Hi lovies! Sorry this one is late! I was in florida for the week and never got a chance to update! Here you guys go! Don't forget to favorite and follow and give this a review. It helps a lot! Thanks lovies!

~Alice

Chapter 3: Burn

Boney arms wrap around my neck and back. Hair crusted with tears and dry vomit brush against my cheek. The frail girl held me tightly. She must have been so confused. Probably scared. This has happened before. Multiple times actually. Visions of fire and my late mother engulf my mind. For an instant my entire world goes black. Then, I'm forced to watch a movie that paralyzes my body. It seems to be getting worse. Besides all the horror and pain the movie fills me with, one emotion stands high above all. Guilt. The guilt of a burden I know I must carry. The fire was an accident. That, at least, was written in the police reports. But I know that my mothers death is my fault. I am guilty. It was I who started a fire that killed my mother. That is on my shoulders and my punishment is to relive that day in my mind. Whatever "movie" I watch, it always ends the same way. It ends with my mother screaming at me for causing her death. Then she is engulfed in a mouth of flames.

"What was that?" Lucy asks. Her eyes are staring directly into mine. Her soft hand lies on my cheek, the other is squeezing my hand. Somehow, in all the craziness, we had ended up on the floor. I was out of breath. Breathing rapidly and heart pounding. I try to look away. She keeps her hand on my cheek refusing to let me turn my head. "Nat. Please. What was that?" Her voice is hypnotizing to me. Something about this girl makes me feel so safe. She makes me want to tell her everything.

"That, Ms. Heartfilia, is the way I repent my sins." I say finally breathing normally.

"Sins?" She asks. She brings her hand down and puts it in her lap.

"I am a sinful man." I say. "When I was 14, I was diagnosed with PTSD. That is how I repent." Her eyes become wide. She was realizing what that meant. That meant I got no treatment for my disorder. I was given meds but I never took them. I was taken to therapy but refused to speak. "That is how I ask my mother and God to forgive me." She looks at me. No expression on her gentle face.

"Tell me the story of your sins." She says. She was serious. Looking me with confidence and empathy.

"You can't help me." I say. "No one can. I've done this on my own and will continue to do this alone." My anger begins to build. The nerve of this chick. Didn't she move here like 2 minutes ago. Now she thinks she knows me.

"Who said I want to help you?" She asks. That one caught me off guard. My anger retreats and I become embarrassed. "I want to hear your story. That's not me wanting to help you. That's me hoping... Well hoping you'll help me."

"How can my story help you?" I snap. "I'm not your personal diary and my past is my business. Gimme one good reason why I should tell you my story." She slowly rises to her feet. The sunrise peeking through the closed window shades reflected off Lucy's pasty white skin. She looks down at me. We stare at each other for a moment until she begins to move. Her hands reach down to the bottom of her shirt and she slowly takes it off. A wave of heat fills my body. The hell was she doing? My face was bright red but I kept eye contact with her. She drops her shirt on the floor. She stands there with a white lacy bra on. She had an amazing figure. Skinny and a large chest. But the beauty of her body was distracted by something. Scars. Her scars were all over her body. Up and down her arms. Around her boney torso and on her sides climbing up her side. She was incredibly skinny too. Her ribs were visible like someone took skin and tightly wrapped it around a skeleton. Her collar bone stuck out. There wasn't an ounce of fat on her. But there seemed to me not one bare piece of skin. I look up and down her body. Then I see the keys. These keys were beautiful. Gold and silver. She undos them from her waist and hands them to me. I hold them in my hands.

"Each key represents one of my personalities." She says. "Each key is a blade now. My personalities use the blades to cut me." She said it so matter of factly it was scary. I look at each key. Each one sharper then the next. It was insane. I hold one of the keys blade up. I gently place a finger on the tip.

"Ow crap." I say quietly dropping the keys. My finger had started bleeding. I bring my finger to my lips and start sucking on it. The blood left a salty taste in my mouth. Lucy picks up the keys and gently ties them to her jeans. I hand Lucy her shirt that was still on the floor. She takes it from me and puts it on.

"Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine." She says sitting. I sigh. She had won. She knew if I had seen her scars I would want to know her story.

"It was about 3am when it happened." I say. "I was trying to light a candle that my mom liked. It smelled like a minty vanilla. I loved it's smell. I took a box of matches from the kitchen cabinet to light it. I had seen my parents light a match over a hundred times. How was this supposed to be different?" My voice becomes tight. There's a lump in my throat. "I opened the box and took out a match. I flicked about three before I actually lit one." I clench my fists anger building up in my chest. "One of the problems that started it was the matches that didn't light... I just threw them on the carpet. They started burning it. Then I finally lit it. I lit the candle and the smell started to fill my nose. I dropped the match (that was on fire) on my foot." I took off my shoe and sock to show Luce the burn on my foot. "I screamed and dropped the candle. Everything happened so fast after that. Glass shattered, the fire just spread. The next thing I knew was my dad grabbed me and the rest is kind of blurred. I remember is staring at my apartment building just engulfed in a pit of flames. I remember some firefighters talking about a women who was trapped in her room and was severely burned. The fire went out and they started looking for corpses or survivors. There were 4 bodies. The last one they found was my mom. Her body was all burned and just.." My voice is cut off. Tears stream down my face. I start breathing in and out trying to relax. I look into Lucy's beautiful eyes. She shakes her head as if to say "You don't have to continue".

"Well." I sniff, wiping my eyes and nose. "That's my story. What's yours?"

"Well, a deals a deal." She says smiling softly. "It all started when I was 12." She begins.