Page 7 of Fear No Hell

Sam

I’m about to be an accomplice to arson.

I’m not entirely sure what I should be thinking as I pass the woman from the attic—Calliope, her name is Calliope, and she’s real—the lighter Arthur always used to start the grill back when my mom and I still lived here.

I have a feeling it should be more than a passing contemplation of the criminal activity we're about to engage in.

Maybe thoughts about barbecuing with my parents?

I grimace. Definitely not.

Usually, family barbecues are fond memories. Not so much for me. Arthur grilling just meant forced time together while he drank himself stupid, eventually turning belligerent and coming after my mom and me for whatever perceived slight he dreamed up that day.

In fact, the happiest memory I have of grilling in this house is this one right now: watching the wooden porch go up in flames with the overwhelming proof that I’m not crazy, that I didn’t hallucinate the woman I saw in the attic all those years ago, standing right next to me.

I’m not sure what exactly I should be feeling, either, when I’m helping the woman whose face has haunted me for 18 years burn my father’s home and the hundreds of corpses in it to the ground after walking into a bloodbath.

It should probably be more than passing irritation about having to waste any of my time with her doing this.

I should probably have some strong feelings about becoming an accomplice to arson—don’t forget desecration of human remains too there, buddy—but I don’t.

All I feel is joy at finding her.

With a whoosh of stale, superheated air, the fire overtakes the overpriced porch furniture Arthur probably never once sat on.

The steel frame of the sofa with its ugly beige and ivory striped cushion creaks in the heat.

For a brief second, I enjoy the warmth on my face in the midst of the raw cold of Chicago in winter before I realize something: we should probably back up.

“Calliope.”

She doesn’t move as the shadows of the expanding flames play over her face. With how still she is, I’m not sure she heard me.

“Calliope,” I repeat gently, stepping close enough that she should recognize there’s a person standing next to her but not so close as to trigger the severe fight-flight response she has been flirting with all night.

“Hey, we should probably get further away.” When she doesn’t immediately move, I brace myself to pull her away, debating where a touch on her body would result in the least intense reaction.

Before I can move, her shoulders twitch minutely and then she tears her gaze away from the house. Pale blue irises land on mine. “What?”

“We gotta back away, sweetness, before the fire gets too intense.” I nearly cringe when the pet name slips out.

Again. Just because her face is as familiar to me as my own after all those years picturing her stricken expression when the EMTs wheeled me out of the house doesn’t mean she feels the same.

Pull yourself together, man.

“I guess—” A sigh slips through her lips.

“I guess you’re right.” Even as she turns to walk to the street, she’s still watching over her shoulder.

She stays like that, her chin canted towards the inferno that is Arthur’s house, until her body has rotated too far for her to keep watching, and she has to look away.

Her face crumples when she finally loses sight of it, as she marches forlornly towards the sidewalk.

She looks lost. Confused. Broken.

And that guts me. It rips at something deep inside me, turning me inside out, wanting to do anything to make her happy and put the gleeful grin from a few minutes ago back on her face. I can’t stand to see her beaten like this, not when I know how fierce and bloodthirsty she can be.

I hoist Arthur’s unconscious carcass off the ground, flinging him unceremoniously over my shoulder and following her, closing the space between us quickly.

“Hey, hey, hold on a minute.” A few streets over I can hear cars speeding loudly down a nearby intersection, and, more faintly, the wail of an ambulance.

Soon enough, somebody is either going to look out their windows and see the wall of flame that used to be my father’s house and us standing in front of it or the fire department is going to show up and find me holding a beloved, unconscious bestselling author, a blood-soaked Calliope who seems to have claws, an inferno, and a room of charbroiled corpses that won’t disintegrate fully to ash for hours.

All of those things matter. They really do, and they’re a prime example of why us staying is a very fucking bad idea. But they pale in comparison to the forlorn woman in front of me, whose arms are wrapped in a protective hug around her waist as she stares blankly at the street.

“What’s going on?” I ask. “Where’d you just go?”

“I—” She sighs again. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” I can’t stop pushing because I need to make this okay for her. If I can’t undo whatever Arthur did to her, the least I can do is make this one small thing better. “What is it?”

