Burn

by Shey Stahl

  Reaching for the door handle, I notice the fainting smells of smoke and freak the fuck out. There’s an actual fire somewhere in the hotel.

  My door opens, and I’m met with Nixon. You didn’t think he’d give up that easy, did you?

  Yeah, me either.

  I’m sure you can imagine, but right about here is where I freak out. “Get out.” I try to keep my voice down, maintain a calm sense of control, but I’m not sure it’s taken that way. “Get out of my office. Right now.”

  Taking a towel from his back pocket, he reaches up, wraps it around the sprinkler and then locks the door and pulls out a gun from behind his back. “Nah, I think I’ll stay.”

  This can’t be happening. This cannot be happening.

  He waves the gun in my direction. “Go ahead, take a seat. I need to talk to you.”

  I don’t know if you can sense when you’re about to die. But right now, I’m sure I’m about to. Sure, Nixon is fucking creepy but never did I ever expect a guy like him to hold this kind of power, or be wielding a fucking gun? Who does shit like that?

  But he does. He holds power over me, my father, this hotel, but most of all, Caleb.

  “I just want to talk.”

  “Fuck you,” I manage to say, trying to run past him, but all that gets me is tied to my office chair.

  “Now that I have you where I want you, you’re going to do something for me.” Nixon leans forward, his palms flat against my desk. “Are you going to listen to me?”

  I shake my head, wishing I had enough saliva in my mouth to spit on him. But I don’t. My mouth is dry and my head’s pounding. “No.”

  “You better.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out his cell phone and shows me a message. It’s an e-mail he has in draft form with a video attached to it. “Or I send this to your father and every single department head in this hotel.”

  It takes me a moment to understand what he’s saying, what with the fire alarms blaring in the background and my mind scrambling. And then I realize what that video is. The lap dance I gave Caleb that night.

  It’s just like Nixon to think this plan will work. He’s a business man. He gets what he wants, always, except me and now he’s taking that too.

  He’s leaning into my desk, hovering toward me with a callous expression on his face, his gun in his left hand against. “Do you know how many times I’ve watched that video?” His eyes find mine. I refuse to meet his stare and instead watch the door and the smoke filtering in through the hallway. “But it’s nothing compared to the images of you, on this very desk with the firefighter. Only it’s the wrong man eating your pussy. It should have been me.”

  Look at him, he believes it too.

  The sick motherfucker!

  “I’ll never fuck you!” I feel a curl of nausea as I spit the words at him, my hands shaking behind my back.

  “Okay, well then, you chose. Either you give me what I want, or you lose your job and him.”

  Him. He’s talking about Caleb.

  “What are you talking about?”

  I never imagined Nixon being this crazy. I knew him, or I thought I had. Despite having everything life has to offer and more money than he could possibly spend, he apparently doesn’t have the one thing money can’t buy. Me.

  He moves around the desk to stand before me and smiles bitterly, but there’s some amusement to it. Kneeling in front of me, so his face is at my ear, his breath blows over me. His gun presses against my throat as he speaks. “Do you think he can save you now? Do you think he can protect you? He was so sure that night in the bar I’d never touch you, yet here I am, with you, and he has no idea where to find you.”

  “Fuck you!” My head throbs with the blaring of the alarms, the words offering no relief. But I scream them because it’s the only thing I can do. “Get out of here!” I try to push against him with my legs, but can’t. He’s so much stronger than I am, and he knows it.

  Maybe Nixon never planned on taking it this far until Caleb taunted him at the bar. I think if Caleb wouldn’t have reacted that way, then, and in the lobby of the hotel, maybe Nixon would have let it go. But no one could have predicted how unstable Nixon really is.

  My whole body shakes as I squeeze my eyes, the angry tears spilling over.

  When I open my eyes, Nixon’s kneeling in front of me, his hand moves to the side of the chair, his gun shoved inside the front of his suit.

  I hope it goes off and shoots his dick off.

