Fiery Little Thing: A Dark Academy Romance

She’s wearing my ring.

She’s wearing my ring, and she’s looking smug about it. The little thief thinks she won this game we’re playing, as if she’s somehow in control of what’s happening.Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.

The ground was laid for us, but I was the one who set the kindling and struck the match. Blaze keeps trying to escape the parameters I placed for her; she almost got away once, but didn’t get far enough. She never will.

It’s more than just that.

Blaze woke up this morning, and every morning for the past seven days, looked at my initials on the back of the ring, and slipped it on her thumb even though it’s two sizes too big for her.

Blaze woke up, put it on, and walked around wearing my initials.

The thief twists the ring around her thumb as she walks across campus, completely unaware of her surroundings. We’ve been at each other’s throats daily, which is unsurprising. But she’s been growing increasingly jittery, starting fights with anyone who looks at her for longer than a heartbeat.

Blaze wants a fix, and it seems the girl who has no money and nothing but her legs to trade for drugs is doing exactly what I thought she would do: find the dead man named Elijah.

She beelines between the throngs of students, all trying to stay out of the rain and leave to enjoy their few minutes of freedom before we’re all forced to attend our mandatory after-school study session or sports training. She tightens the scarf around her neck and starts shouldering her way through the crowd. It doesn’t take long until she reaches Elijah, who’s leaning against the wall and talking to a couple of other people who hang out behind the church.

I watch the scene unfold from behind one of the stone pillars on the peristyle surrounding the courtyard, safe from the elements. The church crew all leave Elijah a few seconds after Blaze arrives, and he looks down at her with a self-satisfied smirk when she closes the distance and rubs her hand over his chest.

Her lips curl into the perfect smile, and her blue eyes soften and round as she looks up at him like he means everything to her. My skin heats as I watch her twirl a lock of hair around a slender finger. Why the fuck does she never look at me that way? She’s known that fucker for what? Five minutes? And she’s looking at him in the way I could only dream of.

Since day one, she’s only ever thought of me with disdain. She’s only ever seen me as an inconvenience. A nuisance she wants to get rid of. Blaze hates me, and I’ve done everything possible to change that. Yet she goes and throws it all in my face.

My fingers curl around my lighter, and I’m hit with the sudden urge to test out how flammable Elijah’s school uniform is. It’d be a win-win for me; hurting him and sating my demons at the same time. I need to smell the smoke and watch chaos unfold in a dance of vermillion and yellow.

Nothing about what she’s doing to Elijah is genuine. It’s not about him, but what he has. The only thing that makes her smile is the same thing that will kill her, and I won’t stand for it.

My heart hammers against my ribcage as I watch their interaction, the smile on his face growing with each word she says. I inch closer to the edge of the pillar to eavesdrop on their conversation, but the rain and howling behind me are louder than the echo of their whispers.

He raises an eyebrow when he speaks to her. Whatever she says makes his eyes widen with excitement, then he reaches behind her and grabs her ass.

I start walking before I can weigh the pros and cons of smashing his head against the stone until he becomes unidentifiable. My knuckles go white with how tightly I’m clenching my fists, but dick for brains doesn’t notice the warpath I’m on, too distracted by Blaze to realize he’s about to fucking die.

I stop short before I reach them because she turns around… and there’s white powder on her fucking nose. When did either of them pull that shit out?

“What the fuck is going on here?” My feet start moving again, and I yank her away from him.

“Let go of me!” she screams. How many times have I heard her say that? Ten times, give or take? Probably more.

“Dude, don’t touch her. Chill.” Elijah’s two brain cells clearly are too busy fighting for first place to work, because he steps towards us and reaches for Blaze.

“There are twenty-seven bones in the human hand. Breathe in her direction again, and we’ll find out whether I can break them one at a time.” He’s mad he isn’t receiving payment for fulfilling his end of the bargain.

Elijah holds his hand up and points to Blaze, who’s struggling in my grip. “I’m just saying she obviously wants nothing to do with you, dude.”

I tighten my grip around her. She isn’t going anywhere. “I’ve always wanted to see what a real human heart feels like in my hands. Keep talking, and I’ll get to find out.”

“Stop being such a psychopath,” Blaze growls.

I’m so amped up I don’t so much as grunt when she elbows me in the ribs with every ounce of energy she has. Without waiting for Elijah’s response, I drag her down the corridor, scaling the courtyard, barely aware of how she’s kicking and screaming for me to release her.

I throw her into the first open, empty classroom, slamming the door behind me. I feel like I’m burning alive, and it’s all her fault. Only she can set me off like this.

“Stop,” I roar when she launches for me.

She doesn’t.

Of course, she doesn’t.

When the fuck has she ever listened to me?

I tell her not to cross the road because there’s a car speeding our way, and she’ll cross it. I ask her to sit still so the teacher doesn’t rip into her again and run to Whitlock Sr. about her behavior, and she does the exact opposite. Nothing I’ve ever done is enough for her, but everyone else is as long as they give her a temporary escape from this shithole.

“You’re the one who’s manhandling me, you Denisovan!”

I hate what she does to me. I despise how fucking simple it is for her. It’s a pathetic insult. Yet, here I am, grinning like I’ve just inhaled nitrous oxide because she paid attention in biology class.

My grin twists into a scowl, my hand finds her neck, and my thumb searches for her pulse. Her blown-out pupils meet mine as I back her against the wall.

“How much did you fucking take, Blaze?” My voice is lethally calm. The way her lips part tells me she knows I’m seconds away from losing it. Still, she bares her teeth at me.

