Burn This! (A 300 Moons Book)(Bad Boy Alphas) (10 page)

N
eve paced
the floor of the break room, practically crushing an unopened can of Coke in her hand.

Angela sat in the corner, painting her fingernails and watching Neve curiously.

Neve had no words to spare for the silly girl, though. She was too busy fuming about Johnny Lazarus.

How could he? How dare he?

And to think, she had actually been on her way to his room to talk to him about the whole mess, when she saw him letting little miss pop princess in.

He certainly didn’t waste any time.

She’d thought Johnny was different, but just like everyone else in her life, he demonstrated that he had no respect for what she did. He made a mockery of her whole profession, and of the other patients as well. He attended a group session as an imposter, for goodness sake.

She was the one who had insisted that McGrath refuse a
very
high profile celebrity actor who wanted to come here as “research” because of the insult to the needs and privacy of the real clients.

Now someone had slipped in under their noses, garnering unearned sympathy. My god, in that group session, she had actually wanted to run after him.

She stopped her tracks thinking about it.

She
had
wanted to run after him.

None of his textbook behaviors had brought out a visceral reaction in her.

Which could mean that he really
had
been upset.

She recalled the haunted look in his eyes. What was it he had said to her by the fire?

Like looking into a mirror…

It was too much to fake. Johnny Lazarus was deeply disturbed about something. He was hurting. But he wasn’t an addict.

She popped the tab and took a long pull of Coke. The sweetness of the cool liquid went right to her head, making her feel better almost instantly.

She began to pace again.

So something was wrong with Johnny. But what was it?

And why couldn’t she get him out of her head?

“So why was he naked?” Angela’s voice wrenched Neve out of the graphic memory of what had happened on the beach, and the fantasy of what might have happened in other circumstances.

“I’ve got work to do,” Neve announced, pouring the rest of her drink down the sink and throwing the can in recycling.

“Do you, um, think he needs comforting?” Angela asked, unsubtly plucking open the top button of her blouse.

The thought of Angela and Johnny made Neve’s blood boil. But she choked down her rage.

“I think someone already beat you to it,” she said casually and walked out as fast as she could.

Nailed it.

She was going to bang on Johnny’s door and get some answers, whether he liked it or not. And if Jocelyn was in there, too bad. She was just doing her job, after all.

Completely professional.

But Angela’s unbearable tinkling laughter followed her all the way down the hall.

T
he last soft
pink light of sunset lingered on the purple cliffs. Johnny studied it, trying not to picture Neve descending the similar craggy wall of the island, radiant with the sun in her hair.

He turned back to his suitcase and resumed packing jeans and t-shirts into it.

He couldn’t believe his time here was up. After tonight, the 300th moon’s influence would begin to wane. He was going to make it.

Wildly, he fantasized about a life where he didn’t have to worry about restraining the dragon.

Boring.

The creature’s voice echoed in his head, a hint of sadness pervading its usually dry tone.

What do you care?
Johnny asked it.
You don’t like being mine any more than I like being yours.

It tried to answer, but he shut it down. Talking to it tonight was dangerous. He had been foolish to allow himself to be drawn in. What if it convinced him to do something to keep it around?

He zipped up his suitcase, grabbed his duffel and deposited them both at the foot of the bed. He’d be checking out early tomorrow, hopefully before Neve came on shift.

He sat on the bed and stared out the window. For once, he didn’t feel like playing his guitar.

A hazy glow of moonlight filtered in, and Johnny’s heart began to kick like a bass drum. The surface of his skin tingled.

He just needed to hold it in for one more night.

A scuttling sound from somewhere in the room grabbed his attention.

Johnny spun around, no one was there.

The sound grew closer, almost on top of him before he saw it.

Tacos, Jocelyn’s pet iguana, scurried toward him at top speed.

The little guy had been a regular visitor to Johnny’s room lately. Jocelyn was spending most of her time holed up in here with him, listening to Johnny write songs, even helping with a few. She was surprisingly good at cutting to the emotional core of a piece.

But she had never allowed Tacos to come calling on his own.

Odd.

Tacos himself looked kind of odd, now that Johnny thought about it. His usual soft steps were hard, and he staggered, as if he had forgotten to use his tail to help him move.

His little eyes, which normally had wide amber irises much like Johnny’s, were all black.

Poor little dude must be sick.

Johnny bent and called to him, hoping to catch him in his arms and bring him back to Jocelyn so she could get him to a vet.

The little lizard obliged, running straight up to Johnny and hopping into his waiting arms.

But instead of sitting docilely in the crook of his elbow as usual, Tacos dug in his claws.

Before Johnny could register what was happening, the little fellow started whipping him viciously with his long tail.

“Hey,” Johnny said sharply, hoping to distract it from attacking him.

