Her hand twisted sharply back. The familiar scraping noise grinding against her ears. Her fingers twitched; the wait was less than moments, but they couldn't wait. Then the glow, the miniature sun flaring into existence in her hands, and she had made it, she had created it.
The first flicker.
She smiled.
"I can't do it."
Lighters had always been her magic. But there was something simple, so easy, so goddamn serene about using a stupid piece of wood and turning it into something that was wholly and completely hers. Besides, this was special. She couldn't ruin it with technology.
"No, seriously, I…I can't."
The little spark, her baby, it grew quick. Fire was smart, she thought. It caught on fast to her games. This one crackled, laughing, lapping at the mixture of dew and lighter fluid on the grass. It zipped up to the tree trunk and paused for a moment, as if asking for permission. She nodded idly, turning the match box over in her hand; the side of it was scraped with little gashes that marked her past triumphs. The doghouse next door. The old library, about to be demolished, at the university. Her mom's car. She frowned and her fingers relaxed, letting the cardboard fall softly into the dewy grass.
"Come on! I don't wanna!"
To which she'd replied, "Stop being such a fucking baby." She remembered that conversation, every fucking word. And it hurt so bad, thinking about it, but she couldn't just back down. Not when she was standing on his grave and watching that fire, her fire, work its way into the bark of the tree.
"It's because of me. It's because of m-me, and you're…you're just…"
Cold summer morning, imagine that, especially in Jersey. Chilly mornings like that were not when Flick…that is, Carly, when she'd gone by her given name…had liked to go for walks. But that day, much like this one, had been important. She was leaving her cage. Her home.
And Brian had come (of course, Brian had come!) and talked and she had told him, she had said…
Her eyes, dancing with reflected fire, turned back to the growing blaze, and the gas can rattled viciously against her leg as she moved forward. The fumes finally reached her nose; she spent the next minute or so attempting to hack up a lung, eyes watering, but only because of the smell. And through it all she could still see that gravestone, marking the ashes.
She had said, "You're just a kid, Bri. You don't get it. You're going to live the rest of your life in a stupid box, and you'll like it." She'd dug a hand into her jacket, into that hidden pocket, and emerged clenching something in a tight fist. She'd tossed the lighter at him; he caught it clumsily, a miracle in itself.
"Wreak some havoc, Brian," she'd told him with a grin. "Screw the world over before it can get to you. Make me proud, kid."
Life went on. People died, turned into ashes, and more were pumped out every day. But Brian wasn't supposed to die. He wasn't supposed to just…just flicker out like a match when it had done its job. He wasn't supposed to have doused their living room couch in lighter fluid, then gotten trapped in the blaze. And his ashes weren't supposed to be buried under his favorite tree in their backyard.
"I can't do it."
Her feet carried her away, and the horrible sound of her beat-up tennies sucking at the morning dew was enough to bring real tears to her eyes as her brother went up in a last blaze of glory and kerosene.