“It’s just—” Her gaze darts back to the house.

“There’s something cathartic about watching this place go up in flames.

I don’t-I didn’t want to leave until it was gone forever.

Nothing but ash and debris with all of the horrible memories purged along with it.

” She shivers as another blast of icy wind streaks around us.

“It felt like if fire could purify all of this, maybe it could work for me too.”

“Whatever he did to you—” I jerk my shoulder, knowing the bone is digging into Arthur’s stomach and not caring at all.

Unconscious as he is, he can’t feel it. Regardless, it makes me feel better to do any damage at all to the privileged, entitled piece of shit who caged this beautiful woman for years.

Fucking decades. “You don’t have to be purified because of it.

You’re not dirty or bad because Arthur did something to you. ”

“I know.” The fire glints in her eyes, giving her an otherworldly look.

“I do, really, but it feels like I need to get all of the bad he did to me out.” She waves a hand in the vicinity of her chest, the gesture wild and aimless.

“Make him pay for all the time he took away from me. Everything he did to me. And the house is—oh, I don’t know—symbolic of that.

” With a scoff, she shakes her head. “It’s silly. ”

“Nope. It’s never silly to want closure.

After my surgery, I cut his face out of every photo of him with me and my mom.

It gave big serial killer vibes for anyone walking into the house with these sweet family photos of Mom and me next to a faceless person.

” As I reassure her, I tilt my head, ears alert for any sign of emergency services.

The wailing of the ambulance from before has long since vanished, and I don’t hear any more sirens. It doesn’t sound like anyone is on their way here yet. That could definitely change in seconds. In the meantime… “Would it make you feel better to watch it burn for a little longer?”

She whirls to face me. “What?”

I repeat my question.

“You can’t be serious,” she exclaims. “Somebody’s going to show up soon. You’ll get in trouble.”

Realistically, I’ll probably get in a lot more than just trouble. It’s worth it for her, though. Instead of blurting all of that out, I simply say, “Worth it.”

I can’t explain the overwhelming sense of protectiveness coursing through me any more than I can begin to comprehend why meeting Calliope feels like a missing part of me has slotted into place or why I can’t seem to deny her anything.

If she needs to watch the house burn… then we’ll watch the fucking place burn. End of story.

“I mean it. Do you need to watch for a little longer?”

Her face lights up with a wide smile. “Can we?”

“We can. Just let me put Arthur in my car, so I’m not holding a body while we’re here.”

A surprised laugh bubbles out of her. “Makes sense. The body may be worse than the arson if somebody catches us.”

Bodies. Plural. The bodies are probably worse than the arson.

“At least he’s breathing though, right?” I hoist Arthur higher and point at where my old VW sedan is sitting. “My car’s right over there. I’ll be back in a couple of seconds. Don’t go anywhere, okay? Please?”

“Where would I go?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “But I can’t stand the idea of you vanishing again when I just found you.” Dammit, Eaton, pull yourself together. Pretend you have a smidge of chill when it comes to her.

Her brow furrows, but she eventually nods in agreement. As I start towards the car, she drops to the ground to watch the fire.

Uncomfortable with leaving her alone for any length of time, I toggle open the trunk with my key fob and hustle over to my car.

As I glance into the compartment, I realize how ill-equipped I am to transport a body, alive or dead.

I have no rope, so I can’t tie him up. I don’t have anything covering the trunk lining, so his hair and blood are going to get everywhere.

God, I would make a terrible fucking serial killer.

I shrug. Poorly planned abduction or not, I’m doing it.

Might as well try and make sure the fucker doesn’t wake up before I get him home and set up Calliope’s dungeon.

It lights something up inside of me to dump Arthur’s deadweight into the car, making sure his head cracks against the trunk floorboard sharply, hopefully hard enough to buy us a bit more time with him unconscious.

I close the trunk, the thud of it latching all obscured by the crackling of the flames nearby. How has nobody called the cops yet? I wonder as I walk back to where Calliope is sitting in the grass, her knees curled to her chest, her arms wrapped around them.