  “Stay away from me!” I scream, trying to kick at him again, but his hand over my mouth cuts off my voice. I struggle against the rope around my hands, burning and scraping against my skin.

  “Come on, Mila, you know you want me. You know I can give you a life he can’t.” His whisper is low as he parts my legs and wraps his hands around my backside, moving my hips to the edge of the chair and forcing himself hard against me.

  I want to puke. He’s hard!

  “He’ll never give you what I’m capable of.”

  Sick fuck. My heart’s thundering rhythm keeps me from speaking.

  “You know it’s true, Milena.” When I don’t respond, his frustration gets to him, his tone vibrating through my entire body, shaking my bones. “Tell me you know it’s true.”

  I’m not going to allow him to take anything from me. Not when my mind drifts to what can be taken from me now. Caleb.

  “I’m never going to give you what you want.” I wince when his left hand grabs a fistful of my hair. “Never.”

  “You know you want this,” he whispers in my ear, placing a kiss on my neck. I want to bleach my skin now. “You just won’t admit it. We could be amazing together.”

  “Don’t touch me, you . . . delusional fuck!”

  He laughs; it’s both sinister and sarcastic. “Why him? Because he’s some kind of hotshot firefighter?” His brow raises. “He left his brother to die in a fire. What do you think he’s going to do to you?”

  He knows about the fire? Jesus Christ. I clearly underestimated bankers.

  “It has nothing to do with him,” I growl. “It’s because I don’t want you touching me.”

  Nixon’s face crumbles into deep ridges of disbelief. “You just don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “See.” I push myself back away from him, knocking the chair over and kicking him as hard as I can between the legs. “That’s where you’re wrong. I fucked your dad, pretty sure I know what the Shaw boys are all about.”

  He stands, though he’s hunched over in pain, his hands on his knees. “You shouldn’t have done that, Mila,” he warns me, taking the gun out of his pants. And I can’t understand how it didn’t go off when I kicked him. Maybe that shit only happens in the movies. “Now you’ve pissed me off.”

  Straightening his posture and the jacket of his black suit, his eyes become a little darker. He sniffs, his knuckles sweeping over his bottom lip, his forehead scrunching as he speaks. When he’s closer, I can instantly feel the heat as he reaches forward and flicks his lighter and holds the open flame against my desk. “I came here for one thing. I want you and well, if you’re not going to give it to me, I can either take it or leave you to suffer the consequence of the denial.”

  “Did you honestly think you had a chance with me?” The spark from the lighter catches the paperwork on my desk but doesn’t burn quickly. And then the spark catches and my desk envelopes in angry flames. What the fuck is it made of? Lighter fluid?

  Nixon steps back from the desk smoldering in flames, heating the room and me ten feet from it. “Last chance.”

  Remember when I said you never really know someone? This is precisely the bullshit I’m talking about.

  When I don’t accept his invitation, Nixon shakes his head. “I could have given you everything, but you’re too stupid to know it.”

  I hate his smile.

  I hate his eyes.

  I hate that he called me stupid.

  I hate that my father trusted him and his family.

  The
y grow darker as firelight spills behind him. He takes a step my direction. Gently, his palm finds my cheek, but there’s nothing gentle about this man. I know that now. Leaning in, his mouth moves toward my ear again and his grip increasing on my arms, squeezing until I wince at the pressure.

  “Why would you want to ruin our friendship by more?” I’m not sure why I ask that. Maybe because I’m hoping I can talk some sense into him.

  Nixon shakes his head, cold eyes locking on mine, but he’s looking right through me. “We were never friends, Mila. I just wanted to fuck you.”

  I should just shut the fuck up and tell Nixon we’ll be together and I don’t care about Caleb, and all that bullshit he wants to hear, so he lets me go and doesn’t show the world my ass on a video.

  But one, I’m a shitty liar, two, I don’t care at this point who sees that goddamn video and three, I can’t let a guy like Nixon win.

