He thinks again of the women. The sight of that fifth body, her eyes on him, in the marsh.The woman from the parking lot, holding out the photograph, how he couldn’t trust her to understand. The feeling that he needs to do something crests in him like a wave. He pulls a towel from the rack and dips a corner of it in the flame, his anger glinting, goading him on. He tells himself, as it catches, that there is still plenty of time to make it stop if he wants to—this could be the night he finally gets caught. He runs a finger through it again and the heat, the pain, feels good. His mind fills with one thought: More.

The flames lick along the material, more smoke rising into the air. He waits for the moment to tip, for his sense of wonder to slide into fear, but he doesn’t feel afraid. It’s both exciting and soothing to watch the flame eat away at the cloth, to silence his mind. Leave behind his worry about the man with the gold tooth, the cops, the people at work, the women and the flies. He drops another towel onto the ground.

He starts to feel the heat build up and expects that, at any moment, a fire alarm will flash, spray water all over the floor; the cops will come and twist his arms behind his back. But nothing happens. He thinks of the things he sees at night when he cannot sleep, the memories he has of the red-haired girl, her mouth open in terror when she saw him. For a moment a new thought flashes through him. He could step into the heat, feel all of his fear, his anger, burn away, turn to smoke, dissolve into the air.

Instead, he pulls a small pillow off of the bed, feeds it to the flames, empties one of the jars to watch the chemicals spark. He is surprised when the fire catches the base of a cabinet, when it starts to burn the edge of the wood. His stomach is flip-flopping, and there is something like promise in the way the flame continues to build. The smoke is thickening and he coughs, smiling, eyes burning. The fire feels like a presence now. Its longing, its desire, is familiar. Its language one he knows well: Fury, greed. More more more.

When the smoke starts to make him dizzy, he reaches for the door handle, the metal warm, pulls it open. He hears the fire respond to the fresh oxygen with a surge of heat and light. He looks up at the cameras in the hall, and for a second, he feels sorry that the blonde girl turned them off. He wants them to see him. Wants there to be witnesses to the things that churn and burn inside him. A witness to the one thing he might have done right.

CLARA