Richard

Almost an hour later, I was standing in that room again, but this time there were cops everywhere. They’d called in the big guns—bomb squad, for starters. The CSI team was there too, ready to start dusting for fingerprints once the other guys were done with the scene.

Gunner was beside me. He’d raced home as soon as he’d heard. It was because of him we were even let back in here at all. He wanted to know what was under that sheet. I did, too, but I guessed firemen had a bit more pull than strippers did.

“We’ll analyze the material in the vial and get back to you,” one of the officers was saying, “But I think I have an idea of what it is, based off this painting.”

Gunner shook his head in wonder. “Christ. It’s a fuckin’ mural.”

They were talking about what they’d found under the sheet, which was a massive, hastily-drawn scene, a collection of frantic strokes made in a hundred shades of red. There was a naked woman sitting on top of a man or beast, something with way too many heads, while little humans writhed and stretched before her.

I touched the side of my neck. The woman in the picture had a tattoo just like mine. In fact, it was mine.

“That’s the Whore of Babylon,” the officer said. “Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth.” When he caught me staring, he shrugged. “I was an altar boy.”

“Great,” I muttered. “She’s got my tattoo.”

Gunner looked at me, then back at the painting. His hands were clenched into stark-white fists at his sides. “So this guy’s got a hard-on for you,” he gritted. “We gotta get you out of here, baby. Before he does something worse.”

I turned to the cop. “What do you think was in the vial?”

“Flash powder,” he said matter-of-factly. “If I had to guess, whatever your guy drew the mural with is flammable. Bomb squad says there’s a little device in there rigged to spark on impact. If you’d pulled that sheet down, the glass would’ve broke and the powder would’ve ignited. Boom! Wall goes up in flames.”

I shook my head, staring at the portrait. At myself, on the back of that_._._._thing. With seven heads that all looked like Gunner’s.

The cop said, “Did he take anything?”

“A picture,” Gunner told him. “From my room.”

The cop raised his brows. “Picture of what?”

“Her.” My stepbrother jerked his head toward me. “When she was a kid. Before I left home.”

For just a moment, Gunner’s eyes met mine, and I could see the sadness there behind them. Maybe he really had never stopped thinking about me. For all the good it did.

But still, knowing he’d kept my picture around, that he hadn’t just forgotten me_._._._

Slowly, the officer nodded. “Anything else?”

“I didn’t bring much with me,” I said. “When my apartment burned down_._._._” My eyes widened and I turned to Gunner. “Did you tell them? About the brick?”

“I did,” he assured me. “They’re taking it into evidence.”

“Gotta say I agree with your brother on this one,” the officer said, tucking his thumbs into his belt. “This guy’s goin’ for the throat. You should get out of town. Lay low for a while.”

I shook my head. “No. I’m staying here. I can’t let this bastard win. And besides, the way things are, I wouldn’t feel safe on my own.”

“Then I’ll go with you,” Gunner said, taking me by my shoulders. His touch was so warm, so gentle. My overstimulated nerve endings faded into a mere fizzle. “You’re not gonna go through this alone, baby. Not anymore. I’m here.”

“You’re a firefighter, Gunner,” I reminded him, desperately trying to steel my resolve. “I can’t ask you to give up your job. To just walk away_._._._”

But Gunner gripped me tighter. “You’re not. I’ve got vacation saved up… Besides, that’s a choice I’m making on my own. A choice I’ve made before.” His lips flattened into a grim, pale line and his eyes blazed. “Last time, I hurt you. This time, I’m gonna make sure I save you. I don’t care what it takes.”

Part of me wanted to pull away and tell him I didn’t need to be saved. That was the kid inside who remembered all the hurt his absence had brought me, all the wounds he had inflicted on my soul. And a grown-up part, too, who remembered a tender kiss that my stepbrother didn’t even want to acknowledge, let alone talk about.

How could I trust somebody like that to take care of me? I was better off saving myself.

But I also knew he’d pulled me out of a fire once already. And some other part of me knew he could do it again, if only I’d let him.

Feebly, I asked him, “What about Jax?”

Gunner brushed both thumbs over my collarbone. “He’s fine. Well_._._._not fine.” His eyes darkened. “Asshole put something in his food bowl. A sedative. Probably not lethal.”

It was the probably that bothered me the most. “Where’d they find him?”

“In his doghouse, dead asleep.”

I closed my eyes. “Just_._._._tell me he’s gonna be okay, Gunner.”

My stepbrother enveloped me in his arms. “He’s at the vet’s now.”

That really wasn’t the same thing as telling me Jax was okay, but it was a start. I sighed and pressed my forehead to Gunner’s thickly-muscled chest, still worrying my fingers across my tattoo.

“I’ll take care of everything,” Gunner murmured in my ear. He wove his hand through my curls the way he’d done the night we kissed. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll save you.”

I breathed him in, trying to ignore the fact that whatever Gunner said, he and I were running again. Maybe neither of us really knew how to stand and fight.

---THE FLAME---

I watched the comedy of errors unfold from across the street, standing in plain view yet knowing that nobody would see me.

That was nothing new. Nobody had ever seen me. I was invisible. Inconsequential. In their minds they were gods, and I was just an ant. I didn’t even show up on their radar.

They were stupid. Pitiful. Monstrosities of ignorance and clay. I was beautiful, the Lucifer to their clumsy gods. I was rebellion and forbidden knowledge. I was fire and brimstone.

I’d been hoping she would be just as clumsy as all the rest, that she’d pull down that sheet without even thinking and set her stepbrother’s house ablaze. I’d gotten hard just thinking about the flames and their colors, the smoke billowing toward the sky, blacking out the sun. A solar eclipse of my very own making. Yes, that would have done nicely.

I’d wanted to touch myself, but shame had gotten the better of me. I remembered the lessons I’d been taught. The sermons. I didn’t believe in them really, but I was Pavlov’s dog, taught to recoil in terror at the mere idea of bodily pleasure, what my mother had always referred to as sin.

Sin was what had brought me into her life. Sin was what drove our family apart. Sin was what I’d paid for in spades and what had left me with a collection of very deep scars.

Sometimes at night, just before I drifted off to sleep, I could feel them aching. Phantom pains from a time when I’d been weak and cowardly. Memories of when I was a child.

The more I stood and watched that house, waiting for it to burn, the more those demons boiled beneath my skin. They wanted out. They wanted the flames just as badly as I did. And when they didn’t come, I felt more than a little disappointed.

I felt rage.

Rage, because sometime between then and now, this whore had gotten smart. Rage, because she wasn’t supposed to do that. She wasn’t supposed to evolve.

She wasn’t even supposed to be alive!

I seethed when the bomb squad showed up. I stewed in my frustration when that stepbrother of hers swooped in, coming to her rescue. Again, I realized. He was coming to her rescue again.

First the apartment fire. Now this. He was ruining everything for me. Ruining all my plans.

Guys like him always did. He was the strong, mouthy type. Arrogant. Cocky. Muscular and ruggedly handsome. Shrewd,

in his own verminous way. He might even prove a bigger enemy than his stepsister would. He’d be the thorn in my paw that determined how well I could strike.