Page 19

CHAPTER 12

SALEM

A s I trail my fingertips over the myriad of scars that cover Justice’s back, I think about the night I almost lost him. I lean down and press soft kisses to his back, one by one I smother his scars with love, with promises, and with the hope that one day, I’ll be able to give him the life he deserves.

19 years old…

With the fire already engulfing the second story of the house, I ran past the onlookers and around to the back door. I raced through the laundry and into the kitchen where I stopped in my tracks.

Alex, Justice’s nineteen-year-old brother, was sitting at the kitchen table, in his hand, a box of matches. He sat there, calm as fuck, lighting match after match and letting them burn down to his fingertips while his family was burning to death upstairs.

When his eyes met mine, and he smiled, I knew. Not only was he obsessed with fire the same way I was, Alex was like me in every other way, too.

I took a step forward. “How did you get out?” I asked, confused. I thought I’d been meticulous. I’d been there earlier that evening and added sedatives to all but Justice’s drink. I’d blocked the bedroom doors with furniture from the outside, and ensured the trail of lighter fluid I left behind, saturated everything flammable.

Alex shrugged. “I saw you. You didn’t even notice me…” His eyes darkened. “As fucking usual.” His frown morphed into a wide smile when the sound of glass breaking came from upstairs.

“You still want a little brother, Sal?” he asked. “I let him out of his room, told the brat to run and hide. Maybe he’s not dead yet.” When I didn’t reply, Alex huffed out a laugh. “You think I haven’t seen you watching him, following him? What is it about Justice?” He lit another match. Blinked as it slowly burned down to his fingers. “We were friends first,” he added. “You were my friend, not his.”

I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the tiny flame. My fingers kept twitching, mimicking lighting a match against a striker.

“You into little kids, Sal? Are you one of them pedos?” Alex asked.

Bile rose in my throat at those words. “Where’s Justice?”

Alex struck another match, his eyes fixed on mine as he held up the lit match, then blew it out.

In the distance, sirens wailed.

The sound of more glass breaking caught my attention, and I flicked my head to the side to look down the hallway. “Where is ? —”

Alex attacked. His punch sent me stumbling. We grappled, and as I pushed him into the wall, a muffled cry distracted me.

With Alex in a headlock, I dragged him backwards and kicked open the door that led into their home office. “Justice?” I called.

There was a cough, then a cry of “Help!”

Stopping, I tilted my head to listen, the coughing was muffled, and through the thick smoke that was beginning to fill the air, I could barely see. I glanced up the stairs to find the fire spreading rapidly. The window halfway up the stairs was covered in thin curtains, the bottom of them alight with flames.

Clamping my hand over Alex’s mouth, and with my arm still choking off his air, I dragged him up the stairs then shoved him face first into the flaming curtains. His screams of agony sent a rush of adrenaline through my veins.

When I pulled him back, he was howling, the flesh of his face blackened, burnt, and bleeding profusely. The scent of his burning skin filled my nose before Justice’s high-pitched scream caught my attention.

I released my grip on Alex. His hands hovered over his face as he rocked back and forth, wailing cries spilling from his lips.

I ran down the stairs to the hidden door beneath the staircase and yanked it open. At the back of the small, dark space, Justice was huddled against the wall, tears streaming down his freckled cheeks. “Come on,” I said, reaching for his hand.

He shook his head, ragged breaths sawing in and out of his chest as he hyperventilated.

“It’s okay,” I encouraged, “I’ll help you get out.”

Slowly, he reached out, his hand almost in mine.

At the same time, I was yanked back, Alex’s hands tight around my throat as he dragged me away from Justice.

Sucking in a breath caused my lungs to fill with acrid smoke, and I began choking. As I heaved, I watched in horror as Alex dragged a kicking and screaming Justice from the space beneath the stairs.

“Fucking die!” Alex shouted. He shoved Justice towards the stairs where the timber balustrade was burning. Still choking and gasping, I took a step forward, but tripped on something and fell to my knees.

Head down, I stayed low and sucked in as much clean oxygen as I could manage.

When I finally looked up, Alex was holding Justice against the burning balustrade. Justice’s screams of pain fuelled my rage, and I leapt to my feet, using every ounce of strength I had to pull Justice from Alex’s grasp, and run.

As the ceiling caved in, flames engulfed us, and the smoke became so thick I had to close my eyes and blindly recall the way out.

By the time I reached the front yard, I was exhausted, and Justice was unconscious.

I dropped him face down on the grass and fell to my knees beside him, shaking him, and begging him to wake up before I was dragged away by a paramedic.

Two days later, I read the front page of the local newspaper…

brEAKING NEWS : HOUSE FIRE CLAIMS THE LIVES OF PARKLAKE FAMILY

A fire has claimed the lives of four members of a Parklake family. The blaze, still under investigation, engulfed the double storey, weatherboard house at around 3am on Wednesday morning.

F irefighters arrived on the scene to find smoke and flames billowing from the windows and roof.

Arnold and Susan Bane, their twenty-one-year-old daughter Jenny, and nineteen-year-old son Alex, perished in the blaze that’s left a close-knit community grief-stricken.

In a heroic act of bravery, nineteen-year-old Salem Frost, believed to be a friend of the family, raced into the burning home and dragged fourteen-year-old Justice from the inferno.

Justice was treated at the scene before being rushed to Parklake Heights Hospital where he remains in a critical condition with second and third-degree burns.

Our reporter on the scene spoke to shocked onlookers with one neighbour saying that the young man, Salem, “Just ran right into the burning house. We were shouting at him, begging him to stop. But he kept screaming, “I need to get Justice out, and he took off. A couple of the men tried to stop him, but he was determined.”

The community has gathered together to fundraise for fourteen-year-old Justice, while his extended family keep vigil by his hospital bedside.

A funeral for the Bane family will be held at Parklake Gardens Cemetery next Friday.