Fiery Little Thing: Chapter 5

“Kohen Osman, there’s a phone call for you at reception,” the lady’s voice drones over the library intercom.

My jaw sets into a hard line. You’d think the librarian would take the concept of “quiet place” seriously, especially since the stained glass windows along the gray stone walls look like they’re going to shatter with the slightest vibration.

There has to be some rule about getting calls during our designated study time. I tighten my grip around my pen and stay in my spot in front of the fireplace, waiting to see how long I can make him wait.

It won’t be Mom; she has her day down to a T. She has penned down Tuesdays from 5:15 p.m. until 5:30 p.m. and Fridays from 4:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. to talk to me. If I’m five minutes late, my “appointment time” is gone.

Such a pity. I really want to speak with the woman who always tells me to sit down, shut up, and let my brother do the talking.

Father isn’t patient enough to hold the line for me unless one of his secretaries is calling for him. He doesn’t have time for anyone anymore since Oskadine. The breakthrough cancer drug is in the third phase of clinical trials. The medication was my grandfather’s passion, and my father’s third child. The drug’s success is making Osman Pharmaceuticals’ shareholders froth at the mouth.

Settling deeper into the couch, my attention shifts away from the textbook to the golden dance in front of me. The fire licks up the walls of the fireplace; it’s such a shame there’s a padlocked safety grate in the way of something so hypnotic. There’s something soothing about the wild crackle and whip of the flames, the way they can taper into blue tips that the human eye can barely see, though the skin can feel their agonizing burn. The smell of smoke alone has a faux calm settling over my body.

Fire is hated because it’s considered chaotic and an element of destruction. But people are foolish, so utterly close-minded because they refuse to understand anything beyond the box they put themselves in.

Fire cannot start from nothing. It needs life and air, only created by nature or man. But fire is everything. We can’t eat most of our food without cooking it over a flame, or drink safely without boiling the water first. Metal is molded by flames, and technology is pieced together by sparks. Everything starts from fire.

I rub my thumb over the lighter hidden in the pocket of my dress slacks, barely feeling the cool metal surface from the nerves that were burned off when I was eight. I was stupid thinking I could control fire, that it wouldn’t harm me if I only tried hard enough .

It’s untamed, out of control, ready to burn if I get too close. But that’s what people always forget about fire; it can be contained in its space if nurtured just right. But fire is the way it is because it’s a matter of sacrifice. Nothing can give without pain.

“Paging Kohen Osman. There’s a phone call for you at reception. I repeat, there’s a phone call for you at reception. Please head there immediately.”

My fingers tighten around the lighter, and I count to ten. By three, the heat in my body is a dull simmer, nowhere near as violent as the flames before me. By seven, it heightens to a boil. By ten, I slam the book shut, then almost rip off the safety grate and shove Molecular Medicine: Genomics into the fire.

I can’t believe I’m stuck in school for another fucking year—and for what? To be treated like dog shit?

“Kohen Osman, this is your—”

“I’m coming,” I bark, throwing the strap of my backpack over my shoulder.

The librarian peers down her nose at me as I storm out, disturbing everyone with the sound of my boots hitting stone and the murderous energy that’s coursing through my veins.

Jocks, nerds, cheerleaders, loners, junkies, and blue-collar criminals in the making all look up at me as I pass. One girl bites her lip, another waves, a couple guys glare, and some avert their eyes as quickly as they look up. I’ve been here a whole week now, and I’ve determined that it’s the exact same shit as St. Augustine’s but at a different school.

Usually, people fall into two categories: they want good grades or they don’t.

When it’s a school filled with nepo babies, there’s a subcategory:

they don’t give a shit which way their grades swing since their last names and trust fund will ensure they’ll end up in the same place within society.

I keep my gaze forward, jaw clenched so hard, almost grinding my teeth to dust. My muscles tense further with each step as I navigate the maze-like structure. Blaze said with total seriousness that it’s hard for people to find their way around the school because everything looks the same with its dull stone and brick walls. She also added that she hopes I get lost and end up in one of the dungeons this place is rumored to have.