  He’s watching the flames like some kind of pyro admiring his handiwork. It makes me wonder how he’s getting out of here. Judging by the smoke coming from underneath the door, the fire outside this room is raging on. “I bet he runs in here thinking he can save you,” he says, calmly tilting his head to one side as if he’s genuinely interested in what Caleb’s plan will be.

  “He’s not on duty tonight.” The lie pours out of me, painfully, bitterly. I’m so angry. At him, at the situation, all of it. Sobs tear through me again, and I’m unable to stop them. I can’t let it end this way.

  Nixon makes a humming sound, deep in his throat. “You’re lying. I know his schedule.”

  I’m horrified by how calm he is as he makes his way over to me.

  “Nixon,” I choke out, shaking my head. I don’t know what he’s about to do, but I plead, “Please don’t do this. We’re going to die up here if we don’t leave.”

  The room is dark now, filling with smoke as I struggle to draw in breaths. I’m weaker by the second, the toxic gases surrounding me gaining control. Panic’s setting in. It claws at my throat, my heart, but I force it away, telling myself for right now, I have to remain calm.

  Nixon brings his face to mine and then his mouth to mine. It’s revolting. “Mmm, I think I like the sound of you begging me,” he whispers. “Do it again.”

  “Please let me go,” I plead, again, and I’ll keep doing it if it means he’ll let me go.

  “You belong with me, not him.” His mouth crashes to mine, and there’s nothing gentle about anything he’s doing or the way his tongue pushes inside of my mouth. I let him kiss me.

  I do because I’m hoping maybe if I do, he’ll let me go, and Caleb won’t endanger his life to get to me.

  But life doesn’t work like that. At least not in my life.

  Pushing away from me, Nixon winks. “Hopefully he’ll make it before you burn.”

  So all that bullshit about wanting me was a crock of crap? What is this, a sacrificial love and he’s leaving me to die in the fire? What the shit?

  As he closes the door to my office and leaves me in it, surrounded by flames, there’s a moment when I see my life flash before my eyes and sadly it’s nothing like I’d imagine it would be. Where I wanted to see something playing out like a movie, it’s more like an episode of The View.

  While I have hopes I’ll make it out, not all stories end in a fairytale, do they?

  Sometimes they end with a man leaving you to burn.

  Hazard

  A source of danger of personal injury or property damage; fire hazard refers to conditions that may result in fire or explosion, or may increase spread of an accidental fire, or prevent escape from fire.

  Tomorrow when I see Mila, I’m going to tell her I love her.

  I would have said it on the phone, but she needs to hear it in person. You can’t tell a girl you love her over the phone for the first time. If that was the case, I probably would have texted her.

  I keep going back to the other night, and I can’t stop thinking about the look on her face in my room when she told me she loved me.

  It’s her eyes that haunted me the rest of the night and the way they begged for answers I couldn’t give her. The way they ripped my chest wide open. The way her shoulders fell and her face softened when our stare caught and she knew I couldn’t offer her the words in return.

  But I am going to tell her. Soon. Tomorrow. Or maybe the next day. I need to work up to this.

  As I walk back into the kitchen, the guys are deep in conversation.

  “All I’m saying is there’s an unofficial code among us. Don’t date the wives or widows.”

  I should walk back out of the kitchen, I should, but apparently, I’m an idiot lately and stay.

  Finn seems to consider Owen’s words and then asks, “What about girlfriends? I mean, if you could have called her that. They fucked, and now they’re friends. Why can’t I ask her out?”

  Owen grins. “I don’t know, ask Caleb. He can probably tell you better than anyone if you have a chance with her or not.”

  I raise an eyebrow. I know who they’re talking about. Jacey. “She’s off limits to all of you bastards.”

  “Why, because you’re puttin’ out fires with her now?” Jay asks.

  Some people might not believe this, but men can resist temptation when they want. To me, if you cheat on someone, you were going to anyway. Temptation aside, it takes a different mindset to do that to another person. After everything I’ve been through, do you think I’m that type of guy?

  “Fuck you, guys,” I say, walking into the kitchen.

  Refusing to let me go, they follow me into the kitchen and won’t let up.

