Poison Tongue (12 page)

In the distance the light caught my eye. I paused my jogging for a moment to stare.

Against a dark navy backdrop, bright orange flames reached for the sky. My dreams were creeping into my reality, sending an uneasy feeling directly to my gut. But when I closed my eyes, breathed deeply, and looked out into the distance again, the flames remained.

It wasn’t a dream. There was a wild fire burning red and incessant against a night sky. It was wicked and wrong against the simple, clean backdrop of the darkness of night. It drew all attention to it as it grew higher and higher.

My feet sprinted back into action before my brain did. Ward’s heavy footsteps followed close behind me. Coin’s fur glimmered more and more the closer we drew to the brightness of the flames.

My heart sped. My lungs heaved. The Poirier house was on fire. And Coin wouldn’t have come to us unless Monroe was inside.

Some selfish, dark part of myself screamed,
Yes!
Let the wicked house and its demon burn
.

The coldness of that thought would’ve stopped me dead in my tracks if I hadn’t already known there was a dark part of me—like there was in everyone. I recognized my desire for what it was: a quick fix to a problem I couldn’t explain. I couldn’t understand my immediate loathing of the Poirier house or Monroe, as much as I couldn’t understand my desire to fill my lungs with swamp water.

But in my heart—and my soul—I knew that the world wouldn’t be a better place without Monroe Poirier in it. Without Monroe, a few of the darkest shadows I’d seen wouldn’t allow the light to look so luminescent. And without Monroe in the world, I might never get to see what the flicker of gold in his soul truly looked like.

We stopped a few yards from the house. A knot in my stomach released itself. The house wasn’t on fire. It had been difficult to see from a distance, since the night shadowed the house in a cloak of twilight. But now I saw the fire was secluded, at least temporarily. The garage, a few feet from the Poirier house, lit up the sky, flames engulfing the wooden exterior, smoke pouring and spouting from its open windows. The fire crackled and clawed its way through the small garage, bringing down planks of wood as it did.

The flames were hypnotizing, much like the ones in my dreams had been. I stood there, slack-jawed, staring at them, watching them consume, wondering if the impossibly black snake from my dreams would slither out from their pits and make its way to me.

Coin howled. I snapped my gaze toward where he stood on the front porch, pawing at the door.

The garage was fully lit up in flames, and while the house seemed to be okay at the moment, I knew the fire could—and would—spread to it.

I ran up the porch stairs and began pounding against the front door. “Monroe!” Coin barked along with me.

I called his name over and over, but still the door remained closed, locked tightly. There were no lights on in any of the windows, and if I hadn’t known better, I’d have guessed that the house was empty. But the way Coin was howling and scratching at the door reassured me that Monroe was inside.

“Step aside,” Ward said.

I moved to the side, adrenaline forcing me to shake. Ward first tried the handle, stepping into the door, putting his weight into it. Nothing. It didn’t budge even an inch. He took a step back, aimed his shoulder toward the door, and threw his massive frame toward it.

The door crashed open. The lock on the door broke straight through the frame, splinters of wood fraying and falling to the ground. It slammed against the back of the wall as Ward barged inside. But the moment he stepped into the house, as if a huge gust of wind shoved him, he stepped backward until he was back outside.

“I cannot go inside that house,” Ward stared into the dark hallway, unblinking, as though something was about to barrel down the hall at him.

Coin shot in through the door first and I chased after him.

The inside was almost impossibly dark, as though the house itself had begun to suck all the light out from the universe. Unlike the previous times I’d been there, the air was freezing cold. Cloud puffs of my frozen breath swirled in front of my eyes. I reached my hand out and placed my palm flat against a wall. A thick layer of ice coated the wood, small crystals melting under my warm hand.

From the next room over, Coin began barking. I rushed down the hallway and into the living room. Coin sat next to the sofa, his muzzle pressing up against Monroe’s hand that hung over the edge. Monroe lay on his back across the couch, unmoving. This time I wasn’t surprised by the dark snake coiled around his jeans-covered leg, or the way the serpent’s yellow eyes seemed to find me in the darkness.

