Burn This! (A 300 Moons Book)(Bad Boy Alphas) (5 page)

J
ohnny Lazarus sat completely alone
, watching the flight of a dark bird across a clear sky. A hawk. Or at least that’s what he thought. He wasn’t much of an expert on birds. When one hawk disappeared, another would take its place, soaring and floating, in an ecstasy of freedom.

After spending first night and half of the morning afterward staring out the floor-to-ceiling glass like a lizard in an aquarium, he had suddenly realized he could go outside, explore a bit. If he could make it through the open lawns and find a private nook or cranny out there someplace he wouldn’t have the issue of interacting with anyone, and he could be quite happy.

He’d stuck his notebook in his pocket and grabbed little Ruby’s case - maybe he’d write, maybe not, but either way he wasn’t leaving her behind.

A brief jog down the long hallways and then out through the cafeteria brought him out on the opposite wing of the sanctuary. Once outside, he’d seen the reflecting pond and benches, and the terraces overlooking the front lawn, and beyond them all, up on a hill, a humble looking shed.

He’d headed down the terrace and up the hill, desperately hoping no one would notice him and follow. Luckily, the afternoon sun was nearly blinding, so hardly anyone was outside.

At last he’d made it to the shed and slipped around behind it.

Oh.

About a hundred yards of emerald grass ended on a cliff face like the one outside windows of his room. Across from that stood another cliff, and beyond that he could see a silvery ribbon which must be a sliver of the ocean still in view even from this distance.

He’d sat down on the ground under the overhang of the shed roof, set little Ruby close beside him, and slowly peeled his banana.

That was when the first bird had dipped into the horizon and mesmerized him.

He’d been out here every day since. As a matter of fact, in the five days since he’d checked in, he’d spent most of his time right here.

There was a distant squeal and then a splash on the other side of the main building as the other patients or guests or inmates or whatever frolicked at the pool. Once in a while Johnny would hear them carrying on.

But here, it was peaceful.

He stared up at the cloudless sky, and watched a lone hawk circle, looking for prey.

Johnny could be up there too, riding the currents, and soaring above the world, peaceful, free.

The hawk dove suddenly, snatching up a smaller bird in mid-flight.

And that was the problem.

No matter how serene its appearance, that hawk couldn’t stop being a hawk. Every beast, big or small, must follow its nature.

And if Johnny ever let the animal part of himself come out again, he wouldn’t just enjoy the flight. His animal would follow its nature as well.

Destruction and chaos.

That was why he couldn’t go home.

If he shared his plan, then Mom and the others would get all touchy-feely about him denying his animal side.

He didn’t blame them. It was easy for them to see the benefits of shifting. When his siblings shifted, they were part of the natural world.

When Johnny did it, he was a storybook monster.

If Derek turned into a bear, people might be a little freaked out, but people knew how to handle a bear. People saw bears all the time. In most of the childhood stories, bears just bumbled around, looking for honey or picnic baskets or some shit.

How would they react if Johnny shifted? How would they feel when he was towering over them, raining down hellfire and death?

Everything he’d ever experienced told him it wouldn’t end well.

He closed his eyes against it, but the memory came up like vomit and he couldn’t escape.

T
he sound
of his mother weeping softly drifted from the crack under her door. He had tapped lightly, and then banged when she didn’t call for him to come in.

At last he opened the door the little sliver it had to open to admit his tiny body. He couldn’t see her up in the big bed, but he pulled himself up and crawled over to her.

She was half under blankets, but she opened her arms and he crawled into the blanket cave with her.

He was distraught that she was sad, but his little body was never happier than when he was enveloped in her embrace. She was so warm and gentle, and she smelled like flower shampoo and a dryer, more bitter scent that he wouldn’t recognize as pot until he was much older.

“Oh, Johnny,” she whispered into his hair.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” he asked. Even at that age, he’d already gotten used to playing the grown-up in their relationship.

“It’s Carlo,” she whispered, and then pressed her lips against the top of his head, like she was trying to stop herself from crying.

“What about Carlo?” he asked.

Mom had brought home one or two other boyfriends that Johnny could remember. But Carlo was special. He brought Johnny presents, like playing cards and matchbox cars. And when Carlo left, Mom would smile a special smile and ask Johnny what he thought of him. Even though she already knew the answer.

“He’s not going to come see us anymore,” she said.