Just like the first time I had to find my way around, I get to my final destination without the slightest slipup. It’s no surprise she has no sense of direction, both literally and metaphorically.

The woman sitting at reception could have been taken out of one of the fashion magazines Mom likes to keep in her office for show. This area is the most modern place in the entire school, with the ridiculously sleek black leather couch only parents are allowed to sit on. There’s a disgusting amount of art all around the room and a giant ball-shaped sculpture in the center, all donated by someone’s family. Bribery is my guess.

In my pocket, I flip the lid to my lighter open and closed, feeling the six sides of the object. I’m itching to see the blue flame shift to copper in my hands.

Following the hallway to the side of the reception area, I pass one of the two entrance doors into the headmaster’s room. Then I’m in front of the student access door I should have come through to begin with. This particular area of the school is straight out of the 1980s, completely opposite to the reception, with worn wooden floors, yellow-tinted windows, and one too many different patterns around the place; floral curtains, maroon paisley cushions, and a green chevron vase that reaches my sternum.

It’s where Blaze had so excitedly agreed to be the worst tour guide known to mankind—the kleptomaniac couldn’t even figure out how to exit the building when the door was right in front of us. She’s going places; far just isn’t one of them.

The same woman from the last time I was here sits behind her desk, typing with a single finger. Spiderwebs crease her leathered skin, making her look as ancient as the structure most of this school is made out of.

“Who is it?” I say while approaching her desk.

“Pardon me?” Administrative grandma’s tone is just as sour as her face. The deep divots of her wrinkles leave her with a permanent frown.

I give her a blank look. “I have a call.”

None of us are meant to have cell phones here, but it’s safe to say that at least 90 percent of the students do. Myself included—a privilege earned by my father’s generous donation to the Science Department.

Her loose skin moves as she gives me a mocking once-over. “Use your words.”

I turn to walk away but only make it as far as the door before I hear her sigh. “You’ve got ten minutes.” I glance over my shoulder at her as she gestures toward the phone on the wall, the spiral cord long since lost its bounce.

The only reason I’ve made it this far is because I’d rather make my ears bleed for a couple minutes listening to my father than be stuck in solitary where anything could happen.

“I only need two,” I mutter and begrudgingly whip the phone off the receiver. “What?”

“Hello to you too, Kohen.”

Irritation slices up my spine at the sound of his voice.

Fucking Kiervan.

The lighter digs into my palm so hard I’d be surprised if it doesn’t bruise. “What do you want?” I gripe.

“Can’t a man talk to his little brother?”

“Yes, but not you.”

“You wound me. What would you do without me?”

“A lot more.”

“Please.” He chuckles. “Give me a break with that attitude. I took the spotlight while you ran away at night to ruin your life. Dad would know about everything you get up to if it weren’t for me.” Kiervan uses the same taunting tone every time we speak. He wants a “thank you” he’ll never get from me. “The type of people you associate with. Specifically, a person you associate with.” Kiervan tacks on the last part and receives the exact reaction he hoped for.

“What the fuck do you want?” I bark into the phone, fighting the urge to whip out the lighter. Whoever had the gift of foresight must have anticipated people like me because half this place is fucking fireproof.

“Language,” the administrator hisses, but I don’t pay her any mind.

“If you’ve got nothing better to do than talk shit, I suggest you never call this place again,” I hiss into the receiver.

“So hostile, baby bro. Aren’t they teaching you manners over there? Maybe I should suggest to Dad that he send you to the military. If you don’t come back trained, then hopefully you’ll come back in a coffin. Then you’d finally be doing something good for this family.

”

I slip my hand into my pocket to flick the cap open and roll my finger over the wheel. The urge to see the flames or slam my fists into something tangible snakes beneath my chest and winds its way around my lungs.

I can’t do either of those two things when the son of a bitch guard is watching me. “Let’s add Dad to the call, and he can hear about your extracurricular activities,” I say.

“Don’t throw threats when there’s a bigger one around.” Kiervan sighs, and it only pisses me off more. “I guess that’s why they have me to think and for you to stay out of the way.”

“No, you pay other people to think for you.” My brother’s intelligence isn’t about understanding and implementing theory; his talent for manipulation is where he shines.

