Slim: Book 6

Burn Me

The cool touch of Ayako's fingers on my cheek brought me back. Phlegm seemed to have dammed up my lungs as I slept, and my fight to clear the airways shook Naru awake, which got him started.

Ayako grimaced, half amused, half pitying, at the hacking newlyweds. "Honestly, what would you two do without me?"

"Like I haven't been..." Naru started, but found speaking rather than coughing more effort than it was worth. Settling for a grumpy grunt, he gave her his back and snuggled deeper into the blankets.

Ayako looked to the ceiling, shrugging, then gestured to the tray she'd brought in. "I made you some soup. Thought you might like an update on your stalker too, boss."

"As long as it leaves us alone, I don't care," he said through a pillow.

I, however, accepted the warm bowl, delighting in the heat that wiggled to the shivering in my being. The first spoonfull was like a dollop of warm, though it vanished before it could hit my frozen insides, or rather, its heat became insignificant to the fire of my fever.

I phased in and out between spoonfuls. At some point, Ayako took up the spoon and started feeding me, saying something about me taking too long and staring stupidly into the distance. The headache, which had retreated from the onslaught of sleep, had returned in force by the time she took the bowl away. I bent over, groaning. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so awful or had a sickness come on so quick. Didn't it start with a few days of coughing.

"It didn't take Yasu too long to find something," Ayako said. "It wasn't long into their relationship that your mom noticed your dad doing some odd things out of the blue for no reason. He told her it was because of some dreams he had that sometimes came true, so he was just playing it cautious. He's jumped to the end, though, in the days following his death, hoping to get to the chase. The rain isn't letting up, and whatever is out there seems to be getting stronger. There's another crack in the window."

The bed creaked as Naru twisted. "It's midday, ghosts don't get stronger."

"Newsflash, sicky, it's six in the evening. Night's coming on."

He scowled, glanced up at the window (for some reason he didn't keep a clock by his bedside), and twisted back to his cocoon.

Something jerked urgently against my breastbone. "He was involved in a fire," I told her, my voice only a step shy of heavy smoker and Vader. "And I think he might have meant it. There was a man he had meant to burn, and a girl he hadn't meant to."

Ayako flinched. "Your dad murdered people?"

I jumped too, blinking at her in groggy alarm. "What?"

"Well, when you say 'burn' I'm assuming he didn't just put a match to their toes."

I coughed, and the effort to push the air up and out just seemed to fill in my skull with a painful, thumping pressure. I got the image of my head exploding while I coughed.

"Burn off the face of the earth," I gasped. "Burned away."

Ayako watched me struggle to breathe normally again with pinched eyebrows and pale lips. "Lord...you seemed fine at your wedding. Well, fast coming means fast going. Give it a day and you should get better, so just lay back down, kay? Oy, Naru, soup."

"Just leave it."

"Oh no, then you'll just fall back asleep. Don't make me feed you like a baby." Never mind the fact that she had already done that for me and hadn't made a big deal out of it.

But he must have thought nothing of my dignity compared to his, as he sat right up, a glare set to maim and cheeks flushed.

"Give me the bowl."