Scars and Songs (Mad World)

by Christine Zolendz

  “Oh no, Shane, I’m betting on you being filthy,” she laughed.

  Our bodies moved closer, until our lips hovered over each other’s and I could smell the soap she used on her skin. She hooked her fingers through the loops in my jeans and pulled me closer.

  “Woowhoo! I smell pancakes in here!” Lea screamed from the front door. Then lots of voices seemed to come from the direction of the front door.

  “No. No, no, no. Those sounds are just our imagination,” I said as I watched the most beautiful girl in the world walk away from kissing me.

  So, yeah. Five batches of pancake batter later, everyone was eating pancakes. Thankfully there was only minimal food fighting. Only one pancake was called in to combat on Alex’s face when he came in and asked me for eggs and bacon too and to hurry it up. Jackhat.

  A short time after, Grace walked in, joined us in the living room, and then she sat right next to me. I reached out to her and rubbed my hands over the small of her back. Her skin was so soft it melted under my touch. I almost dropped dead right in front of everybody when she ran her hand through my hair.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I’m just tired. I think I’m going to call it a night.” She smiled at me. “Goodbye, Shane.”

  I watched her walk away, thinking I’d give her a little time and then I’d crawl into bed with her later, when everyone left. No one needed to see me follow her to her bedroom and start wondering about us. After all, they were already looking at us weird.

  It was really late when everyone left. Lea had gone to bed already, and Conner and I ended up falling asleep on the couch in the living room, trying to watch the end of a Walking Dead episode.

  A little while later, I woke with a start and my body hummed with energy. Conner was sprawled out on the couch next to me snoring. Loudly. But that wasn’t what woke me up. Something was wrong. Something was wrong with Grace.

  That’s when I smelled the smoke; smoke that was billowing dark and thick from down the hallway. I shook Conner awake and we both ran to the girl’s rooms. Lea’s room was filled with smoke, but Grace’s room…Grace’s room was filled with fire that licked its orangey flames from under her door. I ran to the hall closet, yanked a towel off the shelf, ran to the sink in the bathroom, and soaked it under water.

  Crouching low to the ground, I made my way back to Grace’s bedroom door, while Conner took Lea out the front to call for help.

  “Grace!” I screamed. I screamed her name until my lungs burned with the heat from the fire. With the towel wrapped around my hand, I turned the knob and flames exploded along the ceiling and into the hallway and a blast of heat scorched my skin. Jumping right through it, I didn’t care. I needed to get to Grace.

  Bright hot flames engulfed her room. Grace lay still on her bed; I could barely see her through the dark, thick smoke. I slid into her bed covering her body with mine to shield her. “Grace,” I begged. “Grace, please wake up!” I shook her, but she lay limp in my arms.

  Flames spread and raced across the ceiling and floor, circling us. In a perfect fucking circle? What the fuck? How the hell are flames traveling in a perfect fucking CIRCLE? I could hear Lea screaming from somewhere, but within seconds, her cries were suffocated by the hissing and crackling of the flames. I cradled Grace in my arms. There was no time even to think straight. How the fuck am I getting her out of here?

  The air was getting too thick and the flames were closing around us, beginning to burn the sheets of her bed. “Grace, baby, please, please wake up. Grace, please don’t leave me, please. I love you.”

  Sirens pierced through the rumble of the burning flames.

  I carried her listless body through the heat and flames. Tears fell down my cheeks that evaporated within seconds from the scorching temperature. I could still feel her pulse thudding strongly under her skin, but the thought of losing her as I lost Selah was crushing. I kicked my steel toe boots through her bedroom window until I felt the glass shatter and fall around me.

  The cold air filled my lungs painfully as I slid Grace and me down the fire escape ladder and coughed out a scream for Conner and Lea to open the front gate. Firefighters immediately surrounded us and Grace was ripped from my arms. I stumbled to the curb, threw up fucking tequila-flavored pancakes, and wept like a child.