“Careful.” His tone turns dark.

But I know something he doesn’t. Call it a kill switch that will make every single Osman fall. Kiervan isn’t the only one who knows how to play the long game.

“Right.” I scoff. “Blackmail is the more appropriate term.” Kiervan wasn’t always perceived as intelligent. Rather, they called him bright and intuitive but not smart. He knew how to talk and play the act of a kid who understood what he was doing, which led people to believe he was wise beyond his years.

My brother’s gifted in his own way. A real charmer, just like our father. Two peas in a pod. While I’m no psychiatrist, I believe the medical term for the people I share my genes with is psychopath.

The laugh that crackles through the static line sends my blood soaring. “You can tell them if you want. They’d never believe you.”

Kiervan wasn’t always this way. We were friends at one point—and I use that word loosely. I was the one they called smart. I was the rising star on the way to the very top. Except they didn’t use the term bright or intuitive. They named me trouble, and my brother is the reason for it.

Why believe the son who was shit at communicating, when the boy who hadn’t been caught in a lie said it was my fault? It started off with broken toys, ripped-up pages, and dissected animals. Eventually, I was being blamed for the drugs they found in his bedroom.

Kiervan knows about my fire-related tendencies, just like he knows about what I’ve kept from my parents for years. The day he realized I had a weakness, was the day he learned he could have it all.

It doesn’t matter how much I try to get rid of my weakness or lessen the blow; it doesn’t happen even though I hate its very existence.

“How’s my assignment coming along?” he asks.

“I was in jail two weeks ago. How do you think it’s going?” I roll my neck, trying to loosen some of the tension. I stayed there for all of sixteen hours after beating that kid up before our father’s lawyers got me a deal so I’d attend Seraphic Hills.

He clicks his tongue. “Better get to it then, champ.”

I can hear my pulse pound in my ears. I’m sick and tired of being his bitch. Once we graduate, there won’t be shit Kiervan could say to our parents that would matter. “What do you think is going to happen when you accidentally kill someone because you didn’t get your biology degrees yourself?”

I pull the phone away from my ear when he whistles. “Bold claims. Rein it in, little man. You make it sound like I didn’t think this through. What do you think the business major is for? Why mess with biomedicine when I could sit behind a table and order people around? You could never see the bigger picture.

”

“Then do it yourself.” If I spent less time doing his assignments, I’d have more time for shit I want to do.

I’m about to hang up when he tsks. “There are so many things that could happen while you’re all boarded up in there, don’t you think? Imagine all the things Father could do…” The dreamy edge to his voice hides a sharpened blade within. “Don’t be stupid, Kohen. The assignment is due in two days. I’ll hear from you then.”

He ends the call before I can.

The old woman gasps when I slam the receiver. My breath comes out in short bursts as I thunder through the halls and into the frigid air. Tugging at the collar of my shirt, I spin the wheel on the lighter and imagine what its golden hues look like.

I survey my surroundings, checking no one is watching as I stick to the edge of the school grounds until I get to the loose part of the fence that leads into the graveyard. I don’t go deep into the forest, only so far until I reach a spot where the canopy is thickest to put a damper on the smoke.

My backpack hits the wet ground, and I yank out the three books that have been weighing the bag down all day. Theoretical Hydrodynamics and Aeromechanics makes contact with the earth first, then Kiervan’s course materials fall next to it. The last to come out is a notebook filled with useless scribbles.

The lighter is in my hand before I register it, and I have half a mind not to set fire to the textbooks. Yet in the next breath, the orange flame licks the corner of Kiervan’s book. It’s slow to start, but I watch it swallow the book with a roar. The plastic cover bubbles before it turns to charcoal and withers away into ash. I could watch the flames for hours, hypnotized by the vermillion and gray.

Fire is chaos at my fingertips, something I can harness and lose all control over, neither of which can happen unless I strike the match.

Throwing the second book on top of it, the flames stretch upward until the smoke touches the back of my lungs. It’s better than nicotine or weed because seeing the dance of yellow and copper is enough to push the phone call further to the back of my mind.

