Burn (Virtues & Lies 1)

There are too many things that can happen next. Too many possible scenarios I refuse to take myself through.

Out of nowhere the words run through my head and I pray them with my eyes screwed shut. I say each word as clearly as I was taught at school and through catechism.

Mary, Mother of grace, Mother of mercy, shield me from the enemy and receive me at the hour of my death. Amen.

Mary, Mother of grace, Mother of mercy, shield me from the enemy and receive me at the hour of my death. Amen.

I keep going, the voice in my head getting louder as my nails claw at the wall. Prayer, pain, and stained-glass window green eyes, that’s all there is until one ear-splitting, thunderous crack echoes around me, followed by another and another.

Shrill pain cuts through the inside of my thigh like a hot blade slicing my flesh. My body sags against the cold wall and I’m sliding down it. My face scraping down the wet cement until I’m huddled on the floor. A numb heap as more shots echo around me.

Cold. Mute. Blind. I can’t find the strength to pull myself together. All I can do is shiver.

“Fuck!” Wayne’s loud curse resounds low in my ringing ears. “Fucking stop!”

A loud clunk rattles by my face before warm hands cup my cheeks and brush through my tangled hair. Big, strong hands that hook under my armpits and draw me to an equally warm chest.

“Let me look at you, Buttercup.” Rasping with gruff desperation, Leo strokes my sore cheek. The beat of his heart is angry and as I burrow into his chest, he holds my aching body tighter. “Let me see you’re okay, baby, please.”

I can only manage a protesting groan as he pulls me away from him to inspect me, I’m barely able hold my own head up. All I want is for him to hold me as tightly as he can and never let me go.

“Someone give me some fucking light!” he growls loudly, his fingers brushing my hair back from my face repeatedly.

Although my eyes are closed, I know when his demand is met because my eyelids light up and burnish like I’m lying in the sun.

His hands continue to urgently brush my hair until he’s chanting breathlessly, “You’re okay. You’re okay…”

The way his voice is shaking with relief and rage, it makes my chest tighten to the point I can’t breathe, and my eyes burn with choked tears that never come.

“I thought…Oh God, I thought…” Kissing my face, Leo squeezes me so tight to his chest that my bones and joints wince.

Oddly though, my lungs relax, and I gulp as much air as I can.

“Fuuuuck man, did you want to make any more mess?” Casper’s gravelly voice filters through the fuzz in my head, and when I try to look up, Leo stops me.

“It seemed like the right thing to do.”

“Yeah, well,” Casper’s voice grows closer and I find myself shrinking into Leo. “You need to get her out of here.”

Leo takes in a deep breath before his arms tighten around me and he begins to move to get up. I’m not ready to go out there yet, my mind is still wrapping around what’s happening and how close I came to— It doesn’t matter that I shut the thought off, my chest caves and my inability to breathe makes me panic.

“Let me go,” I barely recognise my hoarse, exhausted voice. And it’s funny because I don’t feel tired. My body is shaking, and my heart is thrumming wildly. I feel like I could run the London marathon in record time.

I’m fine. Except all of a sudden, everything feels like too much. There’s too many footsteps and voices and not enough air. The space is shrinking around me and it doesn’t matter how much I want Leo to hold me, right now, it’s too much.

My skin is crawling and I’m hurting all over, my arm, my thigh, and God, I can still feel the barrel of the gun pressed between my legs.

Fighting his hold, I scuttle off his lap, but when I prop myself up against the wall and my hazy vision clears, I don’t know what to do.

A scream swells in my throat and sticks. I don’t know whether it’s fear, disgust, or anger. But it’s choking me.

That faceless man lying on the ground, in a pool of his blood, hurt me. His blood-covered face makes me cringe, and when I see the wide, shining, seeping well on his forehead, right above his left brow, I gasp in horror.

“Oh Jesus. Fuck. Oh God.” I can’t take my eyes off him, and although in the back of my mind I’m aware I shouldn’t feel relieved at the sight, I feel it trickle into my veins. Warming me like hot magma under the surface of the earth.

That could’ve been me.

That man wanted to hurt me. He was going to kill me.