“Wh-why not?” Johnny asked.

“It’s grown-up stuff, honey,” she said. “But you and I will be just fine, we don’t need anyone else.”

Why was it always grown-up stuff when it was something bad? It had been grown-up stuff when they couldn’t have a Christmas tree year before last. And it was grown-up stuff when the cable TV was turned off during that winter break.

Things had gotten better when Carlo was around.

“Why isn’t he coming back?” he asked, more insistently.

“It has nothing to do with you, Johnny. Carlo likes you very much and I know he’ll miss you,” she said in her most reassuring tone. Johnny was no dummy though. How could he be reassured when what she said didn’t make sense?

He felt something move in his chest.

“It
does
have to do with me if I don’t get to see him anymore!
Why won’t he come back?
” Johnny demanded.

The feeling in his chest grew stronger. It was like something was stuck in there, fluttering, trying to come out.

His mom sat up, pulling the covers off them.

“Let’s get a snack and something nice to drink, then we’ll feel better,” she announced, hopping up and heading for the kitchen.

But Johnny wasn’t going to feel better. Sweat dripped from his forehead, his back ached and his stomach cramped horribly. He couldn’t even call to his mother to tell her something was wrong.

When the pain was so terrible he was sure he was going to die, something ripped
through
his back. Though it should have hurt, he felt better instantly. He was still wondering over it as his legs burst out of his body, and his arms disappeared, and his face was punched out long until his nose brushed the dresser on the opposite side of the room and shattered the mirror just after he caught sight of the huge shape reflected in it.

His mother peeked back into the room to see what all the noise was about.

He would never forget the horrified look on her face, or the way she screamed.

Johnny screamed too. But it came out with a hissing sound, followed by plumes of fire and billowing smoke.

Oh no.

Mom’s hair was on fire, and her nightgown.

She threw herself to the ground and rolled herself around, screaming.

When the fire was out, she got to her feet unsteadily.

Her face was covered in blisters and black marks. Johnny could smell her cooked flesh, like hot dogs on the grill. It made him want to throw up, but he was terrified of what might come out if he opened his mouth again.

The walls were burning, and the curtains, and the ceiling…

“Hush, baby,” Mom said to him in a quavering voice. “Don’t be scared. Your daddy said this ran in his family and I didn’t believe him, I’m so sorry, baby. The fire can’t harm you because you’re a dragon. But the whole building’s going up. I need to go and get help so no one gets hurt, but you cannot leave this room until you turn back into a little boy. Do you understand?” she asked him.

He cocked his massive head, unable to speak.

“Okay, when you turn back into a boy come out,” she told him. “If anybody asks, you were playing with matches and that’s how this happened.”

Then she ran. And there was nothing for Johnny to do but watch everything burn. The paint peeled off the walls, the bedding went up in flames, the picture of Mom and Johnny and Carlo by the bed crackled as their faces melted into each other.

Johnny was too scared to look anymore. He curled his snout under his wings and squeezed his eyes shut tight.

He must have fallen asleep or maybe the smoke overwhelmed him. When he woke up he was a boy again, and the paramedics were loading him onto a gurney. A policeman was telling him that he was in trouble, a lot of trouble, because little boys who start fires turn into crazy grown-ups.

When he asked for his mother, they told him she was in the hospital, because of the burns he had caused by playing with matches.

Little Johnny was a bad, bad boy.

A
particularly loud
squeal from the pool brought Johnny back to the present.

Somehow the sky didn’t look as blue as before.

Well, fuck that. Here he was, a star, good looking, wealthy, and the world was at his feet. He was in a safe place and this could be his one chance to get rid of his animal.

All the kids had talked about it. If there were a price to be paid at your 300th Moon, surely the price was to give in to the animal, or to lose it completely, right?

As an adult, Johnny knew that few things were rarely so pat and simple.

But it
felt
right.

The dragon hadn’t pushed at the seams of his consciousness like this since childhood. And presumably since he wasn’t allowing it to come out, the creature was trying to call the shots from inside.

Not cool.

If his brothers and sisters had been right about this 300th moon, then if he kept his head down until the new moon, all his troubles would be over.

He pushed his flannel up over his forearm to study the marks.

Beneath the faded tattoo, the fiery red shapes swirled as if they were coming to the surface. Johnny gazed at them, fascinated and repulsed at the same time.

The last time they had been barely visible.