  I didn’t move until Conner placed his hands on my shoulders and squeezed, “She’s gonna be okay, bro, she’s breathing. They’re going take her to the hospital and look her over, but it just looks like smoke inhalation.” He knelt down behind me and knocked the front of his head to the back of mine, still holding onto my shoulders tight. “Shane, if you hadn’t woke up. Grace and Lea…” He inhaled deeply and coughed out a choked cry, “Thank you, Shane, I couldn’t live without Lea in my life. I just couldn’t. I wouldn’t want to.”

  Conner helped me up and gave me one of his big man hugs. With his arm still over my shoulder, he helped me over to Grace who had an oxygen mask over her beautiful ash covered blackened face.

  I turned to one of the EMTs who started cleaning her face off with some sort of wipes, “Any burns?”

  “No sir,” she smiled. “This is a very lucky girl.”

  When the fire was extinguished, I walked over to the fire chief to see what he had to say. Definitely arson. It was a simple glance at the burn patterns and the smell of gasoline, thick black smoke, oh, and let’s not overlook the fucking melted gas container someone left by the foot of her bed.

  Carl fucking Sumpton.

  How do you want to die, Carl? Because I’m going to make sure that happens. Slowly.

  I watched from a distance as Grace sat up with the help of Lea. Why would this guy want to kill Grace? I stayed in the distance watching over her and wracked my brain for what I needed to do to keep her safe. Ethan and the rest of the guys were running down the street to her. Tucker, of course, reached her first and grabbed her into his arms like a rag doll until the paramedics separated him from her and rolled her gurney into the ambulance.

  The ambulance pulled away taking Grace to the hospital, while Conner and I spoke to the fire chief and police about Carl Sumpton and the events of the night. Even the two detectives that came to Grace’s house to tell us about the dick escaping showed up. I eyed them as if I was going to stab them both in the eyes with my bare fingers. This shit wouldn’t be happening if they could hold a damn prisoner, one who supposedly has only a few weeks to live. Nothing made sense.

  I talked the fire chief into escorting me back into the apartment to get Grace and my guitars that we left in living room. The apartment stunk, but the damage was really contained to only Grace’s room, and I wondered how someone could look at Grace and not want her around. It seemed impossible to me.

  Tucker, Ethan, even Brayden and Alex were out in front of the apartment with the firefighters and police discussing the situation when I came out of the apartment with our instruments.

  “Look at the fucking hero, even saving her guitar!” Tucker sneered.

  “Shut up, douche.”

  Everyone fell silent as I approached them on the sidewalk. “You know there’s no way she’d want to keep her guitar here.” I looked at Ethan and Conner. “She and Lea are going to be staying with us. This is too messed up. I’m not letting her out of my sight from now on,” I said flatly.

  Ethan and Conner both silently nodded their heads. There was nothing else to say.

  Tucker coughed, “I was thinking that maybe I should take her to my winter house. Get her out of the city for a while; no one will know where to find her.”

  Laughter bubbled out of my mouth, “Why, you think she would want to be alone with you? Is that your plan? Someone is trying to kill her and you’re busy still trying to get in her pants. I should staple a fucking diaper on your face because you are such a shithead sometimes. She’s staying with Conner, Ethan and me. Period.” I was practically foaming at the mouth with anger.

  Conner placed his hand on my shoulder. “Shane, I agree with you t
hat the girls are with us tonight. But we need to get them out of the city until this shit is over.” He looked Tucker straight in the face and folded his arms across his chest. “We all go, Tuck.”

  Tucker offered to pick up Lea and Grace at the hospital, while Conner and I explained the entire Carl Sumpton situation with the authorities more. Ethan left to start packing a bag to go to Tucker’s place and I think Alex and Brayden both had chicks they were trying to get back to.

  I hated the fact that Tucker would be picking her up. That was something that I should be doing, but protecting her and making some sort plan for keeping her safe was my job too. Besides, he was the only one besides Grace that had a car. Jaguar driving doucheball.

  While the cops and the fire department were wrapping everything up, Ethan texted me that Grace got back to the apartment.

