Brick By Brick (Sequel)

Inferno

A soft slap to my face woke me up. I was pressed against a wall, my arms chained so high above me that my toes barely touched the floor. An unfamiliar man stood before me, watching me with wide, pained eyes.

Who...What...How did I even get here? I remember walking out of the precinct without anyone's notice. I was going to get lunch. To take a breath that wasn't borrowed from the members of my team. I headed toward the bistro down the street. Then...then nothing.

"Who are you?" I asked. He didn't answer. Tilting his head ever so slightly, he waited for me to ask the right question. "Who sent you?"

"Stop investigating or He'll find you," he offered as an answer. We both knew who he was talking about. It's been a few days. We've found a few things. Not much, but apparently He didn't like it.

"Why is he doing this? Why the murder in my old house?"

"To torture you from a distance. To remind you that He's still here." He took a breath. Then he went off script. It was almost as if a different voice wrestled through his cracked lips. "Don't let him win."

"I have to find-"

"DON'T," He yelled. His pained eyes clamped shut to hold in the feelings he wasn't allowed to have. "I have to do this, I'm sorry." He reached for something in his pocket.

"What's his name?"

"No one knows his name."

"What do you call him?"

His face twitched, conflicted. The object he pulled out of his pocket was a small zippo lighter. His thumb flicked it open, then closed, the small orange flame twitching unsteadily. He knew he shouldn't share the devil's secrets, but something in him was good. Deep in his heart burned the desire to help people, but his flame has been snuffed by the dark cloud he's been dragged into. Sinister actions by pulled puppet strings. The name came out as a whisper: "Dante."

Dante. A name that led me to a world I wish didn't exist. Dante's Inferno: A book about the world below ours. I thought I'd been in hell before, but I was wrong. Hell is just beginning.

"Where is he?"

"I can't tell you any more. I can't tell you!" He yelled, slamming his fists against the wall beside me.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry." I tried to let my voice soften the cracks in his skin. He was too conflicted to be a murderer, too kind to be a criminal. I couldn't help but wonder how the hell he became the devil's monkey. "Who are you?"

"It's not important who I am," he mumbled to the cement floor.

"It's important to me."

He gazed at me intently, like no one had ever called him important before. No one had ever cared. No one had ever made him waffles in the morning before school or thrown him a birthday party or taken him to the zoo on a sunny summer Saturday. He let me peer through iron bars to the jail cell he had locked himself in . Frightened, alone, convicted of a crime he was forced to commit. I blinked and he became the prison warden, fear replaced with fortitude. "I'm the one who makes sure everything is kept under control. I put out all the fires." He continued to flick the lighter open and closed, asking the soft clink of the metal to keep him focused on his mission.

"So you're the firefighter," I concluded. He twitched. I was close, but not correct. "The Fire Chief."

A split-second grin flickered in the light of the small flame he studied.

"You're the one who saves everyone. You're the good guy, I can see it in your eyes." He avoided my gaze but didn't turn away. "You don't have to follow Dante's orders. I can protect you, I promise."