Mongrel [bxb] | Bad Moon Book III

Chapter 29: burn

 It was so sudden—so easy, Matt hadn't felt it at first. Just the cold burning of metal entering his body, the strange sliver between his ribs. Then the pain, sharp and fiery. The hot, wet feeling in his chest.

He looked down to the knife, the red ring around its plunged blade. He didn't recall touching it, but blood stained his hands. A panicked sob came from somewhere in the room, and like he'd fallen back into earth's cruel orbit, his father's cries grew clear and palpable.

"Matt! Matthew! Matt!" The shadows rolled over Jack Richard's face in cloaks of bleary black veils, but the fear quaked his voice in ways the planted the image of his agonizing scream behind Matt's eyes. "Son of a bitch—Matt! Hold on boy, hold on."

And the world fell away and Matt slumped his knees, the blood on his hand a blurry red smear, smudged and quivering in his teary eye-sight. The world was comprised of ever-moving shapes and shadows, and somewhere in the distance was Rico—a hulking shadow, skulking in the lantern light.

The room stunk of blood and gasoline and the thin, unforgiving air sent Matt coughing. Blood bespattered the basement floor and he realized he had been staring at it for some time now. The pockmarks of air in the cracked cement—a stain that was likely older than himself. A tiny ant. A stray hair. Then his father's pale face in the swirl of shapes and shadows as Matt lifted his head.

"Hold on, boy—hold on. You, help me get out of this. Help me—"

"He's pouring gasoline," said Gabe, somewhere beyond the thunder of Matt's heart. "We have to get out."

"Matt!"

And though he could hear every word they spoke and see the faintest shapes of them in the dark, Matt was too tired to grip the outlines. Too tired to make out the faces. Lungs shuddering and blood sullying his mouth, he laid his face against the cold, filthy cement and felt the heat of his own life slide through his fingers.

We're fixing broken parts with broken tools.

Maybe this was how it was always meant to be. He had found happiness in Bailey, Bailey found happiness in Idaho. Maybe it was fate that chose these things—a meticulous plan that always led to this moment. Twice now, he'd died this way and no matter how many dances with death, he'd find himself here again and again until there were no more agains and he was too dead to care about things like happiness and fate.

Jack had moved toward him somehow and at some point, his bound, bony hands had pulled Matt onto his legs and squeezed the shirt on his chest until veins bulged from his skin. He said things Matt couldn't understand, hard, heavy head pressed to his temple. Rocking, rocking, rocking—like it would make pain less and air more. Like rocking would bring breath into his breathless body.

"What'd you do, boy?" he asked, a tremble in his voice. "What'd you get yourself into?"

Fire bloomed somewhere in the basement and traveled along a snaking line of gasoline, but Matt cared only about air. The thin, weak oxygen that left him before he could swallow it down.

"Please," Jack was saying, wet tears against Matt's cheek. "Please. I'll do better. I'll be better. Goddammit, please!"

Matt's chest fell, heavy and hollow. He was drowning in the smoke of fire and the stink of gasoline. Hear that? He thought to himself, bitter blood swelling up in his throat. If you'da lived this time, he would've done better. If you'd lived, he woulda fixed himself.

"Is this it?" asked a voice, rich and warm as coffee. And when Matt looked up, it was to the sight of Olivia Black, seated on the top shelf beside outdated textbooks and old milk crates. "All this way for nothing?"