At least the dragon hadn’t locked down on his mind since that last performance.

But he could feel it. It was pushing to the surface, nosing the sea air and promising him adventure.

That magic had given him control, control he’d needed desperately.

But it was time to pay the price.

If he could resist the call, deny the change for just one more month, as he had done in all the years before, could it all be over? Would it finally lift from him, and leave him free to live the closest approximation of a normal life that Johnny Lazarus could live?

If there was a chance, then he was banking on it.

He didn’t even know how to picture it - living without the shimmering shadow of his other self.

Maybe he would finally stop filling his Johnny Walker Blue bottles with iced tea and pretending to get wasted, just to keep up the appearance of a rock star. Maybe he’d actually be able to relax once in a while and enjoy himself without worrying about what might happen if he let his guard down.

And still part of him wondered…

What would happen when it was gone?

Would he still be himself?

Would he be Johnny Lazarus?

The dragon was what made him so cool, so irresistible - he felt its charisma exuding from his pores.

Would anyone still care about him when he was just Johnny?

What happened when a man tried to amputate his soul?

Oh wow, that was good stuff.

He scrawled a few lines in the notebook.

Whatever else was going on, he’d been writing like crazy the past few days.

He looked over the song he was working on today.

It was uniquely his.

Frankly, it was probably some of the best stuff he’d ever written.

But it was… a bit of a departure.

Usually his songs were really self-affirming. “Upbeat, ass-kicking, instant rock anthems” Rolling Stone had called Somnambulance’s music style.

Of course Rolling Stone had also put the band on their list of the Top 10 “Gym Dandies”. And Johnny figured they were right, his previous creations were probably on half the workout mixes in the country. He definitely knew how to get people fired up.

But this new stuff was different, more introspective.

The lyrics were less straightforward, but the themes were clear: love, loss, regret.

As always, he faithfully wrote what was in his heart, but this time he wasn’t sure if the band would get behind it.

He could always do a solo album. But his fans would probably hate it.

Well, fuck ‘em.

It wasn’t his job to make them like it. It was his job to pull the music and lyrics out of his head and bring them wailing into the world where they could be loved or hated on their own merits.

He cradled little Ruby in his arms and crooned some of the new lines along the melody he’d been fooling with. Yeah, it was almost there.

When the tune and the words embraced each other at last, he forgot to stay quiet, and gave the song his voice.

A tiny concert for no one - just himself and the birds.

And for a little while, nothing else mattered.

N
eve was rushing
off to relax. Just one more nonsensical element of her sensible life.

But truly, it had been a hectic morning and if she could get through the cafeteria and around behind the building before anyone stopped her to talk, she would have twenty full minutes to eat her sushi before reporting back. And she was going to need sustenance.

Tonight she would be leading the group session. Not that they wouldn’t have food there. The place was half group session, half buffet. But she seldom had a chance to eat as everyone wanted to talk.

The sun was bright enough overhead that she had to squint for a moment after exiting the cafeteria. She slipped past the swimming pool without any of the residents noticing her, and continued on out back.

She normally grabbed a picnic table in the blazing afternoon sun where no one else wanted to sit. Sometimes that was enough to ensure her a meal alone, sometimes it wasn’t. But she figured any patient needing her help badly enough to corner her there was deserving of it - lunch break or not.

She had nearly reached the table she’d had in mind, when the music caught her attention. It was simple and sweet, acoustic guitar and vocals.

Someone must have a radio on by the pool.

But no, it was coming from the opposite direction.

She scanned the area behind the sanctuary all the way to the palms that surrounded the reflecting pool.

Nothing.

Oh, boy.

Neve headed for the source of the music.

If there was one danger in rehab, it was solitude, especially somewhere you weren’t supposed to be.

She took no joy in it, but if someone was screwing up their treatment plan, she had to put a stop to it and help get them back on the right path. Ideally before anyone else discovered them and joined in or got judgmental.

The paper bag with her sushi in it slapped sadly against her thigh as her legs automatically adopted their purposeful nurse’s stride.

But as she got closer, the music became clearer.

The dutiful rhythm of her feet subtly adjusted to something more mellow before she understood why.

She couldn’t hear the words yet, and the melody wasn’t anything she’d heard before. But it was somehow familiar anyway, like an old friend.

A strum, a shower of notes, the thump of a thumb against the pick guard, and then another strum.

