Burn Before Reading Read online

  "Oh no. No mercy for you," I said as I bent to look at my ankles. "Not today."

  "Are you...talking to your feet?"

  I jolted at the low voice, whirling around to come face-to-face with Burn. He wore sweatpants and a hoodie, his curly hair damp with sweat and his cheeks flushed. He looked at me like I was a totally alien species.

  "Shit!" I wheezed even harder. "You scared me! Again! Is that like, a talent of yours? Scaring people? Because you should consider making money off of it. You're really good at it. Not that you need money. Or to scare people. I'd prefer less of it, frankly."

  "So would I," He said slowly. "What are you doing out here?"

  "Isn't it obvious?" I assumed a confident posture even as my legs were killing me. "I'm jogging."

  "You don't do this a lot," Burn said, a fact, not a question. I felt slightly miffed, except then I realized he was right and it was obvious by the way I was puffing and wheezing.

  "Yeah, well. We all have to start thinking about our old bodies someday," I said. "I want mine to look good in a grave, thank you very much."

  He shook his head, which I took as a positive sign. At least he wasn't running away. Yet.

  "So, uh," I looked behind him, to the misty trail. "Anybody else? Out here? With you? On this fine morning?”

  Burn wiped his face on his sweatshirt. "Don't worry. Wolf hates mornings."

  "I wasn't worried about him," I countered. "I was just -"

  "I should get back to my routine," Burn interrupted me.

  "Oh - right. Can I - Can I come with you?"

  He looked confused again, and the more I saw it the more it reminded me of a lost puppy. He didn't look nearly as intimidating as I was used to at school. Then again, I'd never studied his face much - I was too scared by his height to really look at it for long.

  "I just don't know this trail," I said quickly. His mouth creased slightly, but finally he nodded.

  "Alright. But I won't slow down for you."

  "Sure. Didn't want you to, anyway. I like running fast."

  He gave me what I thought was a 'sure' look, before turning and starting off at a brisk pace. I kept up with him for all of three minutes before I had to fall back. God - he was fast. And to make it completely unfair, he was graceful, too, like a cheetah running next to my wobbling, drunken moose gait. The trail was a pretty simple roundabout, so I just followed it, clutching a stitch in my side and grumbling at the footprints in the dirt that undoubtedly belonged to the fastest Blackthorn brother.

  "The things...I do..." I puffed. "To stay in this...stupid school -"

  As I crested a hill, I saw a figure leaning on a rock, waiting. For me. It was Burn, his chest still heaving a little, though his eyes looked the opposite of tired - invigorated, even.

  "You made it to the halfway point," He said. I collapsed on the pine needles, too tired to play proud anymore.

  "H-Halfway?" I groaned, congealing into a lump on the forest floor. "Who invented this running stuff and how can I cram his head up his own ass?"

  Burn didn't grace me with an answer, preferring to sip water from some bottle he had. For some reason, a ghost of an emotion crossed his face. I couldn’t pin it.

  “Are you….alright?” I asked.

  Burn’s ghost of emotion turned into a full-blown grimace.

  “Don’t ask that.”

  “What?”

  “Are you alright,” He repeated, then scoffed. “It’s a pointless platitude. And I’m sick of those.”

  “I’m just being –”

  “Polite. I know. But think – how many people have you actually tell you their real feelings if you ask that?”

  I was quiet. He shook his head.

  “We all say we’re ‘okay’. Automatically. Like it isn’t alright to be not alright. That’s why I hate it. Because it’s a lie. All of it. Even if you mean well, no one will tell you how they really feel. So it’s pointless to ask.”

  “I’ll tell you,” I offered. “Ask me right now.”

  “No.”

  “Come on!”

  He was silent, and then; “Are you alright?”

  “No!” I yelled at the top of my lungs to the air above. “I feel like shit!”

  I looked down, only to see his face ever so slightly amused. Or maybe I was imagining it. Yeah. Probably that. Definitely that – Bernard Wolfgang isn’t the type to feel entertained.

  We sat there for a while, me catching my breath and him staring out at the view. He pointed to the horizon.

  "There," He said.