If Blaze could kill me with a single look, I’d be dead a thousand times over from the daggers she’s shooting my way.

“What I do is none of your business.”

She’s wrong. And it makes me fucking wild.

She thrashes under me. It’s not remotely hard to control her whole body with one hand to her throat. I put my hand on her arm just to feel her skin against mine. Even when her eyes are harsh, her skin is always so soft. I can’t help but appreciate that her bones aren’t digging into me the same way they used to. Back then, she was skin and bone and had lifeless, fiery eyes.

Now, she’s using nowhere near as much as she used to, eating at least three meals a day, and putting on muscle. Her eyes are also sharper, and her skin has color. She’s even lost the bags underneath her eyes. Christ, if I don’t appreciate what this place has done to her.

“What’s your end goal, huh? Are you planning on using so much you blow your lights out? Do you want to end up like your mother?”

She jolts forward but winds herself against my hand instead. Her back crashes against the wall, eyes watching me with the hatred I’m so used to. “What’s yours, Kohen? Where are you going once you get out of here? Back underneath your brother’s shadow? Playing bitch for the rest of your family?”

Wrong again. I have a plan, and the only part my family will play is to release the trust fund that’s waiting for me when I graduate. After that, Osman is just a name.

I add more pressure on my thumb, feeling her pulse fluttering against my numb flesh. I can’t feel hot or cold, smooth or coarse, but that I can feel. “All you do is talk about things you don’t understand.”

Her face twists with challenge. “Making my life your business won’t change your own.”

“Using won’t change yours.”

“If I wanted to stop, I would.” Blaze raises her chin, exposing more of her slender throat. “Besides, none of this has anything to do with you.”

“Then prove it,” I say. “Stop.”

“I don’t need to prove shit to you.”

“I know one thing you want more than powder to snort.”

“You think you know me so well, don’t you?” She sneers. “You think you have me all figured out because you’ve been looking down at me from your gilded tower, throwing dirt my way just because you have the money to do it.”

“You tell yourself you use and steal because you like the high of it, that it makes you feel alive, but that’s a lie. You do it because that’s the only time you feel you have control over your life.” Two sentences. That’s all it takes for her chest to expand as she takes a deep breath. “You act out because you want the attention—at least, that was the reason, wasn’t it? Maybe Mommy will come home if she hears you need help, and everything will return to how it was. Now you act out because no one listens to you. I am the only person in your life who hasn’t turned their back on you, and you know it too.” Her eyes mist over, but she only raises her head higher. “And I know you want me to pay.”

Her throat bobs beneath my hand. “Don’t look so proud of yourself, Osman. Anyone with eyes can see I want payback for what you did.”

“Not just for your house. You want me to pay for everything,” I say, hating the following words. My father was my alibi that day because the entire Osman line knows my parents never let me leave the house unless it’s for school and practice. Kiervan is the only person who’s aware that I snuck out of my window at night.

“You made my life hell!” she yells, shoving my chest.

Blaze is still fucking alive because of me. How many times have I saved her now? I don’t understand how one person can be so difficult. This girl wakes up every day and chooses to be a pain in the ass.

I take a deep breath to reign in my temper. Blaze has no idea how patient I’ve been with her, and still she continues to test me. “Don’t use anything for two months, and my entire trust fund is yours.”

She blinks once. Twice.

“I think I’m tweaking. Say that again.”

I grip her chin and angle it up so there isn’t an inch of her face that I can’t see perfectly—the same face I saw shoved against Duke’s. I run my tongue over my teeth, then say, “There are two more months left of school. If you last until graduation without any drugs or alcohol, I will give the entirety of my trust fund to you.”

Her lips part, and her blown-out eyes widen. “You’re shitting me, right?”

“If you so much as inhale a speck of that shit or get a secondhand high, it’s over. You lose.”

“I don’t believe you,” she whispers, searching my face like she’s waiting for me to say it was all a bad joke. But I don’t.

Seconds pass while we do nothing but breathe in each other’s air. Blaze’s pulse is going rabid against my thumb, and her violent blue eyes stay on mine, not breaking the connection for a second. This is all I wanted from her: cooperation. But then she ruins it when she rolls her eyes and shrugs me off. I step back, letting her get away.

“Yeah, right. Good one.” The thief scoffs, shaking her head. “You’re such a fucking cunt, Kohen.” Blaze opens the door and gives me one long, pitiful look. “You’re going to die alone.”

She’s wrong about that too.

I follow her out of the room to find Elijah waiting against the pillar in the courtyard like a slimy creep, jacked up on whatever it is he gave Blaze, and ready for his payment—and I hate her more for it. He looks my way for a hesitant second before wiping his hands on his pants, moving to follow her down the hall.

I grab him by the strap of his backpack and throw him out from the peristyle and into the rain while I remain beneath the shade. Curling my fists until my knuckles hurt, I watch as he falls back on his ass, soaking his uniform in mud and water. The confused daze lasts a second until he scrambles back onto his feet, but I push him back into the rain, where any chance of burning him alive is gone because of the elements.

“What the—”

I square my shoulders and draw my lighter, flicking the spark wheel to let the flame dance over the silver metal. Then I say with eerie steadiness, “You don’t want to see what happened to the last person who got too close to my fire.”

His face falls. “Look, dude, I don’t mean to—”

“I’m going to say this once, and only once.” I take a step forward, and he skitters back, eyes bouncing around the place, searching for help before they land back on my lighter. “Run or burn.”