Maybe one day, I’ll do to my parent’s house what I did to Blaze’s. Maybe next time, it’ll go out with a bang.

God, she’s such a little shit.

It’s no surprise to hear that Mommy doesn’t love her and Daddy’s gone walkabouts. She defines the word irritating, and all she’s doing is sitting there, not making a sound or moving.

Yet for some screwed-up reason, Blaze is the only thing I’ve been able to see in over ten years. From her roaring attitude to her name and copper hair—Christ, her hair—her entire presence commands attention. All she does is scream “look at me,” and I can’t fucking look away no matter how hard I try.

The worst part of it all is that she’s the biggest bitch around. Since the night behind the church, she’s been avoiding me as if I were the damn police.

I twirl a blue pen between my fingers, ignoring whatever it is the teacher is talking about—it doesn’t matter; I’ve already learned all about it. My fingers graze over the dented surface of the pen; I wet my lips as I pull my attention away from the thief, to the perfect little teeth marks decorating the top of the plastic casing. The clip has been bitten off, and the spring is long gone. To continue to call it a pen is a stretch of imagination.

I tuck it behind my ear and cast my eyes over to her as she chews on the lid of a different one. She’s antsy. That much is clear. Blaze has a bad habit of needing to keep her hands and mouth busy whenever she’s on edge—biting her nails, fiddling with the rosary beads she recently stole from somewhere, engraving the desk when she thinks no one’s looking. I could be the cause of it this time round. Or maybe it’s the fact she can’t call that fucker Tony to get her fix.

Who knows who Blaze stole either of the pens from, but out of the both of us, she’s the one who can’t afford to luck out with her schooling. If she doesn’t pass and continues getting caught for everything, then she has a one-way ticket to jail now that she is eighteen and considered a threat to public safety. Blaze is an idiot if she’s considering prison as a valid life option.

Her eyes find mine, and she mouths, “Get fucked,” before looking forward with her shoulders tensed. A minute later, she dismantles the pen, tucking the spring and case into her bag and leaving the ink chamber on the desk to doodle in her book.

Blaze makes a point of sitting behind me in the next class, and it takes every fiber in my being to ignore the cut-up eraser she throws at my head. My jaw ticks when a marker cap hits my ear. I’m woefully disappointed if this is her pathetic attempt to get back at me. I expected more.

When the third object collides with me, I whisk around to face her. “For someone who wants me to fuck off, you’re sure trying to get my attention.”

She’s so fucking infuriating all the goddamn time.

Her wild, sterling-blue eyes flare, and my lungs catch, just like every other time I see them. The world can have Prometheus; I have Blaze, the girl with the fiery attitude—completely and utterly unhinged. The girl with hair and eyes the color of flames: blue, copper, orange, red. Blaze is fire.

She leans forward in her seat. I’m sickeningly aware that closing the distance wouldn’t take much. It wouldn’t even take a full second. “Don’t think so highly of yourself. Your attention is the last thing I want,” Blaze whispers, and all I seem to notice is the way her chapped lips move.

I’m hit with a bolt of rage at the memory of what she looked like in the photo. That motherfucking photo. I can still picture what she looked like sitting on Duke’s lap with his tongue down her fucking throat.

My shoulders stiffen, and my hand shoots out under the table to grab her knee as I shoot her a glare. Her skin is the softest thing I’ve ever felt, and the contact hardly puts a lid on my urge to pull her across the desk. But then I remember one crucial fact.

She’s never fucking chosen me.

“You have a funny way of showing your disinterest, Thief.”

My eyes cast to where our skin is touching, and tension instantly starts beneath my pants. Blaze has no idea how easy it would be for me to push my hand up her leg and slip my fingers into the tight cunt she’s been keeping from me. It’s a colossal show of self-restraint that I’m not driving her thighs apart just to finally know what it feels like to have them open for me.

Her lips curl into a sneer. “Disinterest? You came to my school. I want you gone.”

This is precisely what I’m talking about. We’re a little over halfway through the school year, and she thinks I’m so awful she’d risk getting thrown in solitary every day under some misguided pretense that she might be able to get rid of me. Then, once she’s out, she fucks pieces of shit like Duke and who knows how many others.