  With huge effort I sat up, looking at the awesome view that peaked with the morning light. The halfway point was on an overlook, the two of us practically teetering on the edge of a cliff that hung above the city proper. You could see everything from up here; all the little cars, all the planes, all the incoming clouds and clear spots in the sky. My house looked so small from up there; Lakecrest looked practically insignificant. And for that brief moment, they were. Looking at the horizon and how gorgeous the sunrise was over it, my brain was washed clean. The worries lingering inside my house and my school evaporated, until only the beauty of the view was left.

  "I get it, now," I managed through a dry mouth and heaving lungs. "I think...I finally get why some dude invented the whole running thing."

  I expected Burn's silence, and I got it. After a serene half-hour or so of an empty head, Burn's massive hand on my shoulder shook me out of it.

  "We have to go. School starts soon."

  I stood up, my legs in semi-working shape again. "School. Right."

  All the levity drained out of me as Burn and I walked down the path back to the parking lot. Apparently, he didn't want to run the other half of the path, at least not today. At the sight of my car, I staggered over to it with tears in my eyes, hugging the roof.

  "I've never been happier to see a hunk of metal in my life!" I crowed.

  The sound of a car pulling up behind me scared me. It was Burn, with the window rolled down this time.

  "It's going to hurt." He said.

  "What is?" I asked.

  Everything," He clarified. "Everything will hurt. Put ice cubes in ziploc bags and keep them on your body if you can."

  "You can't tell me what to do, Mr. Olympics."

  He shakes his head again, rolls up his window, and leaves without another word. I stand in his tailpipe dust for a few seconds, pondering all seven billion of my life choices, but mostly just the one in which I tried to impress him and he ended up impressing me instead.

  ***

  If you think I'm bad at sports and moving my body in a manner faster than a light potato-chip reach, just wait until you've seen my school-on-four-hours-of-sleep routine. It's a masterpiece. A comedy-tragedy worthy of Shakespeare himself. Heavy emphasis on the tragedy.

  I didn't have class with Fitz until the end of the day, but I really didn't feel like sucking up to Wolf. It felt somehow dirty, like I was corrupting into one of those mindless zombies that swooned or glowered whenever he passed. Say what you will about Wolf - the guy knew how to make an impression wherever he went. Fans - enemies - he apparently didn't care which, as long as they were paying attention to him.

  Which is exactly why I'd decided to give him a sum total of no attention. The second I saw his pissed-off, arrogant face walking across the quad in the morning, I did a one-eighty. There was no way in hell I was ready to drop hints I knew about motorcycles or some shit on him. God knows if it would even work. He was smarter than that. He had to be.

  I opted for the next best thing - Mr. Francis, the auto body shop teacher.

  Auto-body and Woodworking were both taught by Mr. Francis. Basically, if you needed a huge dangerous tool that could saw through your femur in point-seven-seconds flat, you called Mr. Francis. Or, more accurately, you waltzed into his classroom on a very early morning and demanded answers. Politely.

  "Mr. Francis!" I tried. The doors to the shop wer
e supposed to stay closed at all times - so why were they open like this?

  I saw the cause a second too late - Wolf's beautiful motorcycle sat in the garage, the navy-blue paint glimmering in the sun. Mr. Francis was bent over it, walking around it in a slow waltz as if inspecting it for problems. Lo and behold, the king of hot garbage was standing there too, and instead of his usual "I-hate-my-life" look, he had a mildly interested expression going on.

  "What do you think it is?" I heard Wolf ask.

  "Hrm. Not sure." Mr. Francis grunted back. They hadn't seen me yet. If I just backed up - "I'm thinking it's the fuel injectors, but that'll take at least a day to get to, more if I gotta order a part to replace it."

  Wolf caught a glimpse of me out of the corner of his eye, and my stomach dropped. Busted. He glared crossbow bolts into me.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "So, what, they don't teach you how to read in private school kindergarten?" I point at the sign that clearly says AUTO CLASS on it over the door.

  "I can read words just fine," Wolf fired back. "It's the faces of morons like you I have trouble processing."

  "Well read this," I pointed to my lips, hanging onto my temper by a bare thread of exhaustion from my run earlier today. "Go. Take. A. Swan. Dive. Into. A. Piranha. Lake."

