Burn Before Reading(63)



Fitz laughed like something was funny. Wolf gave up and got in the backseat.

“You don’t have friends, Burn,” Fitz corrected.

“I do.” He said. “You should try it sometime.”

“I have plenty of friends!” Fitz argued.

“Ones that aren’t friends with you for your drugs,” Wolf grunted. Fitz laughed again.

“Oh, you’re one to talk, Wolf. Your last friendship didn’t exactly go down so well now, did it?”

He was talking about Mark. It was a low blow. Wolf flinched.

“That’s enough,” I snapped. “Stop being nasty to each other. Burn has a surprise for us, so all of us need to grow up and try to act like we deserve it.”

Fitz huffed. Wolf went silent. Burn started the convertible again, and we drove. I couldn’t help but sneak looks back at Wolf in the side mirror – the wind whipped his dark hair around. He closed his eyes once or twice, looking serene and almost peaceful, like the wind was sweeping him away to a better place. My stomach churned. Who gave him the right to be so damn handsome? I thought I’d locked all my positive thoughts of him in the bulletproof safe in the very back of my mind, but now they were threatening to break out all on their own, just by seeing him. It was garbage.

“We’re not going to Seamus again, are we?” I asked Burn, desperate to tear my attention away from Wolf’s profile. “I don’t have his money for the dress, so he’ll probably break my kneecaps. With a teacup.”

Burn rolled his sleepy eyes. “Not Seamus. Somewhere more interesting.”

I slumped in my seat. His version of interesting was probably another trail, even harder and wheezier than the one we ran every morning. But to my surprise, he took an exit that led to Baskerville – a small suburb east of Seattle known for its empty plains of…well, nothing. It used to be a farming community, but that got shut down quick with the advent of the dot com industry and all the kids moving into the city for work. So now we drove past fields and fields of fallow grass, little barns and houses dotting the landscape. The Cascade Mountains threw shadows on the horizon, tall and majestic and lonely.

“Why are we in the boonies, Burn? You know me and Mother Nature broke up years ago.” Fitz complained. Wolf couldn’t take his eyes off the mountains.

“Are we coming out here to hunt ghosts or something?” I asked. Burn rolled his eyes. It might’ve been exasperation, but at least there was more way motion on his face than usual. I took it as a good sign.

Finally, Burn turned the convertible onto a little dirt road carving through a huge empty field. I squinted – in the distance I could see what looked like an old army barn – the kind they keep planes and stuff in.

“Oh no,” Fitz suddenly moaned. “No, no, no –“

“We’re going to do it,” Burn said. “Finally. Together.”

“No! Are you crazy?” Fitz yelled. “Let me out of this car! Let me out right now!”

“Are you gonna walk back?” Wolf inquired. Fitz slumped down so far in his seat he touched the floor.

“Burn, I don’t ask for much as your brother. I just want a quiet place of my own, a nice cup of tea, a book –“

“A computer to hack,” I chimed in.

“A joint to smoke,” Wolf added.

“A class to sleep through,” Burn said.

There was a pause. Fitz groaned.

“You make me sound like a monster.”

“A whiny monster,” Burn agreed.

“Where are we, anyway?” I asked.

“An old friend’s,” Wolf said. “Of our mother’s.”

Fitz stopped groaning at that. Burn pulled the car over to the side of the barn, and got out. I followed. Wolf got out too, but Fitz crossed his arms and laid sideways over the backseat, his freckled face scrunched up.

“I’m not getting out.”

“You are,” Burn insisted. Fitz sat up quickly.

“You know I hate this place! I specifically avoid it every year you and Wolf go. You used her –” Fitz pointed at me. “As distracting bait! I can’t believe you, you – you charlatan!”

“Small words,” Burn requested.

“It means you’re a filthy liar and a huge asshole!”

“I try.” Burn deadpanned.

“It would be nice,” Wolf said. “If you joined us for once.”

Fitz’s eyes darted between me and Wolf, then back to me again. I was still utterly lost as to what was going on.

“You’ll get out,” Burn said. “And you’ll do it. Like the rest of us.”

“I’m not like the rest of you!” Fitz hissed. “I don’t like flinging myself off into five thousand feet of air –“

“Air?” I muttered. Suddenly it made sense. The aircraft barn, the big open space –

“There you kids are!” A rough voice greeted us. An older man with tanned nut-brown skin smiled at us with all his wrinkles. He tipped the brim of his baseball cap to me. “And you brought a lady with you, this year. Good afternoon, darling.”

“H-Hi?” I tried. “I’m Bee.”

“Bee – well isn’t that a pretty name. I’m Jakob Petersen, owner of this fine establishment.” He smiled, his eyes going wide. “And Fitz! By the devil – I thought we’d lost you to the sands of time, my boy. Turns out those sands just made you taller and more handsome, didn’t they?”

Sara Wolf's Books