Page 116 of Shrapnel

“I’m surprised to see you here,” Renard admitted, feeling the need to fill the silence. “I thought you were dead. Or sucking cock on the corner somewhere.”

“Did you look for me?”

He scoffed. “I never gave a shit about you.”

A slow smile spread across Jamie’s face. He lifted his thumb and let the flame go out.

“I wish that were true.”

He tossed the decanter to Renard. A nice, slow, overhand toss. Instinctively, Renard caught it. He held it for a second before cursing, dropping the scalding glass. It shattered at his feet, sending glass and Brandy splashing up his legs.

“Fuck! What the hell?” Renard shouted as he examined his burned fingertips.

Jamie looked back at the lighter in his hand. He rolled the bruised pad of his thumb across the wheel again.

“I think you’re wrong,” Jamie informed him. “Thisisthe good stuff.”

The lighter followed the same arc as the alcohol. It caught quickly, the sugary Brandy acting like an accelerant and the polyester blend of Renard’s pants sustaining the blaze. They climbed his legs, heedless of his screams.

Flames danced in the black pools of Jamie’s eyes as he watched his father burn. He didn’t move, not when Renard flopped back onto his obscene desk or when his screams turned into hoarse groans. He didn’t move when the flames spread to the surrounding furniture and the heat against his face became too intense.

Jamie turned his back on the bakery and walked out into the empty streets. Behind him the fire glowed in the windows.

The equation was balanced. His mother and father were dead, and Jamie finally breathed. He inhaled the sickly-sweet scent of a thousand sugary confections burning to their death. He breathed life into the deadened nubs of his soul.

Falling to his knees, Jamie breathed. Was this living? Was this lightness, this feeling, what it meant to finally let go? Jamie had been afraid. He had been so afraid, for so long, that he hadn’t realized it. The one emotion he couldn’t block behind the walls. Fear had him so tight in its stranglehold that he just…forgot what it felt like not to feel it wrapped around him.

The asphalt dug into his skin. He could be Jamie Weaver. He could forget all of this and just be. Let go of the past he had tried to keep out with locked doors and walls. But the past was inside him all along, hiding in his shadows and whispering from the dark. All the fires he had set could never reach them. But this one could. This one wasn’t a fire he started; it was the one within himself. One he had been too afraid to stoke, too afraid to see die out. Now it raged, and in the dancing flames, Jamie could finally see.

He could breathe.

For so long he had been looking for ways to batter his walls down when all he had to do was look for a door. And now it was right in front of him. A door he couldn’t see until he finally let go.

The heat from the blaze blew out the windows. Glass shattered, tinkling against cracked cement. Jamie didn’t hear it. He was too busy trying to stoke the flames of hope in his heart, desperately trying to feel the heat from its warmth.

“Are you ok?” Elijah asked hesitantly, hands fisted.

Jamie inhaled one more time. How many decadent deserts were being incinerated behind him?

“I think I will be,” Jamie said, trying some honesty for once.

Elijah dropped a hand to his shoulder, squeezing lightly. “Good, because we still have to catch Mateo.”

Jamie looked up at Elijah’s genuine smile.

“Way to kill my catharsis boner, Boy Scout.”

Owen forgot how boring Weaver Syndicate estate was. The place was absolutely massive. Built like a museum, it even had a smoking room…which like, what even was that? The Weavers didn’t believe in personal vices. Except killing. But Owen was pretty sure that went under business expenses.

The room Grant had been nice enough to give him was very white. The walls, the sheets, the furniture. He was splayed out on the bed staring at the junction between the ceiling and wall, certain they must be two different shades of white. It was the only thing to do. He had already showered, a tricky affair with his cast. He had to hold his arm out the shower stall praying water didn’t sluice past his elbow. The doctor said not to get it wet, but he was hoping damp didn’t count as wet? How wet was wet? He debated googling it when he heard a scratch.

Sitting up cautiously, he looked around the room. Empty. There was a lamp on the dresser in the corner and the bulb must have been surgery suite grade because there was not a single shadow in the room. He slid off the bed and padded to the door. The Weavers had extra clothes in the drawers and the sweats he grabbed were three sizes too big. Even rolled up, the thick fabric dragged across the carpet.

He opened the door and looked out into the winding hall. A hundred imperious looking Weavers glared down at him distastefully, but they were thankfully stuck in their paintings.

Closing the door, he moved back to his bed when he heard the scratching again. A chill ran down his spine and he made for his phone when he saw a flash out the window.

A scream bubbled up in his throat when he saw the stupid grin. Groaning, he shuffled over to the window and prized it open.