  "Ah," Mr. Francis' voice cut between us - too well timed to be anything but strategic. "You must be the scholarship student. Welcome. Have you changed your mind and decided to take auto or wood shop or something of the sort?"

  "Uh," My eyes scrabbled desperately for something, anything. Any excuse so Wolf wouldn't know I was here for - urk - him. They caught on the only part of a motorcycle I recognized from studying last night - the muffler. "Your muffler's crooked."

  Mr. Francis turned to inspect it, but Wolf scoffed and brushed his long bangs from his face. The movement was so infuriatingly handsome on him I forgot who I was for a second. And then I remembered. And gagged.

  "The fact you think you know anything about what we're doing in here is hilarious," Wolf said.

  "Oh," Mr. Francis said softly. He straightened and smiled at me. "You were right, Beatrix. The muffler was a little loose and knocking against the pan - that's where the sound was coming from."

  "Ha ha!" I pointed accusatorily at Wolf. He didn't even blink.

  "You got lucky."

  "Lucky or not; Shall I heat your own words up in the microwave so you can digest them better, your highness? After all, you've got a ton of them to eat."

  "I'll be fine, thanks," He snidely shot, then turned to Mr. Francis. "Keep it here for me, would you Carl? I'll come pick it up after school. Or whenever this loudmouth brat decides to leave.”

  "Hey! This loudmouth brat solved your bike issues!" I protested. Wolf stormed past me, his eyes blazing with irritation, cutting a huge swathe of burning ground around me. He was under the garage door and gone before I could throw out one last knife-in-the-back insult.

  "Sorry about that," Mr. Francis said. "The Blackthorns can be a little...."

  "Evil?"

  "I was thinking more along the lines of...eccentric," He corrects. "Anyway, did you need something from me?"

  "Uh, yeah, actually. Do you think you have one last spot in your auto shop class?"

  "Which one?"

  "Whichever one Wolf is in."

  Mr. Francis pondered this. "Wanna show him up that badly, huh?"

  "Call it a personal desire. A compulsion, a genie's duty. A geass, so to speak."

  "Well I can't just let you in, that's an advanced class."

  I proceed to tell him everything I learned, nearly verbatim, from the motorcycle magazine I read last night. Have I mentioned I sure know how to buckle down and study when I want to? Hand signals, engine caps, oil changes - I let him know it all. When I was done, Mr. Francis looked more than a little winded.

  "Well alright then. Seems I underestimated you, Beatrix. You're in. Consider your sixth periods mine."

  I did a little fist pump. "Yes! Thank you Mr. Francis! You won’t regret this! Unless I screw up horribly and get us all killed via battery acid! But that's, like, just a wild hypothetical, you know."

  "Sure," He eyed me. "Don't you have another class to be getting to?"

  I left the auto shop feeling considerably better. I managed to successfully invade one of Wolf Blackthorn's spaces by going around him, instead of through him. Now if I could just keep that trend up for the rest of eternity, until he decided to stop being a dick to me, whichever came first even though neither would come first because 'eternity' and 'hating me' were the same things for him, that'd be great. Wolf might hate me more for what I've done, but at this point he hates me for simply breathing, so. I'll take my chances.

  If Burn is the hard target and Wolf is the impossible target, then Fitz is the easy target. He spent most of the last class of the day sleeping as he always does - his blonde head on his desk and his arms as his pillow. Mr. Blackthorn underestimated Fitz's apathy - I was pretty sure a few wrong answers and me asking him to tutor me wouldn't be enough. I had to make it convincing. I had to take it one step further. Mr. Brant's history class was my favorite, and Mr. Brant was my favorite - dry, witty, yet serious. And now I had to let him down.

  I raised my hand to offer an answer.

  "Elizabeth I," I said proudly. Mr. Brant furrowed his brows.

  "I'm sorry, Beatrix, but that isn't the answer I'm looking for. In fact, that's two centuries too late. She wasn't even close to this time period."