  Ethan: Tucker had girls in his place

  Shane: Don’t want Grace there

  Ethan: Duh, got them with me now

  Ethan: Ass was trying 2 give her champagne

  Shane: Leaving now

  When I got home, Grace was taking a shower. The sound of the running water behind the bathroom door was hypnotizing. Small swirls of mist floated up from under the door and the smell of soap filled my senses. Walking into my bedroom, I searched through my drawers to find something Grace would be comfortable wearing until I could get her some clothes. One of my small tee shirts and a pair of new boxers was all I could come up with.

  Passing by the bathroom door to go into the living room to tell Lea to give the clothes to Grace, I heard her soft, sultry voice singing the song I had written for her and it made me breathless. I never made it into the living room.

  I knocked softly and opened the bathroom door.

  “That better be Lea,” she sniffed.

  I gave her a low, raspy chuckle, “No, sorry. Just me. But, if you want me to get Lea to come into the shower, that’s a really entertaining thought.”

  “Shane, get out of here!” she squealed.

  “Relax, Grace, I’m not going to jump in with you. I just came in to give you some of my clothes to wear. Unless you want to traipse through the apartment with just a towel on in search of clothes, because that’s just...Hey, you know, you are absolutely right, that’s a much better idea than me giving you something to wear...I mean, I clearly remember the first time I saw that at your place. That image is definitely burned into my brain. I wonder if it would have the same effect on everyone else here.” Just the thought gave me an instant hard-on.

  “Okay!” she yelped, poking her soapy head out through the shower curtain. “Thank you! Please just leave the clothes and go!” Damn, her lathered up like that was more fuel for my fantasies.

  I leaned back against the sink, folded my arms across my chest, and stared into her eyes. Stop thinking about her naked behind that curtain, you perv, she was just in a fire. “Are you okay, Gray?” Damn, I called her Gray, Lea’s nickname for her, think she’ll be pissed off? Do. Not. Move. The. Curtain. Away. Stand down, man!

  She stuck her face back in the shower, rinsed, and turned off the water. Then held out her hand from the other side of the curtain, “May I have the towel, please?”

  I probably hesitated a little, but I did give her the towel. I wasn’t a total jerk. Well, maybe I was, because I still waited there, and I wasn’t leaving until I saw her.

  My heart slammed against my rib cage when she slid the curtain aside and I could just see her bare shoulders. Stunning.

  “You’re still in here,” she whispered. Her eyes were wide and frightened.

  “Yeah. I’m having trouble moving,” I murmured.

  I heard a small gasp. Sliding the shower curtain all the way to the side and stepping out, she whispered, “Did you get hurt before?”

  Oh my God.

  She was wet.

  In a towel. Wrapped only in a towel.

  Wet.

  “No,” I murmured. I took the shirt I had brought for her and gently pulled it over her damp hair. She slowly lifted one arm at a time into the sleeves, strategically keeping the towel wrapped around her body. When the shirt fell to her knees, covering her fully, she let the towel drop to the floor. “Well, that’s something I’ve never done before,” I sighed.

  “I guess you do mostly the undressing of women, huh?” she teased. A tired smile peeked out from her lips, but the look of sheer exhaustion lay heavily across her beautiful features.

  I reached out my hands toward her face.

  Her eyes were bloodshot from crying and the skin beneath them was pink and puffy. My entire being craved to take her pain, to take it all for myself, but I didn’t have that power anymore. I wanted to punch myself in the face for all the times this week I had to remind myself of that.

  I laid the palms of my hands lightly against her cheeks and with my thumbs, I gently wiped the moist skin below her eyes, wiping away the tears. “You were crying,” I murmured. I trailed my fingers softly along her skin.

  “Well, I was just in a fire that Tucker says someone purposefully set, so yeah, I’ve been crying.”

  My hands stilled on her face, “Tucker said that, huh? That ass couldn’t just give you one night of rest?” I glared at her, “I swear, Grace, I will not let anything happen to you here, and tomorrow we’ll all go up to Tucker’s place and get away from Carl Sumpton and his sick twisted games. No one will know where we are.”

  Grace opened her mouth to say something, but stopped the words before they could reach my ears. Why did she always hold back with me?