  “Would you ever—” Finn’s eyes go wide. “Never mind.” He knows he’s asked the wrong question.

  “Don’t fucking ask that.” I shove Finn back against the fridge. “She’s like my fucking sister.”

  “You don’t make moves on your brother’s wife, ex-wife, girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, or sister,” Corbin points out, as if I don’t know.

  Part of me wants to say, well, if want to get technical about this, she was my girlfriend first, and my brother fucked her. But I don’t.

  “And besides, she’s pregnant from what I hear,” Jay has to add, because he doesn’t know when to fucking shut up.

  I glare at him for his pregnant comment. Mostly because Jacey’s scared enough; she doesn’t need everyone talking about how fucked the situation is.

  Leaning forward, I level them a look that says, knock it off. “I’m not fucking her.”

  “Yeah . . . okay.” Corbin gives a sarcastic nod and starts to walk away. I take my helmet off the floor by my turnout gear from the last job and throw it at him.

  He turns around, then smiles, rubbing the back of his head, and walks back to Cap’s office. If Corbin hadn’t just made lieutenant, I probably would have throttled his ass right then for that comment.

  The other guys seem to understand I’m not the type of guy to step out on Mila, regardless if we hadn’t declared anything, and with Jacey of all people, but I also think they know I’m not exactly stable these days.

  It’s twenty minutes later and Corbin returns, this time with Owen hot on his heels.

  “It’s not all about you, asshole,” Corbin says to Owen as they both walk into the lounge. “Grow up and get over yourself.”

  Corbin isn’t the easiest person to get along with. Most of the guys understand this, but Owen likes to give him shit. It also might have had a little to do with the fact that Corbin made rank before he did. Maybe a little. Owen’s competitive.

  Finn looks up, his face flushed. He seems to want to say something but doesn’t. I think he’s a little nervous after the Jacey comment.

  When Corbin is out of the kitchen, I smile at Finn. “How many times do you think he says ‘asshole’ in one day?”

  “Probably about as often as everyone else in this house.” He rolls his eyes, reaching for a can of Pringles on the table.

  “I once counted.” I close the magazine I’m holding, pushing i
t forward. “He said it forty-two times in one afternoon.”

  Owen returns to the kitchen, the fridge opening soon after. “You should be worried that you counted, not that he said it.”

  Slowly turning the pages of the Sports Illustrated magazine on the table, I don’t look up when I say, “And on any given day the word ‘dick’ is said in this house at least 273 times.”

  Finn bursts out laughing. “That’s . . . strangely accurate.”

  “Did you clean the bathrooms?” Corbin asks Owen. It’s only ten, and they’re at each other’s throats again.

  “Are you talking to me?” Owen turns on his heel, blue eyes blazing as he looks down at Corbin.

  “Yes.” Corbin isn’t letting up.

  Finn looks at me, smiles, and points to Owen, silently holding up a twenty-dollar bill.

  We nod, our bets agreed upon. Owen may have him on size, but I’m betting Corbin’s a scrappy motherfucker.

  “Listen, asshole.” Corbin steps forward, uncrossing his arms. “I don’t see no stripes on your shirt, so I don’t have to listen to you.”

  The thing about these two is they’re both right. At least, they think they’re right. Tell either of them they’re not, and heated words are exchanged.

  Owen gives a bitter laugh. “Watch who you’re talking to.”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Corbin looks over at Owen for a minute. “I’m done talking.”

  And then he punches him.

  Big mistake. Even knowing my lack of fucks for hitting people, I wouldn’t punch Owen. I also think Corbin momentarily forgets the height difference between the two of them.

  Guys on the engine attempt to break it up, but Finn and I try to talk them out of it.

  “Just let them fight,” I tell them, tossing twenty bucks on the table. I can’t keep the grin off my face.

  And they fight until both of them are bloody and Cap breaks it up, looking to Finn and me for answers. “What the fuck is going on in here?”

  “What?” We all look at him like he’s crazy. At least once a week a fight breaks out in this house. Why is he surprised now?