SWNOVELS Chapter Wrath of an Exile: Prologue
Phi
November
Four Years Ago…
Fire feels no fear.
Only a primal hunger that knows nothing but consumption. It crackles and roars, a living entity with no hesitation or doubt. It scorches the earth with no remorse, an intangible beast that doesn’t submit.
It knows only destruction, and it has never once known fear.
“Are you okay?”
I blink, eyes burning from the heat rolling from the blistering church just a few feet away. Another glass window shatters from the pressure of the flames, the burning orange threads weaving in and out of the historic structure.
“I’m—” I clear my throat, meeting eyes with the officer in front of me. “I’m fine.”
A truck whines in the distance, rushing toward us. Firefighters eager to destroy all of my hard work with pressurized water. I mean, I guess it doesn’t matter if they put the fire out now. I don’t care if St. Gabriel’s church crumbles to ashes or stays standing. It wasn’t the building I wanted to roast, anyway.
“Do you want me to call the judge?”
“No.”
No, because he’ll know what I did.
No, because he’ll ask me why.
No, because I’m not ready to lie to him yet.
This cop looks young enough that all he’s heard are rumors about my father. He’s probably shitting his pants standing in front of me. I can guarantee the last thing he wants is to call my father.
“No,” I say again, softer this time. “I’ll tell him when I get home.”
“It was a good thing you were riding by. A few minutes later and—”
“Fuck you, pig! Fuck you!”
I flinch at the voice, against my will. My hand twitches, fingers finding the hem of my shirt and knotting it up in a fist. I fight the urge to vomit, forcing my sickness deep inside my stomach.
I wonder if there will be a time when I can exist in the same world as him and not feel this way. Like the ground is being ripped out beneath me and I’m simply free-falling into nothingness.
Oakley Wixx is thrashing against an officer’s hold. The cuffs forcing his hands behind his back rattle in the wind. A harrowing thud echoes around us as Oakley’s face meets metal.
The metallic taste of blood fills my mouth. I’ve sunk my teeth too far into my cheek, but I don’t care. As I watch Oakley get slammed into the hood of a cop car not once but twice, all I can feel is rage.
I hope it fucking hurts. I want to scream out loud for the officer to do it again, and again and again, until Oakley Wixx is nothing but a pile of bloody, crushed bone.
“I didn’t do shit!” he screams, red face pressed against the car.
“Are you sure I can’t call someone for you?”
I swallow, palms sweating as I flick my gaze back to the cop—Officer Fields, according to his name tag.
Fury fills my body like a flood, consumes my entire being, and I wonder if this cop can see it. If he can see I’m not okay, that this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
Can he see that I planned to kill someone tonight?
That Oakley never should’ve made it out of that blaze, and the smell of his charred flesh should be stuck to my clothes? My nails dig into the soft flesh of my palm, unshed tears stinging my eyes.
“Jude! Say something!”
Vastly different from his friend, Jude Sinclair calmly allows an officer to guide him toward the police car. I’ve never known him to be docile, but he’s never been loud either.
Always a serpent curled in the grass, waiting to strike, just like his piece-of-shit dad.
My molars grind together, threatening to become dust.
I bet the two of them came to St. Gabriel’s to smoke and talk about what happened to me. Oakley probably bragged and made some sick joke that Jude laughed at.
Unintentionally fueled by nothing but a painful wrath that is cracking my ribs in half, I flick my eyes to the gun on Officer Fields’s belt, debating the consequences of shooting the two of them.
The both of them should have died tonight.
But I can’t go to jail. It’s why the fire was the perfect weapon—everyone would think it had been a terrible accident. No one would have suspected me, not the well-behaved, academically gifted Seraphina Van Doren. Never me.
Jude’s eyes stayed glued to the ground, unaffected by the raging fire behind him and the looming jail cell. As if in this moment, the only thing that matters is the damp grass growing beneath his feet.
I shake my head, answering Officer Fields’s question. “I don’t need anyone.”
Never again. I’ll never need anyone. I can’t need anyone.
The salty wind picks up, ocean-scented breeze touching my nose as the pine trees begin to rattle. It brushes Jude’s dirty-blond hair across his forehead, and this is when he looks up.
Our eyes catch across the top of the police cruiser briefly. It’s only a second, but I can see the recognition in his gaze. It’s long enough for him to see, to know I was here.
Good.
Let him see me and know that tonight…? He got lucky.
I hope this night is the domino effect that begins the bitter end of their shitty fucking lives. I want this to ruin them, in every way.
Maybe then, just maybe, they’ll understand a fraction of how annihilated I am on the inside.
Looking to the flames engulfing St. Gabriel’s, I marvel in the fire’s abilities. The way it licks the pointed arches and spires, painting the night sky with a deep orange, devouring the stained glass windows that once depicted all that was good and holy.
Firefighters rush to put it out, using their equipment and safety gear to protect them from the potent blaze.
Fuel. Oxygen. Heat.
A deadly holy trinity. It prays not to a god of forgiveness or justice but to one of destruction and chaos. It gives no mercy, only havoc. It is an elemental force fueled by oxygen and driven by unrelenting heat.
I wanted to be that.
A flame, a blaze, an inferno.
I wanted people to be afraid of touching me.