Page 111 of The Truths We Burn

I arch my eyebrow, rolling the match in my mouth to the left side. “Fire is one of the most life-changing discoveries. I recognize when something needs a certain…appreciation.”

“I think you do a little more than appreciate it.” He reaches into the inside of his suit, pulling out a small Ziplock baggie. “You want to tell me why we found this at St. Gabriel’s church?”

I look at the contents, containing what used to be my favorite Zippo. The fire had turned the shiny metal into a charcoal stain. The wheel had melted completely off, and the top is detached. But I can still faintly seeRVDcarved into the front.

“So that’s where it went,” I say sarcastically. “I mean, I’ve regularly attended that place since I was a kid. Must’ve fallen from my pocket.”

I stare at the engraving a little harder.

RVD.

I would do just about anything to hear Rose call me that again. Even if it was just one time.

I’d burnt down that church after her death. After her funeral, where it was held. Where they refused to abide by Rosie’s wishes. She never wanted to be buried; she wanted to be cremated and given to the people who loved her.

But her parents were convinced by St. Gabriel’s that it was an eternal sin. So her piece-of-shit hypocrite of a father, who’d been the reason she died, buried her in the ground. All of those people crowded inside the cathedral, holding tissues, crying bogus-ass tears.

They didn’t even fucking know her. They didn’t even like her.

All of those people inside that church had no clue just how special Rosie was because half of them hadn’t spoken a word to her. Yet, her friends, the ones who knew her fears and her dreams, they weren’t allowed to come inside.

We had been banned from her funeral, from her burial. The man who loved her more than life wasn’t able to say goodbye.

My thumb twitches.

That hurt, that bitterness, it starts to fill me up again, and if given the chance, I would torch that place all over again. I just wish they all would’ve gone down in flames with it.

I can feel my toes curling. I can smell the fabric inside melting. Watching as the foundation fell apart piece by piece underneath the heat of the fire. I felt like a child standing in front of a campfire, letting it warm me.

Every memory I had with Rose danced in the smoke like a hologram. And when the smoke cleared, so did she.

When the fire hit its peak, I tossed the lighter in with it, because I didn’t want another reminder that I’d never hear “RVD” ever again.

“So you just dropped it? It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fire that happened there a year ago?”

“The FBI is investigating fires now?”

So they aren’t here about Easton, but I highly doubt they’re here to just talk to me about a fire.

They’re baiting me.

“Most people like you would have used gasoline.” Breck chooses his words carefully. Everything he says is methodical, and I’m hyperaware that he wants to get me riled up.

He wants me to be impulsive, push me past the point of caring. Because as much as I hate it, pyromaniacs are predictable in their unpredictability.

“People like me?” I bite into the bait, like a fish on a hook, giving him what he wants from me.

“Little boys with mommy issues who think the world is to blame for all their problems and deal with it by setting fires. How old were you when your mom died? Six or seven? Did the urges start before or after?”

There is something I respect about a man willing to speak how he feels without fear of repercussion. I smirk, enjoying the way he stands there thinking he has me all figured out.

My fascination with fire is something I’ve always had—always standing too close to the fireplace, playing with matches. I was born with that desire; my mother’s death was only confirmation of it.

But what he doesn’t take into consideration is there is no one who does pyromania quite like me.

“Whoa, did you come up with that all by yourself?”

Breck scolds me with his eyes, probably annoyed with my lack of reaction, with my attitude.