Page 126 of Ink and Ashes
He tsks. “That’s a loaded question.” He stares down at me while I look up at him, waiting for more. After a beat, he adds, “This town is the reason my family is dead. I wanted to give them a taste of what it feels like to lose everything.”
I shake my head. “They tried to help you. What happened that night was a tragedy, but it wasn’t their fault.”
“It was!” he shouts, then he repeats himself calmly. “It was. They didn’t save my family, then they abandoned me, leaving me to fend for myself. They’re the reason that my family is dead. That I became who I am.”
Nausea builds in my stomach at his words, my ears starting to ring.
“And this is gonna be their fault too.”
Before I have a chance to say anything more, he leans down, getting in my face. I flinch, not wanting this man anywhere nearme, but his hand darts out, gripping me by the chin and tilting my head up to face him.
“You know, Rothwell, I spent a long time blaming myself for that night. I’m the one who forgot to blow out the candles before I left for my friend’s, so when it comes down to it, it’s my fault the fire started.”
My eyes widen at his admission. I hadn’t realized he was the one responsible for that.
“But the further away from here I got, the more that blame shifted to the people whose job it was to protect them,” he continues. “I was only fifteen, and it was an accident. But what this town did…that wasn’t. They weren’t fast enough, and they gave up too easily. They were careless.”
Welland rises to his feet. “I’m glad about it now. It’s because of that blame that I learned everything I could about fire after I got shipped out of Ember Grove. I needed something to help me deal with the grief of having my whole world ripped from me with a single spark, and becoming a firefighter was it.”
My head spins from the fumes, fear and guilt conflicting with each other as I listen to Welland speak. Considering where I currently am, I can’t find it in me to feel bad for the man standing above me.
But I do feel bad for the fifteen-year-old version of him.
“I vowed to myself that I would be better than the people here, that I’d never let anything like what happened to my family happen again.”
“But you didn’t do that,” I argue. “Instead, youmadeit happen.”
He smirks. “That’s where you’re wrong. At first, I didn’t. It wasn’t until the fifth anniversary of that night that I decided to come back here. When I did, I lost control and set one. And after that first time, the urge only grew stronger.
“I spent years perfecting my craft, then once I did, I faked my death so I could continue on without people figuring out who I am. I knew if I set fires here all the time I would get caught, so I came back every five years—enough to satiate me but notenough to alarm anyone. In between, I stuck close to wherever I was at the time. It was easy enough to do. As soon as someone started to get suspicious, I’d just move onto the next town.”
I swallow, wincing over the burning in my throat. “What happened ten years ago that made you return?”
He pauses, assessing me. After a beat, he says, “My plan was always to come back. By then it had been twenty years, and I felt confident no one would recognize me, and that I could control myself well enough to continue flying under the radar.”
“Until you killed Ellie,” I fill in for him.
His jaw flexes. “I’ll admit, Ellie’s death was an accident. Until then, I’d always stuck with contained locations or wildfires because it was easier to predict. That one was a risk, and the fire got out of my control. I didn’t mean for anyone to die.”
He blows out a breath, walking back and forth in front of me. “The church was a different story. I knew you were closing in on me, so I needed to do something to throw you off my trail. I was hoping it’d be Caldwell, but Sharpe would’ve been good too, since I knew you had suspicions about him. It wasn’t supposed to be Finnegan. He just had to be a hero.”
My stomach roils at his admission—at knowing Colson was his initial target. But I try not to show my fear as I keep him talking.
“What changed this year?”
He turns to face me, a wicked grin growing on his lips. “You did.”
The way he says that causes my skin to itch.
“In April, I set a few bigger wildfires, like I have for the past ten years. No one batted an eye at the increase because all thing’s considered, it wasn’t that extreme. Normally, a few at the beginning of the season is enough for me, but then you started sniffing around. And when I realized you weren’t giving up no matter how much the town pushed you away, I decided to make it into a game.”
He leans over me, and I force myself not to recoil.
“Looks like I won,” he adds, right as a crash sounds from above us—like something falling. The flames upstairs are growing,and the smoke is getting thicker.
Welland’s body language shifts, the noise letting him know that he’s running out of time.
“No,” I rasp, my jaw clenched tight. “You lose.”
