Love in the Land of Fire Brochu, Rebecca (books to read for 13 year olds txt) 📖

He’s perfect and he’s mine and I’m going to make him love me. Me, goddamn you!”

6Frisch turns to head back towards Rafe’s prone form, hand clenched tightly around the scalpel, and there are sirens in the background but there isn’t enough time. Josiah jumps forward and slams his free palm down against the door with bruising force. Frisch jumps, startled, but he turns back around and that’s what Josiah wanted all along. Josiah leans forward until his breath is misting the glass of the door and his tone is low and snide when he speaks.

“He’ll never love you, Frisch. He told me that. Do you know what he did? He stripped down and oiled up and gave himself to me all on his own. I didn’t have to force him: he begged for it. Begged for me like he never would for you because you’re nothing. Do you hear me, Frisch? You’re nothing!”

Frisch snarls and turns back towards Rafe, but Gar’s hand is closed into a tight fist and in the next second the door is open and Josiah’s sprinting forward. He collides with Frisch hard, free hand wrapping around the wrist of the hand holding the scalpel and snapping it with a quick forceful upwards stroke with the butt of his pistol. Frisch howls and drops the blade, but he shuts up quickly when Josiah presses the muzzle of his pistol directly against his sweaty forehead.

“Twitch. Give me one more reason to put a bullet in your brainpan and so help me I will and I won’t even blink.” He growls the words out, teeth gnashing and eyes narrowed.

Frisch whimpers, and there’s the sudden smell of urine in the air, but he doesn’t move. Josiah pulls his hand back, moving the pistol away from the other man, but before Frisch can even sigh in relief he crashes the butt of the gun down hard across the back of his head.

Frisch drops and Josiah doesn’t even make an attempt to catch him, just steps over his prone form and heads towards Rafe. He’s dimly aware of Gar’s voice in the background, of running feet and the sounds of backup arriving too late to be of any real use. His attention is focused on getting to Rafe, to making sure that he’s alive.

“Rafe.” Josiah chokes the word out, panic clawing at his throat when he’s close enough to see just how deep the cuts are on Rafe’s back.

Rafe moans low in his throat and it sounds pained and drugged. He flinches when Josiah lays a hand on his arm, and Josiah goes around the table and drops to his knees so that they’re eye to eye. Rafe’s gaze is blurry, the aftereffects of the sedative apparent in his sluggish reactions, but when he focuses enough to recognize Josiah his eyes fill with tears.

“J-Josiah?”

Josiah reaches up and tenderly cups Rafe’s jaw in his slightly shaking palm, dips forward and lays a sweet kiss on Rafe’s brow.

“Yeah, Rafe, it’s me.”

“Hurts.”

“I know it does, I know. We’re going to get you out here’ and we’re going to go home so you got to hang in there for me, alright, Rafe? You got to stay awake.”

Rafe’s eyelids flutter closed, but Josiah taps him gently on the jaw, desperate to keep him awake, not wanting to take the chance that he’ll slip into unconsciousness and never be able to find his way back out.

“Rafe! Rafe, stay with me. Focus on my voice and stay awake.” Josiah hears approaching footsteps and he stands quickly, ready for any new threat, but it’s just Gar, a medical unit in tow and obviously intent on 7getting Rafe free and on his way to the hospital.

Josiah ducks back down and cups Rafe’s jaw in his palm again, fingers stroking soothingly across his bruised skin.

“You did so good, Rafe, so perfect, and this is going to hurt but we’ve got to move you. Just try to stay calm.

Gar’s here and I know you’re going to want to meet him so you need to stay awake, alright?”

“Gar?” Rafe’s voice is reed thin and weak, but he’s focusing on Josiah and that’s really all that matters.

“Yeah, Gar. The friend I was telling you about, the one that helped me find you today. He’s here and he’s going to want to meet you later on and tell you embarrassing stories about me from our time in the Elite together so you need to stay with me.”

“Y-Yeah. Josiah?”

“Yeah, Rafe?”

“Don’t…don’t leave me.” Rafe’s eyes flutter closed again and Josiah hears one of the medics behind him curse loud and vicious, and he feels Gar grip him tightly by the shoulder all at the same time.

“I won’t, Rafe. I swear I won’t.”

He doesn’t get an answer. Rafe doesn’t twitch, and his eyes stay shuttered. His face is slack and Josiah feels pain spike through his chest even as he’s ripping himself out of Gar’s hold. He’s on his knees again in front of Rafe, cradling his bruised and bloody face in the crook of his neck as his hands run gently through his hair.

He breathes softly on the skin that’s next to his mouth and begs low and desperate into the shell of Rafe’s ear.

“Rafe, baby? Come on, now. Stay with me. Don’t do this, Rafe. Don’t do this to me. Baby? Come now, open your eyes! Rafe?” It comes out lost and broken, a sound that Josiah would have never thought himself capable of making but isn’t ashamed of in the slightest.

There’s still no response, only the feel of Gar forcefully pulling him back and away and the sight of the medical unit lifting Rafe’s bloody body onto a stretcher and rushing him out the door.

Josiah stumbles to his feet, not willing to be separated from Rafe, not willing to let him