Burn slow

Chapter 17| Hell flames

POV Wednesday

While my legs were spurting down the stairs, my heart went up and down like a ship in the storm of worries. One more Xavier's abrupt holler devoured the house and then it  seized like it was never given out. But I did know that something wrong happened and the suspense was cutting my mind like a blunt knife.

I finally got to the ground floor; chalky smoke, crawling through the room, was lacerating my eyes just like the obscurity was doing the same with my soul.
I turned out in the kitchen in a snap of a finger to see Xavier nice and alive, who just managed to put out titian flames with a fire extinguisher. I opened all three windows in the kitchen:
- Do you prefer to be dead in fire or killed by my own hands? - despite the fire was put out, the smoke still eddied around the room, and it had managed to creep to my lungs. It caused a scratchy cough so my words turned out to be indistinctive and weakly audible. - What happened?
- Are you alright? - Xavier placed his hands on my shoulders. Goosebumps. Coughing fit made me cover my mouth with the inner side of my elbow. When the seizure was over, I got my glance up to Xavier:
- You didn't answer my question, - now I could speak almost normally, I leaned to the cabinet, demandingly looking at Xavier, who stood in half a metre away from me.
- And you didn't answer mine, - Xavier mentioned remotely. His glance was busy travelling across my face and body looking for the signs that could tell him that I wasn't alright.
- I'm fine, - I sighed with irritation but I couldn't skip my the next short question: - You?
- Same.
- Then answer my previous question.

Xavier made a step back crossing his arms on his chest. The smoke finally cleared:

- I wanted to prepare pancakes, and something went wrong, the temperature on the stove got higher... and... it's just complicated. Frankly speaking, I don't quite understand what happened, - Xavier told me in mansplaining voice, what I didn't appreciate, but I didn't remain in debt:
- Exhaustively, - my only word was soaked with sarcasm. - So was your plan to bake or fry us? Just for a record, I like neither of these options.
- Did you just say that fire was my fault? - Xavier cocked his eyebrow.
- Don't be dramatic. I just uttered that I am not planning to be burned. - I sent Xavier one more glance and bypassed him, heading to the stove. Then I added: - At least now.
Xavier sighed loudly and rubbed his eyes.
- Have I already told you that you drive me crazy, Addams?

The last words pierced my eardrums. The events from my today's dream spun before my eyes, and an avalanche of shivers scattered over my skin. I gulped and turned my head sending my glance to the door so Xavier couldn't recognise embarrassment at my face. I hurried up to coop up my head with thoughts about the fire accident to distract myself:
- I have to call a firemen office to let them know that nothing serious is going on, - Xavier grabbed his mobile phone. - A fire alarm had worked so they are already on their way.
I inattentively nodded, having already been busy with my mission to investigate what exactly provoked fire.

After the call, Xavier took a squat position near me, peering into the stove. I asked Xavier, not turning my head towards him:
- Do you have an instruction manual for this stove?
- It should be somewhere here, but it is in Italian, - Xavier turned around and reached to open the drawer just behind his back.
- I'll nail it, - I didn't take my eyes off the stove, I moved my fingers demonstrating that they expected to have the instruction manual as fast as possible.

In fifteen minutes of sweating over, I could state that we got tangled in the thickets of mystery even harder, than I expected, risking to get lost there forever:
- Someone had cut wires in the oven, - I concluded.
- What? It's impossible, - Xavier frowned and sat near me again, staring at the inner panel of the stove. - There was noone at home except us, - Xavier frowned and his lips looked like a thread at that moment. His teeth got clenched, and the jaw muscles tensed.
- I told you yesterday that I saw someone  behind the house. It wasn't a play of light or a just passerby, - I nosedived into Xavier's eyes to check if we were on the same page; then I turned around to take a round of going from one corner of the room to another. When I came up with my next point, I asked: - Turn on the torch and give some light on the inner panel of the stove: - Xavier immediately did what I asked, and I pointed out where exactly I wanted the ray of light to be directed. - A good news is that that "someone" is all thumbs, and they didn't manage to damage a gas hose so you and me could die in our sleep, having been suffocated with gas. Because I can confirm that the attempt was conducted. The plan is pretty smart, actually.
- Do you think that the failed endeavour to cut the gas hose made the stranger use the back-up plan - to cut the wires to let us die in the hell flames?
- That's cogent enough, - I couldn't agree more.
- Then we need to think of own plan how  to survive, - the molten iron poured in Xavier's eyes when he uttered the statement. - But first we have to gather everything what we already have.