Call Me Fire

CHAPTER 16

IN A NUTSHELL, the rest of Tonya's morning could be summarized into just two words—toss and turn.

Toss. She still couldn't understand what exactly happened last night when Spitfire bolted out of her apartment, leaving her alone, naked, and worst of all, baffled to her hilt.

Turn. She wasn't even sure if she wanted him to come back—more so, stay—after recognizing that something was different with him. The one she gave herself to wasn't human. The empty hole on his chest was more than enough for her to boot him out of the gene pool. Seriously, what type of beast could walk around the Metro without a heart?

'Certainly not human.' Tonya closed her eyes tightly, remembering exactly what the hole looked like. Then, flipping one last time on her bed, she pushed herself up and tugged on the torn neckline of her shirt.

She was silently praying to all the gods that the mark wasn't there anymore when she slowly looked down. But then, the gods must have been too busy to even hear her.

'Damn it.' Her curse didn't make it out of her mouth when she stood up and rushed out of her bedroom. Her movements were fast, almost as if she was losing her mind when she threw herself into the bathroom and hurriedly attacked the shower knob—twisting it with all her force like it was the one who left the burning mark on her.

'Disappear... Just... Just fucking disappear. Argh!' She bit her tongue when a scream tried to escape her lips. Her nail caught her skin, but then it just triggered her to rub her chest even harder.

She was aiming to extinguish the fire that was tirelessly moving on her skin. The water hitting her was freezing without the heater turned on. However, she couldn't care less about the drops hurting her like splinters. She kept on scratching, digging her fingers into the mark, until she had some blood under her nails.

She had already lost count of how long she tried before her then-wrinkled hand stopped torturing herself. Lifting her gaze to the mirror attached to the wall, her mouth parted as her stare moved down from the tired face to where she remembered the mark was.

Then that was it. She gawked and felt her whole world stop when the mark on her skin glowed even brighter underwater, as if telling her that she should just give up.

.

.

THE GREEN GRASS ROLLING OVER THE GROUND didn't manage to scream under Fire's weight.

An hour after lending the dragonettes to Great Hao Long, he found himself standing before a four-story brick building located at the center of Klaire City.

Barricaded with tall walls and standing out from its depressing gray sky backdrop, the city asylum wasn't exactly the place mortals would want to spend Saturday afternoons in.

It was a trash bin for unrecoverable minds. There were women in straitjackets running barefoot around the premises. And, there were nurses running after them with canes in their hands, looking like they were taking down a group of beasts rather than sick beings of their kind.

For a while, Fire had a hard time distinguishing which of the two groups 'should be' the patients and 'should be' the caretakers. Humanity had advanced in so many ways since Escovia, yet there were just some things that wouldn't change through time.

'Monsters—'

"Excuse me, sir. You shouldn't be lurking in this part of Elmer-John Asylum."

It was that strict voice that cut through Fire's thought just when he was about to step forward at the door nearest to him. Wondering, he turned to the mortal who dared talk to him in such an abrasive tone.