Scorch
She smelled the stench of burning flesh and wondered that she cared at all. The flames seared her palm, burning almost blue with intensity. Hungry for life, the flames stole up her arm, catching on the hem of her blouse, eating through the lawn fabric and the starch.
“Mina! Good God!” Jekyll burst into the room, ripping his jacket from his thin frame he tossed it over her arm as his hands desperately tried to smother the flames. “You could have-“
“Could have what?” Her caustic tone didn’t match the pain in her eyes, but he couldn’t see beyond the fear in his heart.
Inside, Hyde beat at the bars of his fleshy cage. {Out, Henry! Let me out!]
Jekyll dropped his smoldering coat to the floor and gently lifted her hand into the soft white light of the Nautilus. He watched as her skin began to heal, cell by cell, burnt flesh sloughing off her hand and falling, ashen to the floor.
“Mina…” his voice sounded thin and coarse to his ears. “… are you trying to kill me?”
She tried to ignore the heat building in her blood as Jekyll’s thumb traced over the disappearing burns. She doubted he was conscious of his actions, worry furrowing his pale brow.
“I doubt very much that Edward Hyde would allow me to do that. He’d wring my neck first.”
“No.. no…” Henry was trying to protest, but his heart wasn’t in it.
“Oh yes… he would.” She could feel the unfamiliar tickle of laughter building within her chest. “And Hyde would enjoy it. Every last gasping breath.”
Her own heart fell and Jekyll’s downcast gaze. “Mina, let me help you.”
She touched his chin with fingers, whole and healed, and lifted until he met her eyes with his own. “Jekyll, you do help. You make me smile.”
“Smile, Mina?” His confusion evident and worrisome.
“The way you treat me as though I were a proper English Miss. As though I could break with a touch.” She regarded his startled expression and drew her fingers up and over his sharp cheekbone. “I’m truly thankful, Jekyll.. more than you could know.”
He went up in flames, desire fanning his fever and shame, like a fuse burning toward an explosive end.
Hyde began to claw at his skin, as though he could somehow break through without the formula. For a second, as his skin startled to smolder with awareness, Jekyll thought it might be possible.
He stumbled back away from her, instantly missing the touch of her skin, but desperate to keep Mina at arm’s length… desperate for control anyway he could get it. As he backed out the door, his eyes seemed to plead with her for something.
Mina watched as he disappeared, her acute hearing focused on his every retreating step. Part of her wished that he had stayed, that he had unburdened himself to her as she so longed to do with him. She’d felt the flames rising within him, flames that burned within her as well. For now, they’d escaped the inferno, but you can’t keep away from the fire forever… even the most careful person will be scorched… eventually.
Word Count 531