For what? More importantly, while on what?

I pissed around after school for the past four years to walk her home because half the time she’s plastered, coming down, hungover, or simply unobservant. Not once has she thanked me or shown a modicum of appreciation.

The dumbest thing I’ve ever done was to assume she wouldn’t just fuck any guy who waves a bag in her face. I don’t care if that’s her mom’s MO or any other woman’s game; that shouldn’t be her game—not after everything I’ve done for the ungrateful shit.

“Miss Whitlock,” the teacher snaps.

Blaze glares at me one last time before averting her sharp eyes to the English teacher. “What?”

Mrs. Nauly cocks a brow and crosses her arms. “Anything you’d like to share with the class?”

Everybody turns our way, and Blaze’s cheeks flush the same shade as her hair—fuck, if she doesn’t look hot like this. If I had known being in the same class as her would get her this wound up, I’d have done it years ago.

When Elijah turns to look at her too, I quickly do the math on whether it would be worth spending a night in solitary if I got the chance to crack his skull. I bet he’s fucked her as well.

Fuck.

I ball my hands into fists. Blaze prefers everyone but me.

“Yeah, there is, actually.” Blaze sits straighter up in her chair and crosses her arms, mimicking Mrs. Nauly.

She truly does astound me. She’s either so delusional and has no idea how much verbal diarrhea comes out of her mouth, or she genuinely aspires to do everything possible to get her ass kicked.

I sigh and settle back in my chair. This is gonna be good .

“Go on,” the teacher says.

“Kohen was feeling me up and trying to look up my skirt.”

I scoff. She wears it so short there’s no looking up when I can just look at it. Her lack of hand-eye coordination has benefited me too many times to count. The girl has never heard the concept of “bending at the knees,” and every male in this school is too aware of that fact.

The teacher sighs. “Miss Whitlock, I doubt Mr. Osman desires to do such a thing. Stop crying wolf.” She gives Blaze a condescending look people seem to reserve especially for her. The one that says why should I believe you?

It almost makes me want to step in. I turn my head just enough to see her wrap her fingers around her pen in an iron grip. Her blue eyes swing my way, and the hatred I notice in them makes my blood burn. All of this is her fault. I’m not coming to save her. She created the mess; she can clean it.

“He attacked me the first day he was here,” Blaze adds.

Mrs. Nauly shakes her head. “I, along with every person in this faculty and classroom, have no desire to continue listening to you spreading lies. Frankly, we’ve all had enough of hearing it.”

Blaze throws her hands up and slams them on the desk. “I’m not ly—”

“Another word out of you, and you will be sent to Headmaster McGill’s office.” Mrs. Nauly turns back to the whiteboard, then stops. “Your attitude is equally unwanted, Marie.”

“My name is Blaze,” she grumbles.

The teacher sends her a warning glance, and she doesn’t bite back, slumping down in her chair and crossing her arms like a petulant child .

People like us can cry wolf when there is one, and no one would bat an eye even if we never lied. The only difference between her and I is that my father will step in to protect the family name, and hers will step in just to score some cash from her.

Blaze is silent for the rest of the class—apart from her incessant tapping and leg bouncing. But I can feel the rage radiating from her in waves. It only fuels my own. I’m in here because of what she did. If anyone has the right to be angry, it’s me. I’m the one who’s pissed. I’m the one who was betrayed over and over again.

If there’s one thing that will never disappoint me about Blaze, it’s her predictability; right now, she’s stripping down any walls she has. Whatever shred of control she’s got is being incinerated. All that remains is pure, unfiltered compulsion. It’s only a matter of time until she acts.

I glance at the clock above the whiteboard. Pulling out my ring from my blazer pocket, I drape my arm off the side of the table, twisting the ring between my fingers. My grandfather gave it to me when I was eight. It was the last gift he ever gave me before I found him on the floor of his estate, dead from a drug overdose while I was staying for the summer. He told me that one day I’ll be a man worthy to have the O in my initials. My grandfather was a good man and the only person who ever saw Kiervan and Father for the snakes they were.

