“Put me out of my fucking misery.”
Please make the fire stop.
God, the flames were blistering, cracking my porcelain cover with a heat I could barely breathe through. I need his pain, his damnation, his rage on overload to make me feel something other than the fire.
I needed his ruinous hurricane to rain down on me and drown my body beneath his waves.
He lent his gaze back and forth between my eyes, a strange recognition fanning up to melt his cruel cut features. Gentle curiosity dragged his touch away from my neck, settling right over my throbbing heart.
“Are you breathing?” he asked softly. Too soft.
Fuck. Stop it. Don’t—
“Scarlett, breathe.” He unwound my hand from his throat with quick fingers, bringing it down to press against his pounding heartbeat. James breathed deep, letting me feel his lungs expand in an encouragement to make mine match, but that’s not what I fucking wanted.
I wanted pain. I wanted destruction. I wanted to suffocate beneath his tempest.
“Hurt me or get the fuck off of me,” I strangled out through gritted teeth.
His reply was immediate and devastating. “I’m not going to hurt you, Scarlett.”
The fucking fire roared in upset, exploding through my chest in an ache so splintering it warped my vision in a tailspin of searing white. I bucked Agent Reyes off of me, scrambled off of the bed, and fell towards my phone sitting on a wooden desk next to the T.V.
“I already called your dad,” he tried, missing the fucking point completely.
“I don’t care about him!”
My name drifted behind me as I locked myself in the bathroom, fingers fumbling with the bathroom light and my phone at the same time. Light decorated the small room as I pressed call on his name.
He knew about Johnny. He knew about what happened, why it was my fault, and how the fire in my veins was born out of Johnny’s ashes.
Two rings and a lot of hyperventilating stretched between us before he picked up.
“Hey, Red.” Demitri’s voice came over the phone, the sound of his velvet concern a remedying aloe to the burning already. “I was starting to get worried not hearing from you—”
“He took me on a plane,” I choked out, a sob falling out of me and crashing to the floor as I crumbled right behind it.
A strong beat. Demitri’s wrath was nearly palpable through the phone. “He what?”
“H-he gave me sleeping pills and—” Fuck, the pain. I clawed at my chest, grabbing where I felt the hurt most. “I woke up on the fucking airplane.”
“I’ll kill him,” Demitri spat, malice dripping through my phone.
“Demitri,” I cried, needing him to make the fire go away.
“I’m here, Red.” Murderous to soothing in a snap. That was Demitri. That was what I needed from him right now. “What do you need?”
“Just talk to me.” Tears rolled over my cheeks as I pinched my eyes shut, picturing a void of black where only his voice existed. He was the ocean. I was the volcano.
“Okay,” he spoke, the ocean in his voice deep and calming. “I can do that.”
And that’s how I stayed for the next hour on the floor of a motel bathroom, letting Demitri slowly rock my panic to sleep, his waters solidifying the fire in place until next time.