Neve had danced in college. And she was good, good at Modern and Jazz at least, and she loved ballet though her body curved where her instructor most wanted it straight.

There was a time when she’d thought she couldn’t live without dancing, where she would have equated it with water or breath.

One more thing that went by the wayside as real life got in the way.

But now, for the first time in forever, she felt the music tug at her body, like a puppy on a leash.

The feeling was incredible. She had automatically drawn herself up into a dancer’s posture and it was like a weight had been lifted. Her whole body seemed to be suspended from her solar plexus, her limbs weightless, awaiting her command.

The music continued, soft and harsh at once, the bang of the thumb against the hollow body of the guitar setting the rhythm of her pace, as sure as a puppeteer tugs at the strings of a marionette.

Her body craved the stretch and release of dance. She could feel the shapes it wanted to make as if she were obeying it already: swooping, turning, leaping. Holding it together to walk instead of dancing now was like trying not to yawn. How long had it been since she’d felt this way?

W
hat can fill
the void once you amputate your soul?

T
he lyrics floated
to her at last and she felt the tears prickle her eyelids.

It was as if the words had been written just for her.

By the time she rounded the corner of the maintenance shed, tears were streaming freely down her cheeks.

What was the source of all this beauty?

When she caught sight of Johnny Lazarus curled around a hollow-bodied electric guitar she was so surprised she cried out.

The music stopped as he turned to her.

His amber eyes met hers and for a moment time stood still.

Neve felt as if she were looking into his soul. All his pain and joy were bared to her and she could see the man beneath. He was not what she thought. And he was in trouble.

Then his walls came up.

She could see it happen, as surely as she felt it happen in herself.

“That was beautiful,” she told him honestly.

“It’s not finished yet,” he shrugged.

“I can’t wait to see how it turns out,” she said.

“Me neither,” he replied.

There was an awkward silence. What else could she say? Neve wiped the tears from her cheeks in a quick gesture.

“Want some lunch?” she offered, holding out the white paper bag.

He moved over in answer, making more room in the shade of the shed’s roof overhang.

She seated herself before she could think about whether or not it was appropriate to be hiding away out here with a patient.

She opened up the bag and pulled out the container of sushi.

“Nice,” he said.

She looked up and saw he meant it.

“I haven’t seen you at any of the sessions or activities,” she said lightly, as she opened a packet of soy sauce and poured it into the overturned lid of the sushi container.

“Probably because I haven’t been at any,” Johnny replied with his mouth full.

“Your story checks out,” she said lightly. “You know, I need to report on your progress. If you don’t make an effort, I won’t have much to report.”

“It’s just… not really my scene,” he said.

That was typical. Neve had a piece of sushi and studied the palm leaves floating in the slight breeze, as if she were working over what he had said.

“Tell you what. If you come to the group session I’m running tonight, I’ll forget that I ever found your little hiding spot,” she offered, taking a last bite of sushi.

She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he considered.

“Deal,” he said at last. His eyes were fixed on the horizon, where Neve could see the distant sparkle of the ocean.

She wanted to stay. She wanted to ask him to play it again, the song that brought back her spark. She wanted him to show her his soul again.

The nurse in Neve would never be satisfied knowing someone was in pain without fixing the hurt. But if she were honest with herself, she would know it wasn’t the nurse in her that was curious.

It was the woman.

No. He was a patient. And Neve was a professional.

And it was already too much that he’d seen her crying.

“I’m glad we have a deal, then. I’ll see you tonight,” she said, hopping up and dusting herself off.

He smiled up at her, his amber eyes flashing, and she felt her own mouth turn up immediately in response.

She turned and began to walk back down the hill toward the sanctuary.

“Hey,” he called to her.

She stopped and turned. He was silhouetted against the bright sunlight now, so she couldn’t see his expression.

“Why do you care so much?” he asked.

“Pardon?”

“I mean, you guys already have my money. Why do you care so much if I don’t play along?” he asked.

“You think it’s all about money?” she asked.

“For most people, yeah,” he replied.

“Is that why you’re writing that song?” she asked before she could think better of it. “For the money?”

He turned his face away, and even with the light behind him she could tell she had stung him. She’d probably overstepped her bounds.

Quickly as she could, she turned again and marched away, before he had a chance to answer.

And before she had time to think about the real answer to his question.

Why
did
she care so much about him?