INTO THE FLAMES

Chapter 8

Shaking.

Someone is shaking me.

Slow, tender, "time to wake up" shaking turns to a vigorous plea to wake me up. Only then do I decide to roll over. Before I do, I see the time on my clock; 1:30.

Who the aCTUAL FUCK IS WAKING ME UP AT 1:30 IN THE MORNING?

I let out a groan, a begging groan because, please, let me sleep.

Then I see Matt's face.

His hair is in a tangled mess on the top of the right side of his head. His tee shirt is on crooked, as if he through it on in a panic. I can see, even through the darkness around us, his crazed, bloodshot eyes staring at me through the curtain of the night.

"What the hell are you doing?" I ask him now. He sits down next to me on my bed, and my heart rate immediately increases. It makes me nervous, having him so close. Like I'm embarrassed that I may say the wrong thing.

"A buddy of mine was on patrol this morning," he says now, and I find the energy to roll my eyes. Where the hell is this going? I have things to do! Or, well, lack thereof.

"So?" I say. He can sense the amusement in my voice and sighs.

"He found something in the clearing that we went to yesterday. You don't happen to carry around maps of Cannon, do you?"

Maps? In the clearing? As I try to figure out what he might be getting at, what possibly he could be talking about, he frowns at me.

"He was there, Avery," Matt says. "Timothy was following us."

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I sat to Matt's left at the kitchen counter as my hand gripped the coffee mug. Mom was on the couch with Aria, "trying to calm her down." We all know that mom's the one that needs the empathy. More like therapy.

Everyone is silent as Detective Branch talks with Matt's friend, who's one of the lead detectives with Matt's aunt at Cannon PD. I catch Matt looking at me a few times, trying to get a glimpse of me under the hair that convers my face. I'm afraid to let him see what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling.

It's guilt.

Don't take this the wrong way. I don't regret my morning at all. I just wish that it could have happened and, in some way, none of this did. That I could leave the house without ever really leaving the house. That he wasn't this close to us.

"Avery," Matt whispers to me now, so quiet that I can barely hear him.

I don't want to listen.

"It's not your fault," he says now.

That's when I turn to him, trying not to yell. Trying not to make my mother into even more of an emotional bitch. Trying not to upset Aria. Trying not to attract attention.

"Whose fault is it then?" I ask him sharply, under a whisper. "Hers? His? This being his fault is just too easy."

Matt sighed. I saw him bite the inside of his lip, trying not to yell at me. Trying not to explode.

Then it would be his fault.

"You're being so stubborn about this," he says. "This was bound to happen, Avery. There's nothing that we could have done, no way that we could have known."