Instead Tacos looked up at him and hissed loudly.

Oh boy.

It scuttled up his chest and looked at him as if it wanted to bite him on the nose.

Johnny grabbed it by the torso and dragged it off his chest and away from his body.

It struggled wildly. Then, before his eyes, Tacos sighed and seemed almost to go limp.

But the sigh wasn’t a regular sigh. A black fog emanated from his little mouth and floated up above both their heads.

Johnny backed up, holding the now calm creature protectively against his chest.

It wasn’t the little guy’s fault.

He had been possessed by the same shadow-thing that had come for him during the fire, then possessed the shark to attack him.

Some kind of demon, Johnny guessed, although the very thought seemed ludicrous.

Demons weren’t real.

Says the guy who can turn into a dragon.

Fair enough.

As he watched, it pulled itself long and thin like the world’s least appetizing taffy, then coiled up like a snake.

It was hypnotic, watching that cloud of smoky ribbons divide itself into five fingers. They stretched forward to him.

Move, boy!

The voice of the dragon roused Johnny. He dropped to the ground and rolled away from the smoke just as it shot forward. For all he could see, it would have entered his body through his eyes, nostrils and mouth.

Could it possess a person?

Johnny thought it could, but he was sure he didn’t want to find out.

He shuddered and headed for the door, unsure of what to do next, but convinced he needed to put some space between himself and the demon.

At the last moment, it occurred to him that leading the demon out into the hallway meant endangering every other person in the building. He paused, his hand almost touching the knob.

He turned back, resolved not to let anything bad happen to the others, Neve was out there.

He nearly jumped out of his skin.

The demon was inches away from him now. It had formed itself into the shape of a woman, with long smoky tendrils of hair escaping from a ponytail - like Neve on the beach.

It knew his weakness.

“You don’t know the first thing about me,” he told it firmly. “And you don’t belong here. I’m not going to be part of your world anymore after tonight.”

The creature cocked its head inquisitively, then reached out a misty hand toward him.

“No,” he said, waving it away.

But the smoke only reformed a moment later.

The demon stepped in closer still, reaching both hands out as if to cup his cheeks.

He sidestepped. It stepped with him.

The iguana scrambled sensibly onto his neck, allowing Johnny’s head to block it from the demon.

Oh for god’s sake, boy, the fire, the fire.

The dragon was right. If this were the same demon as before, fire could be the answer.

As if it could hear his thoughts, the demon drifted away from him.

Encouraged that he knew at last what to do, Johnny followed, allowing the dragon access to the tips of his fingers.

You’ll need more than that, boy. Let me out.

No, he was definitely not doing that.

He cornered the demon in the bathroom. It swayed uncertainly, looking twice as large when it was reflected in the mirror.

Lifting his hands, Johnny summoned the fire.

A fuzzy warmth filled his hands and then the scarlet flames shot out.

The shadow doubled in on itself as if in pain, then shivered and puffed back out.

Johnny pushed harder, the orange flames turned red and the demon was shot back into the fan.

Tacos leaped from Johnny’s neck and scrambled for cover under the bed.

When Johnny was at last able to stop throwing fire, he realized that the wall around the fan had started to melt, the wallpaper peeled and burned, and the shower curtain smoked and smoldered.

Panicked, he turned on the sink, trying to splash water, but it did no good. He wet a towel and tried to beat out the fire, but now it was on the ceiling, flames licking through the wooden doorframe and out into the bedroom.

No, no, no.

Not again.

He ran to the door to the hallway, knowing he’d seen an extinguisher on a wall mount someplace between here and reception.

That was when he heard the screams of the other patients running out of the rooms all over the building.

The bathroom fan.

They must all be on the same ventilation duct.

Which meant that when Johnny shot fire through the fan, it had spread to every bathroom vent fan in the place.

The entire sanctuary was on fire.

He was no good, a bad kid who had grown into a bad man who started fires and burned everything he touched.

For fuck’s sake, boy, stop dithering and fix your damned mess.

The dragon’s voice penetrated the fog of panic he’d felt. Roused, Johnny made a plan.

He was not going to let one single person get hurt tonight. He would go door to door and help these people get to the front lawn as they were supposed to do in case of an emergency.

He quickly retrieved the panicked lizard from under the bed, then pulled the fire alarm as he headed into the hall.

N
eve took
a deep calming breath as she began her emergency round up. She would clear the east wing to the front lawn, and then come back in and clear the west wing. Angela should be handling the west wing herself, in theory, but Neve knew better than to think that would happen.

Usually Mr. McGrath warned her when they were going to do a drill. She figured it must have been time for the annual surprise evacuation.

She knocked at the first door on the far east wing. No one answered, so she slid her key card.

The acrid scent of smoke hit her hard. Not a drill after all. Probably someone sneaking a cigarette in the bathroom, and set a wastebasket on fire.