  Sliding my hands slowly down her arms and around her back, I pulled her in and held her in my arms. Dear God, she shivered under my touch. The shivers became tremors when her hands slid up the length of my arms and gripped my shoulders. The material of the shirt she wore rode up her back as she lifted her arms, and the knowledge of her not wearing any underwear made me freaking dizzy. Hating myself for what I was about not to let happen, I leaned back and grabbed the boxer shorts I brought for her to wear and shoved them in her hands. “Here, I can’t stand here with you like this, so wear a pair of my boxers, please.” YES, I am an ass. My dick was screaming profanities at me from behind the zipper of my jeans, and then blatantly asked me if I might be gay and just didn’t tell him yet.

  Without taking her light grey eyes off me, she slowly slid the boxers up her long legs. My jaw clenched tighter, I wanted desperately to rip them right back off her.

  We just stood there, face-to-face, eye-to-eye knowing something could be about to happen. Her eyes clouded over, her lips parted and her tongue slowly ran across her bottom lip, tasting what I wanted to taste. She was just in a fire. She was just in a fire. She doesn’t need you poking her with anything right now. She’s exhausted, she’s been through a horrible night, and she probably isn’t in the mood even for a kiss. I’m going to try to kiss her anyway, aren’t I? I’ll ask her if she wants to…

  “I’m really tired, Shane. In fact, right now, I kind of feel like I’m going to pass out.” She leaned her hand on the sink heavily as if she was having trouble standing upright.

  And there’s my answer.

  I scooped her up and cradled her in my arms. Her eyelids fluttered closed. She wrapped her arms around my neck and dropped her head heavily on my shoulder.

  With her held tight to my chest, I opened the bathroom door and watched as the cold air from the hallway sent goose bumps up her arms; I hugged her even tighter. I never wanted to let her go.

  Ethan was walking down the hallway towards us with a concerned expression across his face.

  “She just conked out in my arms,” I explained.

  “Yeah, Lea just passed out on Conner in the living room. He had to carry her to bed. Where are you going to put her to sleep?” Yeah, like he didn’t know the answer I was going to give him. Grace isn’t a girl that deserves being put in the Bone Room. I don’t want her ever to see the inside of it.

  I was moving through the hallway with her, heading right towards my bed
room. “Open the door to my room,” I said.

  “Shane, that’s not the best idea. She’s going to wake up pissed at you.”

  “I’ll sleep in another room. I’m not putting her in the Bone Room, Ethan.”

  She opened her eyes as Ethan flicked the light on in my room and she lifted her head off my shoulder. Scanning the room with her eyes, she smiled.

  “Hey, Grace, can I get you anything?” Ethan asked her.

  “No, Ethan, thank you. I’m just wiped out. I don’t care where I sleep, I just need to sleep.” She was still looking around and then her eyes widened when they registered what lay in the corner up against the wall. She turned her face into mine, our lips not even two inches apart, “You saved my guitar?”

  Pulling back the covers of my bed, I delicately laid her down and sat beside her, giving her a slight nod and a smile. She closed her eyes and nestled her head into my pillow. Damn that was beautiful; her head on my pillow. “Get some sleep, Grace. We’ll be right outside if you need anything,” I whispered.

  Before I could stand up, she reached her arm out and tugged me toward her. “Don’t leave, Shane,” she whispered.

  Those three words where like a drug, pure and electric, coursing wildly through my veins. There was nothing in this world that I wanted more than to spend another night with her wrapped around me.

  I squeezed her hand softly and moved off the bed. Ethan gave me a goofy smile and slipped out of the room. I walked to my dresser to change. I threw my clothes into my hamper and threw on a pair of pajama bottoms and nothing else. I wasn’t putting a shirt on. I wanted to feel her skin against mine when I held her all night, because that’s what I was going to do. I was going to hold her all fucking night. I might never let her go.

  I switched off the light and crawled under the covers right beside her. I ran a single finger along her arm from her shoulder to her elbow. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yes, I just didn’t want to be alone. I’m sorry,” she whispered.