Page 101 of Playing with Fire

And still, Felix stood there. Unmoving. Unbothered. Watching me burn.

“This is what he felt,” he said, voice calm, too calm, like we were just talking across a table. “My father. When you locked him in and lit the match.” His eyes found mine through the smoke. “He begged. I wonder if you will.”

I didn’t answer. Didn’t give him that.

But my pulse was pounding. Fast and heavy. Every exit was fire or rubble. The heat was rising by the second.

Felix took a step forward on the buckling catwalk. Flames licked at the steel behind him.“You took everything from me, Xavier. And now I return the favor.”

Fire roared all around me, climbing the walls. Smoke filled the air, thick and black, choking the oxygen from the room. The heat was unbearable, searing my skin through my clothes, making my lungs burn with each desperate breath.

And Felix watched it all from his perch above, face illuminated by the hellish glow of his creation.

"Ironic, isn't it?" he called, voice barely audible over the roaring flames. "The great Xavier Laskin, consumed by his own element."

The catwalk where Felix stood was beginning to warp, metal groaning as the intense heat compromised its structural integrity. I backed away from a falling beam, eyes never leaving his silhouette through the thickening smoke.

"Where's Algerone?" I shouted, dropping lower to find what little breathable air remained near the floor.

Felix's laugh echoed, hollow and manic, above the inferno's roar. Something in his expression shifted—the calculated mask slipping to reveal something wilder, more unhinged.

"Does it fucking matter now?" he called back, gesturing to the flames consuming everything around us. "We're both going to burn in here. Just like he did."

A deafening crack split the air. The catwalk beneath Felix suddenly trembled, metal twisting and groaning as the rivets began to fail under the extreme heat.

I expected panic, an attempt to escape. Instead, Felix smiled.

In one fluid motion, he vaulted over the railing, dropping the fifteen feet to the factory floor with surprising agility. He landed in a crouch, rising slowly as flames danced around him, casting his shadow in monstrous proportions against the far wall.

"I've spent years planning this moment," he said, pulling a matte black handgun from his hoodie pocket as he stalked toward me. "Studying you. Learning how you hunt. How you think." The weapon gleamed in the firelight. "And now it ends exactly as it began: with fire and pain and inescapable justice."

A coughing fit doubled me over as smoke seared my lungs. Through streaming eyes, I saw Felix pull something from his pocket—an oxygen mask. He slipped it over his face, taking a deep breath before shouting over the roar of the inferno.

"Did he beg?" His voice was muffled behind the mask, but the hatred came through clearly. "At the end, did my father beg?"

I wiped watering eyes with the back of my hand, fighting to stay upright as another wave of dizziness hit. The lack of oxygen was becoming critical.

"Yes," I managed between gasps.

Felix ripped the mask away from his face, a terrible smile spreading. He didn't seem to need words anymore. his eyes said everything. The same question burned in them: Would I beg too?

Our gazes locked through the thickening smoke.

I spat blood onto the burning floor between us and drew my gun.

Thevehiclehummedaroundme, its engine a steady counterpoint to my racing heart. From my position in the rear passenger seat, I had a clear view of the Mill through night-vision binoculars. A hulking monstrosity of rusted steel and broken windows, silhouetted against clouds pregnant with an approaching storm. Somewhere inside that crumbling industrial cathedral, Xavier was facing Felix Burns alone.

And I could do nothing but watch.

My stomach twisted into a painful knot, acid burning up my throat as I struggled to maintain my composure. Last night's desperate lovemaking flashed through my mind. Xavier directing every movement of my body as I entered him, his voice low and commanding in my ear as he instructed me exactly how to please him. The way his fingers had dug into my hips, controlling my pace, my depth, demanding my complete submission even as I physically topped him.

I checked my equipment for the twelfth time in as many minutes. Communications array. Satellite uplink. Thermal imaging interface. Everything operational, everything perfect. And utterly useless with Xavier's comm link suddenly dead.

"Still nothing?" Commander Reid asked from the driver's seat, eyes never leaving the mill's main entrance.

"No," I replied, fighting to keep my voice professional despite the panic clawing at my throat. "Signal dropped exactly seven minutes ago. Complete blackout."

"Jammers," Reid concluded, lips thinning into a grim line. "Burns is isolating him."

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