The Life of Jezebel Firetongue

46

I collapsed and crawled to Jake. The fire cage fell down around his dead body and I grabbed onto him, pulling him close. My hand covered his wound from the world, not letting anyone see. Jake, the idiot, the romantic, the strong one who would follow me anywhere, the guy who had been pretending he was Chuck Norris a mere week or two ago, dead. Tears welled up in my eyes and I cried harder than anyone had ever cried in the long history of tears that had plagued the Earth. Great screeching sobs with tears evaporating in a haze that reminded me of drunks. He still smelled like salt.

"Get up!"

Dr. Davis' command was followed by the rest of the crowd screaming it too. "Get up, get up!" I wanted to hurl. In their eyes, I was the puppy who'd been kicked. In most of their eyes, I rightfully deserved it. What a load of shit.

Dr. Davis was going to pay for this.

"How could you?" I screeched. The crowd went silent and I felt fire burning in my stomach, but I wouldn't let it out. Not with Jake in my arms. "He was your only son! Your skin and blood, someone who had trusted you! He was yours and you murdered him! For getting himself into a fight that wasn't his!"

Dr. Davis was watching me with horror as fire flowed out of my mouth with every shout. Fire was filling the arena, climbing the walls, trying to get to someone, trying to make them die for Jake.

"And then you have the nerve to tell me to get up?"

"Now Jez-"

"You dare say you can make a better world Jonathon Davis? You dare?"

"There are just some measures that we have to take-"

"All you want to do is kill Dr. Davis! Tell your son how death is going to make the world a better place! Tell him!

"Enough Jezebel! Calm down!"

"Stop bullshitting Davis." I held Jake tight and then let go of him, extinguishing the wild fires that danced around me. "Just stop."

"Jezebel-"

"I said, stop bullshitting!"

Fire poured from my mouth and landed in my hand, forming into a knife, I turned it over in my hands and looked at Dr. Davis. "You need to know what it feels like, Dr. Davis. To die. To be killed. You need to know."

Dr. Davis started groveling, but I only raised the knife. He was so fat, targeting him was easy. One-two, one-two, and through and through...The quote came back to me from the Jabberwocky poem. Time to kill the Jabberwocky.

The knife was thrown. He tried to dodge it, tried to live, but it hit him anyway. Right in the heart.

Of course, that's when Jake came back to life.

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