Page 11 of Burn With Me

Fear sliced through me at the sound of a click. I knew what that meant. I’d used the stove enough to know that sound with my eyes closed. I turned my head slightly, and my screams got louder as my eyes focused on the glow of the little blue flame.

I became a wild animal and kicked out fiercely. I connected with something earning a loud grunt, but that fist gripped my hair harder and slammed my face off the oven handle, dazing me. Blinking what had to be blood out of my eye, I struggled in his hold as the flame got closer.

“No, Dad, don’t,” I yelled, bracing my hands on the edge of the stove. My struggles became frantic as fear overrode everything else.

Even as another fist hit my side, I barely felt it and continued to kick wildly at the man that seemed more like a demon than my father anymore. My eyes swung to my mother, who was still sitting on the floor, and instead of helping or saying a word, she looked away before getting to her feet and leaving the room.

“Mom, stop him, please,” I screamed and then continued to scream at the top of my lungs.

Another hard shot caught me in the ribs. This time, I heard a sharp crack, the pain stealing my fight.

My scream became a howl of pain as that little blue flame licked a line up the side of my face. The pain was so intense that the adrenaline coursing through my body helped me to push my face away from the flame before it reached my eye. The stench of burning flesh confirmed that this was indeed happening and was not another nightmare. It was real, and it wasn’t done.The hair closest to my ear caught on fire, the flame licking upward until it fizzled out, but the stench was strong in my nose. My father’s evil laugh was loud, and the dark scent of whiskey was hanging in the air. He went to push my head down again when a new scream joined the mix.

“No,” my younger brother yelled as he ran across the room, his face twisted into a picture of fear.

My brother slammed into my father, and my father stumbled back, making both of us hit the wall hard. Losing his balance, he slid down the wall awkwardly and smacked his arm off a small shelf, which sent everything on it crashing to the floor. I watched the small decorative cactus rolled under the table like it was now the thing that was trying to hide from my father’s wrath.

His hand loosened in mine, and with a hard pull, I was able to wiggle free from his heavy limbs and large fist. Crawling away, I moved like a dog across the floor, trying to put as much room between us as possible. The smell of him was stuck in my nose, making it feel like he was still assaulting me.

Asher grabbed me under the arm and pulled up hard, yanking me along until we were outside. The sound of the screen door slammed making me jump as I thought that my father was already after us. I turned and looked over my shoulder and didn’t see my father, but the moist breeze hit the injured side of my face. I’d thought I knew pain until that moment. My scream filled the air as the warm night air felt like claws scraping down my ruined skin.

“I got you,” Asher said as he put my arm over his shoulders to help me run.

He wouldn’t let me slow, even though I wanted to lie down and give up. I was so tired and done with the abuse, and I knew I couldn’t go back now. If I did…he’d kill me for sure.“Come on, I have an idea that might help you,” he said as we pushed onward through the darkened forest.

* * *

I jerked awake and looked around the living room. My heart no longer raced when I had these dreams. Once, I would’ve woken up screaming and begging for my father to let go, but now I’d embraced the pain and the lick of that blue flame. They were the reasons why I was someone others feared. Even the fiercest of criminals only dared to whisper my name in the shadows. No one was safe anymore.

The little blonde friend of Chase Mathers called me the Dragon. Now, I embraced the nickname, so much so that a dragon-breathing fire was the image I now had tattooed on my back. Was I a man for hire? A vigilante? A demon reborn? I guess I was all those things. I was simply the man who no longer took the punishment but doled it out. The two things I’d never be were an angel or a mother fucking hero.

Reaching over, I lit the candle on the side table and aimlessly let the little light play among the gaps of my fingers. The candles that would flicker around the small room had become my pets that kept me company. Just like any pet, they wanted attention, but also they were beautiful and misunderstood. I knew all too well what that was like, to be misunderstood and locked away. Well, I now knew that I wasn’t supposed to stay there, but that was beside the point.

I hadn’t always been this way. I was molded from the time I was a child and manipulated into what I am now. Once I’d seen what my pets could do, though…the damage they could cause amongst so much beauty…I was forever changed.

For years, I’d been denied my urges, denying the satisfaction of seeing my flames consume everything in their path. I loved the way they traveled over a body, eating away the fat and singeing the air with the intoxicating scent of charred flesh.

As the heat intensified, I sucked in a sharp breath, and my palm screamed to be moved away, but my cock pounded hard for more as the flame flared against my hand. Fire was pain and pain was pleasure. That was what the world had created within me. I was a man that could take all the abuse this world had to offer and laugh as I fucking jerked off to it.

Closing my eyes, I let my head fall back against the back of the chair to stare up at the plain white ceiling. It was the perfect background for the tableau playing through my mind. My body shuddered as the face of the woman trapped in her apartment danced behind my eyes. Her screams had been so sweet.

Jerking my hand away from the flame, I stared down at the bright red mark that marred my skin. Bringing the palm to my face, I breathed deeply, the scent of the almost burnt skin. It instantly sent another shock of pleasure through my system.

Grabbing the television remote, I flicked it on and found my latest victim. The show was about to start, and another shiver raced down my spine. This woman was a fake, a pretender that, to the outside world, seemed like a loving single mother, if there was such a thing.

It was all a lie. You followed someone long enough, and you would learn things that most other people would only get a glimpse of—a moment equivalent to a photograph. The girl Kim would tense when her mother would touch her, and unless someone was watching, she would glare at the girl with a look that promised pain. I knew that look. I knew it well, so she had to die. Kim would be far better off without a mother like that in her life.

Smoke began to cloud the other windows in the apartment, and then, there she was. Sarah ran into the kitchen and began pounding on the glass. A small tendril of anger rose from the depths of my gut as I stared at her lying face. I craved her death, and the sliver of healing it would provide, but I also wanted the sweet climax that always followed one of my hunts.

I was like the pied piper—my flaming pet following the path I perfectly laid out. Like a great snake, it had wound its way through the apartment, chasing its prey to the only available escape route left and right to where my camera was able to pick up the entire thing.

I sniffed my hand again, taking a long drag of the scent before placing it back over the candle’s flame. I watched with amusement as Sarah’s expression shifted from relief to shock as the window wouldn’t open.

“Yes, that’s it. Look over your shoulder at my creation,” I mumbled as Sarah stared back at the kitchen doorway, knowing there was no escape. Oh, how I wished I could hear her screaming as the flames devoured her.

“Yes, pound your fists,” I mumbled. Groaning, I gave in to the need, pulled my cock from my jeans, and slowly jerked at my hard length. “Ah, fuck.”

Removing my hand from the flame’s wick, I stared at the little blister that had formed a moment before my tongue licked at the skin. I sucked in a long-ragged breath as I squeezed my cock harder and moved my fist at a blinding pace. If this was hell, then I never wanted to leave. It was where I belonged.