So when I was fifteen, I used my allowance to engrave my name into the band. As I see it, the Osman name died with my grandfather.

I fidget with it just long enough to get the klepto’s attention before letting it clatter onto the edge of the desk. The artificial light reflects off the silver varnish and glints off the small sapphire stone in the corner of the square-shaped signet ring. If I look hard enough, I can see the K.O. I engraved on the back, and my first name wrapped around the inside of the band.

We’re dismissed as soon as the bell rings, and I wait five seconds before grabbing my books and stationary. Once I hear the chair behind me scrape against the floor, I lean down to shove my belongings into my bag, and a pair of long, pale legs and knee-high socks walk past just as I do.

When I sit back up, Blaze is gone, along with my ring.

The tension lining the fibers of my muscles ease. Since I got here, she’s been acting like she’s better than the things I own. Back at St. Augustine, she would steal something from me on a weekly basis. The little thief had a whole shelf in her room dedicated to everything she thought I didn’t know she took and the things I let her take—not that she knows any of this.

For the better part of the past two weeks, I’ve been trying to coax her with the bait she used to always fall for, like scribbling random shit on drink bottles, fidgeting with a lighter in front of her and leaving it out just enough to make it look like an easy challenge, as if it’s just begging to be stolen. Or “accidentally” leaving my backpack half open, or dropping something and looking for it in the opposite direction.

But the little shit hasn’t fallen for any of it.

She hasn’t taken a single thing from me, and it pisses me off to no end.

We both know she isn’t miraculously cured. She isn’t above petty theft either. She’s debatably worse than the macaques at the Monkey Forest in Indonesia.

I didn’t want to part with the ring, but I had no choice. She’s been leaving me no other options for years. Now she’s acting above what I have—like she’s better than me. As if there are different guys she’d rather wrap her fingers around.

I yank the zipper of my bag down, remembering the picture of her sitting on Duke’s lap, and all the times Elijah touched her right in front of me.

I bet she’s stolen from that asshole. I bet she’s swiped from every unassuming person in here but me.

I’m fucking sick and tired of waiting for her to stop being psychotic for two minutes for once in her life so she can open her goddamn eyes. I’m done being patient, and I won’t sit by and watch her show non-homicidal interest to everyone but me. This shit is going to end. She’s going to get in fucking line, or else she’s going to see what happens when I feel cornered.

Until then, my son of a bitch Father has signed me up to play football, guitar, and fucking chess, and I’m about to spend the next two hours surrounded by a group of men who have all lost 80 percent of their brain cells.

“Hey, Kohen.”

I snap my head in the direction of the voice.

Fucking hell, what does Sarah want?

“We haven’t been formally introduced—well, you know, we talked in history the other day, but that wasn’t formal-formal, if you know what I mean.” She laughs at her joke and waits for me to do the same. I don’t. “I’m Sarah.” She sticks her hand out, and I just stare at it.

There isn’t a single thing on this earth that will make me have any desire to touch her or even speak to her.

Sarah clears her throat and fumbles for the piece of paper behind her. “I meant to ask you a question.” The answer is going to be no. “

Our annual ball is in a month, a couple weeks before finals, and we’ve all been preparing for it for months. It’s going to be—drumroll, please.” She taps the desk beside me. “Haunted House themed! We spent forever deciding on something, but figured we’d make it spooky with smoke machines and spiders.”

She places the flier in front of me. Sure enough, it says Seraphic Hills’s Annual Ball in big, bold letters and a punch of spiderwebs in the background. Fitting for an old nunnery.

I look blankly back at her.

Her smile falters for a second before she slaps it back on. “I was actually wondering…” Sarah’s cheeks flush red, and it looks unappealing on her. “You know, everyone needs a date for prom?”

I blink.

She chews on her bottom lip. Does this actually work for guys?

“I was thinking… since you don’t have a date, and Finn and I just broke up…” All this hesitation isn’t cute. I’m just bored. She steps forward, and my skin crawls from her proximity. “Maybe we could go together.”

I throw my bag on and leave her with one parting word. “No.”