Girl on Fire by Gemma Amor

Author:Gemma Amor [Amor, Gemma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-10-30T22:00:00+00:00

11

No oxygen.

My nosebleed grows worse, becomes a flood of salty, hot liquid that runs down into my gag, where it soaks in, and I can feel it against my lips, taste myself. I taste...weird.

Maybe I am dying after all, I think, then I smack that thought upside the head. Stop that. You’re not dying. You can’t die. You’ve tried already. Stop being a little bitch.

You’ve been in terrible situations before, and survived.

You’ll survive this.

Fire, or no fire.

It’s not even like I care that much if I do die, I’m beyond that, I’m aware that all good things come to an end eventually, and I guess I had a good second run. The first run: not so good. But I don’t fear death, not anymore. I’ve gotten pretty comfortable with it.

It’s just that...well.

I haven’t really gotten started on taking the rest of the world down with me.

And I still have work to do.

I still have trash to take out.

Remembering this gives me strength. The urge to cry dissolves. The urge to kill rises up, like a two-headed cobra, rearing to strike.

That’s it, Ruby.

That’s it.

And to think, you were on the verge of giving up!

Stupid girl.

Hate, I realise, can be a useful survival mechanism.

Perhaps that’s why my blood tastes bad. It tastes of loathing.

Wagner continues to pace, moving around and around the chamber like a lioness prowling through long grass, and if she had a tail, I imagine she would be swishing it, by now. Her body and face are still a blur to me, but I can see just enough to know that she is compact, and short, that she is probably wearing heels, based on the faint click-clack coming through the speaker, and dark clothing.

Then, she stands directly behind me, and I can tell from the faint prickle that sweeps up my arms that she is looking at the back of my stubbled head through the layers of thick, treated glass. She is looking at my tattoo: a phoenix, in flight, wings outspread, beak wide open. I get a sense of being judged, I get the impression that Wagner is sneering at me. Wagner is not afraid of me, and who can blame her? I’m about as threatening as a fly trapped in a spider’s web right now.

Or so she thinks.

I try once more to summon fire, show her what I’m capable of, but it spurts, and ripples, then fizzles out.

‘Every time you do that,’ Wagner says, and I can tell from her tone that her lip is curled, ‘You waste more oxygen. Don’t you get that? Or are you as dumb-fuck stupid as you are evil?’

Evil. The word sinks into my brain.

Am I evil?

I think back to Glenns Ferry, to an entire town wiped off the map.

Yeah, I guess I must be. In the traditional sense of the word.

Evil.

Huh.

Evil or not, my existence is an insult to Wagner, I know it. I know women like her. I don’t know why she is doing this to me, or who the fuck she works for, but I know women like her.

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