“Monroe!” I rushed toward him. I put my hands on his shoulders and shook him, trying to wake him. “Wake up!”

His eyelids flicked. His chest heaved heavily. But he did not wake.

“Monroe!” My voice cracked. I shoved his chest, hard.

Monroe’s eye shot open. They were stark white and clear, the color of ice.

The next thing I knew, I was on my back, on the floor, the air knocked out of my lungs. Monroe sat on top of me, his thick thighs pressed against the outside of my hips. His clear eyes were open, unfocused, not seeing me right beneath him.

I tried to say his name, but it was only then I realized his hands were around my throat, squeezing. The pain momentarily blinded me. White flashed behind my eyelids. I reached up to stop him, but my hands were useless against his arms. They were vise grips around my neck, his arms as hard as cement.

I thrashed my arms, my legs, anything I could move. It was pointless. I was a ragdoll beneath him.

My eyes began to close. His hands felt like the deep, cold waters of the swamp. They were the liquid filling my lungs, stealing my air, forcing me under, deeper and deeper….

I loved them. I loved his hands and those black waters and the feeling of drowning as fiercely and easily as young lovers loved. Everything was simple. Everything was clear. I would drown in these waters and live forever here in the darkness. And we could love each other, this darkness and I, because it was what we were fated to do.

“Fuck!”

The voice sounded familiar, but it was from the other side of the solar system.

But as easily as it had wrapped itself around me, the darkness pulled away. My eyes shot open. The gentle light stung my eyes, making tears stream from the covers. I began coughing. The pain in my throat was excruciating. I shut my eyes once again, warding off the light, but water continued to pour from the corners, down my cheeks.

“
Christ
, Levi,” a voice said. And then cool hands touched my face, wiping away my tears. They moved to my forehead, gently, and then again down the side of my neck.

I tried to brush the hands away, but my body—somehow—had been drained of all its strength. The coughing wouldn’t stop. I tried to suck in huge breaths, but the air stung my throat, causing another round of coughing to begin.

“Fuck, Levi, I’m so sorry,” someone said. I knew that voice. And when I pried my eyes back open and looked at the person hovering above me, I remembered where I was.

Monroe knelt next to me. His brows knitted together, his expression grim.

“Fire,” I said. It came out half whisper, half croak.

Monroe leaned down closer, his hard chest pressing against my own, his hands placed on my shoulders, gently squeezing. The skin of his jaw brushed my bottom lip as he put his ear up to my mouth. He smelled like smoke and warm, country air laced together.

“Fire,” I said. Monroe pulled back, his eyes hard on my face.

“There’s a fire?” he asked.

I nodded, wrapping my fingers around my throat.

He jumped up immediately, grabbed both of my forearms, and yanked me up. He crouched slightly to toss me over his shoulder, but I took a step back, my arm out, and shook my head.

“For fuck’s sake,” he snapped. “I almost killed you. At least let me help you out of here.”

Too dazed to protest, I allowed Monroe to sling his arm around my shoulders and help me walk. Together we made our way down the hallway, Coin whining anxiously at our heels.

The moment we stepped through the front door into the night, a hand wrapped around my arm and pulled me away from Monroe. I fell against Ward’s side. And then Ward’s hands were on my shoulders, his gaze first on my eyes, falling to my throat.

Ward said nothing, just stared at Monroe.

Monroe stared at me. “I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you, Levi.”

“It was an accident,” I wheezed. My voice was thrashed, the words coming out harsh.

Monroe’s gaze finally snapped up and latched onto his garage. He stormed down the porch steps, taking them two at a time, and walked up to the front of the garage, barely keeping a safe distance. He stared at the burning, crumbling wood as he laced his fingers through his hair.

“One of the neighbors saw the fire,” Ward told me. “She came outside, and I listened to her call the sheriff’s station. The fire marshal and volunteers should be here soon.” As if on cue, our town’s one fire truck turned and started toward us. In a matter of minutes, the volunteer fire crew, all local men, poured out and raced toward the burning garage. Monroe remained unmoving, staring into the spinning flames that were eating their way through the building.

The volunteer fire marshal slowly walked over to Monroe, patted him once on the back, and said something to him I was too far away to hear. He barely blinked, just stared at the fire.

