Die Another Day
3
…
Silence rings throughout the room. Mello's breathing hitches, and he tenses, awaiting the pain. We stay that way for at least a half a minute, afraid to move, afraid to breathe. Finally, I let him go, and fall backwards onto the bed, my body shaking with laughter. I drop the gun to the floor, and laugh so hard that tears well in the corners of my eyes. Mello stares at me in shock, rubbing his wrists where I had pinned them together.
"Fucking psychopath…" he mutters, retrieving his gun and stashing it in his pants. Once I'm semi-calm again, he launches himself at me and pushes me against the wall by my shirt collar.
"You think that's funny, do you?" he yells, his voice still high pitched from the adrenaline. I smirk.
"Tch. Yeah."
He gets closer, his face so close to mine that I can see exactly where each tongue of flame licked at his face. He grits his teeth, and growls at me.
"Never. Fucking. Do that. Again." I reach down, and gently pull the gun from his crotch. I waggle it in his face tauntingly.
"Got your gun, Mello! What-cha gonna do? Hmmm?"
He swipes a leg behind my knees, and I lose my balance. Spinning on his hands, he brings one steel toed boot up under my chin as I fall, and my head slams in to the wall. Stars erupt in my vision. I spit out blood and squished roach from his shoe, and laugh as my cigarette arcs through the air and lands on his shoulder, igniting his fur lined hood.
"Wow, Mello, you're on fire."
"Stop playing games with me, Matt."
I point at his hood with the barrel of the gun, and smirk.
"Shit!" He scrambles to rid himself of the coat, and flings it onto the bed, which also catches fire.
"Yes, you are a smart one, aren't you?" I say with a sickly sweet smile. He drags me up from the floor, and shoves me out the window.
"Just get in the fucking hummer." He snarls, climbing out the window after me. I cling to the railing, trying to see the fire as it spreads. The lamp falls, and sparks fly from where it landed. A string of fire ignites on the other side of the room, winding across the wall and wrapping around the base of the lamp. It looks like…some sort of flaming invisible string…? I stare deeper into the inferno as it eats away the paint on the walls. A dark shape peers into the door, and I recognize it as the maid. But instead of screaming, or running for water, she stares directly at me.
And smiles.
The shock wave catches me, just as the heat does. I lose my grip on the railing, and find myself flying through two stories worth of flaming air. I land flat on my back, and the wind is completely knocked out of me. I gasp for air, and my arm is blistering with pain, along with both my hands. I sit up, and yank the leather gloves off with my teeth as they melt to my skin. My arm is red and shiny with blood. It looks like Mello's face did. I look around frantically for Mello. A crater smolders in the side of the hotel, and a cactus shrivels away from the heat. Mello is standing on the back bumper of the hummer, breathing hard with panic. The front of the car is scorched and black, and the front tires are half-melted. The red dirt under the car is scorched as well. From the looks of it, the fire went completely around him, and he got stuck inside it. I, on the other hand…
"SHIT!!!" I yell, watching my skin bubble. "Those mother fucking…! Ah, shit Jesus!" dirt sticks to the melted skin, and my hands throb as I force myself into an upright position. Mello jumps down, and scrambles toward me through burning vegetation and rubble. It looks like I got hit by a burning chunk of building.
"What the fuck happened?!"
"It was the fucking maid…! She rigged the lamp to fall, and there was a fucking bomb under it!"
"Where is that bitch, I'll flay her alive." He flicked out a considerably sharp pocket knife.
"Gee, Mello, it's nice to know that you care." I said sarcastically, wincing from the pain in my arm. He looks at me in disdain.
"Not for you, you conceited shit. Look what she did to my car."
Figures, right? The fucking car is more important than my bleeding to death.
"Yeah, how am I going to get to the hospital?" I whined. He rolled his eyes.
"You realize that we are days away from an actual hospital, right? And, they'd blow you up even easier if you were there."
"Did you even bring first aid?"
"Guess what, Matt?"
"It just got blown up?"
"Obviously."
"Go cut me a seat belt from the car would you?"
"What the fuck? No."
I punched him in the face, and stole his knife while he was down. I tie the seatbelt around my arm as a tourniquet. I toss his knife back to him, and set off walking towards the rising sun. nothing to do now, but get the fuck away from the scene before the authorities show up. I get about fifty feet, before Mello pulls up next to me in a hotwired peeling primer-colored ford.
"Want a ride?"
Wow, nine am, and I've already almost killed my partner, gotten blown up, and stolen a car.
Today's going to be great.