Take Me Out

6 - Burn, Baby, Burn

warnings: angst, mention of death, fighting, physical violence, swearing, arson, mentions of emotional abuse/neglect/flashback of emotional neglect

***

"Get in the car."

"You! You fucking did this! Didn't you?" You scream, running towards the car.

"Y/N! Stop!" Tom's hands wrap around your waist just as you're about to punch Jake in the face.

He pulls you into the backseat and you fight against his strong hold until you physically can't.

Your throat hurts, the inside burns and the outside aches. Your face and neck still have small splatters of blood across it. You're shaking like a fucking leaf and you can't stop the tears that fall from your eyes.

Everything inside of you wants to kill Jake. You know he did this, somehow, he set this up.

"I wanted to see if Tom belongs on the team," Jake says smoothly as he pulls away from the curb.

Now it's Tom's turn to get upset, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"No, I switched her needles with water, I made sure you saw. If you really belong on the team, you would have done the right thing and saved her. Which you did, congratulations."

"No blood! That's my rule! No fucking blood! Blood leaves a mess. When you make a mess, you have to clean it up! If you want to do something bad, you can't leave a mess," you ramble, trying to quell your anger through logic.

Your blood is boiling and even though you're slumped down on the seat, practically in Tom's lap, you want to kill Jake.

You want to crawl into the front seat and grab ahold of the steering wheel. You want to swerve into oncoming traffic and take all of you out at the same time.

But then you think of Tom. You think of the sadness that normally hides behind his beautiful brown eyes. You think of the way he rubbed your back and comforted you as you threw up. And even though you've only known him for a week, you feel like you know so much, and want to know so much more.

So you settle into the seat, you don't bother shrugging Tom's hand off your waist.

You know he's only holding you for the sheer reason of holding you back.

But you can pretend that he's holding you because he wants to.

The thought makes you sick. You don't know Tom. Your adrenaline is high, too high. Your heart is racing and your hands are shaking. You're misattributing your adrenaline for some weird pull towards Tom. So you ignore this horrible aching in your chest and focus on the trees you pass as you get closer to the safe house.

Fuck.

After everything you went through tonight, you completely forgot what you did earlier.

What you did earlier feels like months ago instead of merely hours. You catch sight of the smoke before Tom or Jake do because you're looking out for it.

"Holy shit," Jake accelerates before he pulls up to the curb.

His safe house is up in flames.

You have to tug the smile from your lips as Jake throws the car into park. He gets out quickly, taking in the scene in front of him. The fire is burning down from the third floor. Whispers of red and orange flames trickle out the second story windows as well.

You know what Jake is going to do, because you know what he has in there.

He has the pictures he has been blackmailing you and Tom with. He has money, spare cash aside from the money he keeps in a PO box.