Fury and Flame | 3

8 | 7

A R L O

      Finn's room was not decorated with many of his belongings, but that was only because growing up in the foster care system, he'd learned to live off the necessities. Nevertheless, I hadn't been able to leave it for some time now.

      It was the only physical thing I had of him. This place was where he lived, the window was the same one he stared through. I sat on his bed, knowing it was where he laid his head to sleep every night. Here, it was almost like he was with me again.

      His scent—gunpowder and fresh ash—hung in the room. I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting him to be standing there. It was driving me further to insanity.

      But the bed was cold. His dresser had a fine layer of dust on top. The plant on his desk was beginning to wilt a bit. The only sign of life within the room was me, and I'd never exactly been the picture of health.

      I stared at the single picture he had of himself on his dresser. He was younger then, maybe by a year or two, but his bright smile was unmistakable. A pair of grinning dark-haired women stood at his side, both dwarfed by his height. I knew they were his last foster mothers in a long line of them. He had always been tight-lipped about his time in the foster system, but I knew they were the closest to him after the much less welcoming previous homes.

      I knew him well enough to be sure why he kept this picture in particular. It was during his high school graduation, the most normal thing in his life. And his foster mothers were beside him, proud of his accomplishment in a way I doubted the other families were. It was also the last obstacle standing in his way to becoming a soldier under Hunt.

There was a moment where I debated throwing the picture onto the ground just to hear something break. I had half a mind to destroy this entire room so I wouldn't have to be faced with the reminders of him ever again.

      The longer I stayed in here, the more I missed him. But if I left, I would feel like he was completely gone. I wanted both and neither at the same time. And I couldn't take it anymore.

       Before I could even think, I grabbed a glass jar of pens on his desk and hurled it at the wall, hating knowing his hands had once touched it where I did now. The shatter of it was satisfying, but I was disappointed to see it hadn't even left a lasting mark. Pens rolled all over the floor.

I hated everything. I hated how we would never laugh together again, how he wouldn't be here to save me from my own recklessness, how I wouldn't get to say some stupid shitty thing and see him roll his eyes but secretly like it.

Most of all, I hated the burning anger coursing through my veins. It wasn't what he wanted for me, I knew it. But the fury was better than the agony of facing his death.

      I turned back to the desk, looking for something else to senselessly destroy, but my eyes fell on a brown leather book I had failed to notice before. It wasn't with the rest of his books stacked neatly in the shelves in his desk and I wondered why.

      Upon opening it up, I saw that it was a journal. Something inside me shattered further at the realization that I would get to hear his thoughts even when he was gone.

      I flipped to the first page filled with writing and began to read.

This is the first day of being in the compound. For now, I am here by myself. Mr. Hunt gave me this journal after I he realized how much anger and emotional baggage I've gathered from all the homes that wouldn't take me in for more than a few months at best.