  A clump of shame started burning in my stomach, my cheeks heating. It's one thing to not be paying attention like the other day, but getting an answer wrong? Wrong answers weren't my thing, and the whole class turned to look at me. They knew that. Whispers went around the room. Laughter. Fitz lifted his head off the desk to look at me, his eyes not in the least bit sleepy. Bewilderment lingered in them, and I caught his gaze only for a moment before looking away.

  Mr. Brant changed the subject eventually, but the damage was done. The fake damage. Or so I thought, until Mr. Brant asked me to stay behind after class. Fitz was the last one to leave, and his steps were so slow and deliberate I could swear he was doing it on purpose.

  Mr. Brant waited until everyone had filtered out before turning to me.

  "How's everything with you lately, Beatrix?" He asked. I looked at my feet, unable to meet his eyes.

  "Fine."

  "You seem distracted, lately. Is there anything you don't understand in the material? I can help clarify -"

  "It's not that -" I blurted. "I'm just - tired. That's all."

  He gazed at me, neither judging nor suspicious. "Alright. I hope you rest up soon. We need your bright brain in this class - otherwise, who will answer all my questions? I'd be talking to a silent room."

  I laughed a little, and said goodbye to him. I had a hunch Fitz was waiting for me outside the room, so when my name was called I was ready for it. Sure enough, Fitz caught up with me in the hall.

  "There you are, scholarshipper."

  "I thought I told you to stay away," I grumbled. I couldn't become friendly with him all of a sudden, not after my outburst the other morning. If I did, he'd be suspicious. He's smart, but not Wolf-wary.

  He smiled. "Let's just say I can't resist a sob-story. You haven't been on your game. You're slipping up. And I find that irresistibly tragic."

  "I can take care of myself, thanks," I snorted.

  "Oh, I know you can take care of yourself. But how will you find time for that when you're too busy taking care of everybody else, is my question."

  "What?"

  "Oh, c’mon, don't play dumb. Eric. And then that big, hard-steroid-popping freshman. You stood up for both of them. Naively, of course. But you still did it. You put yourself right in the middle of Wolf's warpath for them. You're either brave, or stupid. Or both."

  "Steroids?" I whispered. Fitz looked at me like I was a tiny child learning what colors were for th
e first time.

  "Duh. Why do you think Wolf gave him a red card? Wolf wants him to stop. The kid's on his swim-team. Steroids can destroy your body. Wolf knows that. That freshman doesn't. He keeps popping them in the hopes he can impress his jockhead dad, or some nonsense."

  I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. "That's why Wolf harassed him?"

  Fitz laughed again. "That's how it works. Do something stupid and slash or illegal in this school, and Wolf threatens you to stop. And if you don't, you're gone. Simple as that."

  "And Eric? What did he do?"

  "Got caught trying to put date-rape drugs in a girl's drink at a house party a month ago."

  "Wait, how does Wolf know that?"

  "Everyone knows it," Fitz yawned. "Wolf just takes the time to make sure it's true. Asks around, does his research. And when he has evidence, when he's sure, he issues a red-card. That's what it means. 'We have dirt on you that could ruin your life here at Lakecrest, so you better stop'."

  I suddenly felt sick. Eric, the guy I defended first, the timid, scared guy. He'd tried to date-rape drug someone's drink? And I stood up for him?

  My legs felt wobbly, so I scrabbled for a nearby bench and put my head in my hands. I heard Fitz sit with me. My head shot up and I glared at him.

  "You aren't just shitting me, right? To make Wolf look good or something? This is all actually true?"

  Fitz put a Boy Scout sign up. "On what's left of my sullied honor, scholarshipper, it's true. If you don't believe me, you can ask anyone in this school."

  "No one in this school talks to me. Except you. And Burn. Wolf shoots me a nastier-than-the-back-of-the-toilet-glare sometimes, and that's exciting."

  "Yeah, he does that."

  "So Mark Gerund," I swallowed. "Was he a similar case?"

  Fitz shrugged. "No. That was more...personal. For Wolf, anyway."

  "But Wolf drove him out. He had your Dad kick him out -"

  "Oh, no," Fitz laughed. "Trust me, Mark left on his own. It's just the fact he got into a fight with Wolf the day before he dropped out that makes people think that Wolf had something to do with it."