“Clarence,” she called, her voice tense with building adrenaline.

He didn’t reply.

She went into the room, but there was no sign of him.

Smoke poured out of the bathroom.

She ventured closer.

The whole bathroom was up in flames.

Without any warning or fanfare, the sprinkler system turned on, and Neve found herself covered in cold water.

The fire in the bathroom raged on, the sprinklers not enough to stop it.

Neve grabbed a blanket from the bedroom and wrapped it around her hand, then pulled the metal knob of the bathroom door to close in the fire. Less oxygen meant less chance of spreading.

Then she dropped the blanket and went on to the next room.

Again, the room was empty.

Again the bathroom was on fire.

She made her way down the hall, checking each room, shutting bathroom doors where she could do so safely.

In the third room she checked, the fire had spread from the baths into the main room. From there on, each room was worse than the one before it. Draperies were burning, beds and carpets ablaze.

By the time she had ascertained that the whole east wing was empty, the hall had filled with smoke.

Forcing herself to remain calm, she followed protocol and headed out to the lawn to count heads.

Clarence stood next to Angela, holding her iPad and helping her take a head count.

“Neve, we’ve got almost everyone from
both
wings,” Angela cried out proudly.

“Johnny’s not out here,” Clarence said, in a more subdued tone.

Panic shot through Neve’s heart.

“Who else is missing?” she asked with a coolness she didn’t feel.

“That’s all, just Johnny,” Angela said. “But a bunch of people saw him in there. He was getting them all to leave, helping them outside.”

Oh God, no. Johnny was untrained, and off plan.

He was trying to be a hero.

But in her heart she knew it wasn’t true, he wasn’t really looking for fanfare.

She thought of her trip to confront him, when she knew he was alone with Jocelyn. Neve had been ready to bust in the door and start demanding answers. She had been horribly jealous, an ugly feeling that made her ashamed. But it hurt to think that he was just showing off and performing in front of a pretty girl, chasing that high.

When she’d reached the door to his room, she heard him singing and playing the guitar, just like she’d expected. But then an unexpected sound made her pause.

The sound of Jocelyn crying.

“God, Johnny, that’s good for my soul,” Jocelyn had murmured.

“Thank you,” his gruff and heartfelt acknowledgement had carried so much to Neve’s ear that she was nearly crushed with regret.

She had been looking so hard for signs that he was a pompous bad boy that she had misinterpreted his every action to suit that image.

And in so doing, she had missed the real man.

Johnny wasn’t seeking a performance high, at least not for reasons of ego.

The moment of connection she had just heard, that was the real high Johnny Lazarus was after.

Neve understood it, she had felt it herself. It was the high of the healer. She knew it to her own bones.

And it was as a healer that he had performed the night the power went out, soothing the jangled nerves of the other patients.

Embarrassed by her own pride and blindness, she had left his door, never to return to it.

Until now.

Neve headed back inside, heedless of the growing fire and Angela’s protests.

The swirling smoke in the glass reception area looked almost fake, like a musical was about to be performed there, and it was only a special effect.

Neve wrenched off her light sweater and put it over her face to act as a filter. Then she flung open the doors and headed down toward Johnny’s wing.

The sprinklers in the hallway drizzled down on her, but it didn’t seem to be stopping the fire. It must be in the walls and the ventilation system.

By the time she got halfway down the hall, the smoke was too thick to breathe even through her sweater, so she dropped down on the floor where the smoke was thinner and crawled.

She counted rooms since she couldn’t look at room numbers or see far enough ahead or behind to have a sense of where she was.

She didn’t allow herself to think the worst. That she might not find Johnny and they certainly might not make it out.

When she reached his door, she pounded on it.

It was hot to the touch.

No reply.

She stood, wavering on her feet, the smoke and heat making her eyes sting. She reached out with her sweater covering her hand and pulled the handle.

The door wasn’t locked. It squealed open on its hinge and she dropped to the floor again and crawled inside.

The heat in the room was unbelievable, Neve half expected the glass windows to melt.

“Johnny,” she cried hoarsely.

She dragged herself further into the room. It was hard to see with so much fire and smoke. She couldn’t get close to the bed or the window treatments or the walls. Sooner or later the wood floors would catch and she’d be in real trouble.

A horrible groan drew her attention back to the doorway. She turned in time to see a huge section of the ceiling cave in across the door leading back out to the hallway. Now the only way out of the room was a five foot tall mountain of flames.

Neve turned to the windows, but the safety glass was over an inch thick. And it was the only thing between her and falling off the overhang of the cliff.

The adrenaline rush she felt brought a buoyancy to her chest that was at odds with her realization - if Johnny were actually somewhere in this room, the best she could hope for was to die holding his hand.