The building was a lost cause. Most of the men focused on dousing the flames nearest the house, as to not allow it to spread. Some of the others stood there and watched it go down in flames. Townsfolk had left their houses, even during this time of night, to come watch the fire that temporarily took over the sky.

No one else said anything to Monroe, but I figured there wasn’t much to say to a man who was losing his livelihood in one hot swoop. Everyone in town knew he’d moved back with all the intention of using his garage as a small mechanic’s shop to work on cars. I hoped, for his sake, he hadn’t kept all of his tools in the garage. There hadn’t been any explosion, so I figured there at least weren’t any canisters of gasoline lying around inside.

People began talking, whispering, staring. If I hadn’t been looking at Monroe so intently, I wouldn’t have noticed the way his jaw locked or his fists clenched. I probably also wouldn’t have noticed how natural he looked with the lights of the flames casting rays on his sooty hair, or how it drew warm, beautiful colors on his handsome face.

I went to him. It felt like all I knew how to do. I didn’t know if I wanted to comfort him or yell at him for strangling me.

In the end I stood next to him. We were almost close enough that our arms touched. My closeness seemed to ease him in some way. His shoulders slumped, and he unclenched his fists.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

I looked at him sideways. “Me too.”

“You weren’t the one who lit my garage on fire.”

“Maybe I was.”

He looked at me then, his expression wary. “And why would you light my garage on fire?”

“To get your attention,” I joked.

His gaze lingered on my face a moment before returning to the flames. “You wouldn’t need to start a fire to get my attention, Levi.”

I stared at him, eager for a chance to play this game with him and try to ease his mind. “What would you do if I had lit your garage on fire?”

Monroe leaned in to me. His lips brushed my ear. His warm breath petted my skin. He whispered, “Then I’d have to light you on fire too.”

How badly I wanted him to. I yearned for him to swallow me whole, to whisper unclean words into my ear and bend me over the wooden railing on his porch. I wanted him to pull my hair and lick my spine and tell me all the worst things he’d ever done.

“Levi,” a voice said.

Monroe and I both turned.

My mama stood a few feet away from us, my little sister by her side. They wore matching long dark jackets and uneasy expressions on their faces. My mama’s eyes were unfocused, but pointed directly toward me. She gripped Silvi’s tiny hand.

“Are you all right, Levi?” Her voice wavered. She looked as though she might faint or turn on her heel and begin running any second.

“I’m fine, Mama,” I took a step toward them. “What are you two doing out here?”

“I was frightened for you.”

“We made it out fine.” I hoped her fuzzy vision wouldn’t allow her to see the color of the bruises I felt blooming on my neck.

“Ma’am,” Monroe said. He put out his hand in front of him. “My name’s Monroe.” Monroe did little to hide his shocked expression when my mother instantly reached out, took his hand in her own, and shook it. “I know who you are, Monroe Poirier.”

“I don’t think there are many people in this town who don’t know who I am.”

“Got quite a reputation for yourself, young man. Especially after what happened at Whiskey’s. People claim they saw a demon fly out of you that night,” she said.

“With all due respect, ma’am,” Monroe said, “I think those men had it coming.”

She leveled him with a look. After a moment she said, “Alta. Call me Alta.”

Monroe’s lips pulled up slightly in the corners. “I’ll do that.”

“So,” she said. “Do you know what happened to your garage?”

“No damn idea. I was sound asleep inside my house. Didn’t hear or see a thing. If it hadn’t been for Levi waking me up…” He shook his head.

“You’re able to go inside the house, Levi?” my mama asked me, obviously surprised. “That old house used to make you sick to your stomach. Even walking near it upset you.”

“It feels different now that Monroe lives there,” I admitted.

She looked between Monroe and me. I felt my face warm.

“Do you think someone started the fire?” she asked eventually.

“Maybe. But somehow I doubt the sheriff’s department is going to spend any time looking into it. It ain’t exactly like anyone wants me in Malcome.”

“It might not have been a person who started the fire,” I said. “I dreamed of the flames. Usually when I dream of things, they’re not… real.”