Wicked (2P!America x Reader)

Chapter Eight

The house was on fire.

Your shaky voice shouted for your parents. In your chest was no longer a heart but a jackhammer, pounding against your ribcage and threatening to puncture a lung.

The light spread like a flood, drowning everything it touched. The flames, almost sentient and monstrous, climbed the stairs and crawled up the walls in hunger.

"Mom! Daddy—" You gasped and jumped back inside your room to dodge a part of the ceiling that has collapsed to your feet. There was a scream from across the hall—your mother.

You wanted to go after them but instincts won over compassion. You snatched your school bag and dashed to the curtains and you snapped off the window lock. Adrenaline pumped through your veins and the glass felt weightless on your hands.

The second floor stood over eighteen feet from the ground and you were not much of an athlete, but in your drugged mind any risk was worth survival.

As you grabbed the window frame your eyes wandered over your shoulder and for a brief moment, your pulse was the only thing in your ears.

The light was in your room now, it consumed the Batman welcome rug and made its way to the red-striped duvet of your bed, but you didn't worry about your things. Your gaze looked past the door and hall. Your mother had stopped screaming.

"I'm sorry" You whispered, the words were so faint you weren't sure if they actually came out.

The fire seemed to roar at you and without thinking, you bounced off the window sill. You yelped when you slammed down onto the ground and you became more aware of your body; bones broken and muscles squeezed so tightly they suffocated. You heard footsteps on the dry grass but your vision blurred, either because of the tears or your consciousness fading, and then came the sirens.

Next thing you knew you were on a stretcher. The fight against sleep wasn't much of a fight, as you made no move to resist the blackness enveloping you.

You dreamt of lovely green lawns where the kids weren't allowed, and the seemingly endless lines of the same boring Georgian houses. Rosewood. You wondered what your parents liked about it. It was a freaking nightmare—snobby old money and a sun that was almost always present. You hated the heat, you hated it there.

Then the world shifted from a picturesque town to an abandoned house, but it wasn't scary, just a lonely two-storey Victorian home with pale blue walls and uncut grass. You turned and you saw him.

A gangly, untattooed Jason reached forward to poke your nose.

You blinked and woke up.

The real Jason stared at you. His voice was gentle as he greeted "Hey, princess" The sympathetic expression on his face made his small fake smile invisible.

You knew what that meant. Your shattered shoulder and ribs were suddenly nothing compared to the twisting pain that racked your soul.

"They're dead, aren't they?"

His lips fell. High-pitched humming filled your ears, so annoying you wished to go deaf.

"I'm sorry." His warm hand curled over yours but it had no effect on your dropping temperature. "How are you feeling?" He asked gently.

You didn't answer him, instead you raised another question: "What happened?" Your gut told you that something was wrong about all this—that it wasn't just an accident or a random arsonist that took your parents away from you.