquisitions. Expensive and sought-after ones that had gone to the highest bidder—Dane.

They didn’t really mean anything sentimental. Just that he could afford them.

As I passed by the tall art niche, my fingertips grazed the glass pitcher I’d once admired. I tipped it over. The heavy carafe hit the heated stone floor with a loud crash that echoed in the silence. I quickly stepped out of the way of flying shards.

“Jesus, Ari,” Kyle said from behind me.

Drifting toward the wall of built-in bookshelves that spanned fifteen feet high and needed a ladder that slid along a metal rail for accessing the top shelves, I dragged my fingers over the titles of first-edition works and other prestigious volumes. Again, the ones Dane admired the most were all stored in our bedroom.

These were possessions of the privileged. Since I no longer thought of Dane that way—the privileged didn’t die in villainous death plots was my thinking—I pulled novels from their perches and let them fall, sprawled open at my feet.

“Sweets…?” Dad ventured in a trepid tone. A very don’t-make-any-sudden-movements-or-you’ll-set-off-the-crazy kind of voice.

“Everything’s just a little too perfect in here, don’t you think?” I slid a palm over the shiny black grand piano and jerked the piece that propped the top open. It slammed shut with a resounding thud that echoed through the room with the haunting rattle of strings.

Then I crossed to the doors. One of the tables before them held a glass chess set. I toppled the pieces. Turning away, I spied the pièce de résistance. The gorgeous floral arrangement in the middle of a sofa table that ran the length of a plush couch positioned in front of the tall fireplace.

Rosa replaced the buds every week with fresh ones. Perfect sterling silver and white roses in velvety, verdant foliage. A long and low bouquet that stretched across most of the glass top and peaked in the center. The base was a lovely porcelain number, quite delicate, exquisite. A German or French antique, I’d always assumed.

I hooked two fingers in the fragile pottery and tugged until it crested the edge of the table and smashed against the stone as I walked away.

“Okay,” my dad said as he set my tea aside. “This isn’t right. Ari, what are you—”

“Not the pictures!” Kyle yelped just a second before I swept my arm over the mantel and sent crystal frames flying. “Fuck!” He swooped in and knelt to start picking up the photos of mine and Dane’s wedding night.

“Don’t,” I said, a strange, evocative despair moving through me. What was the point of them, anyway? A reminder of what I no longer had? Would never have again? “Leave them just like that. Leave everything … shattered.”

More tears burned.