Torch (Take It Off) by Cambria Hebert

break. I’m tired.”
     
    “Me too,” I said, dropping my attitude.
     
    After he settled behind the wheel, he lifted a pink drink in a clear cup out of the cup holder in the center console. I hadn’t even noticed it was there. He extended it to me and I took it.
     
    “What’s this?”
     
    “A strawberry smoothie. I figured your throat is probably sore.”
     
    It was sore. And it felt very dry. I took a sip of the drink and sighed as the fruity sweetness exploded on my tongue. It’s thick and smooth texture slid down my throat with ease. “Thank you,” I told him, the words falling flat to my own ears. They just didn’t seem to be enough for everything he’d done for me.
     
    He motioned to a white paper sack on the seat beside him and said, “I got you a blueberry muffin, too.”
     
    “You didn’t get anything?”
     
    “I already ate it.”
     
    I sipped the smoothie while he drove, my body feeling boneless against the seat. I was so incredibly tired. The adrenaline that surged through me earlier that night had long ago been used, and it left me feeling drained and empty.
     
     “The medics said you looked okay,” Holt said, watching me out of the corner of his eye.
     
    I nodded. “I’m fine.”
     
    He lapsed into silence and we said nothing else until we were inside his house and he was handing me a towel for my shower.
     
    “Your hand,” I said, noting the raw-looking scrapes and cuts on his knuckles and fingers.
     
    Flashbacks of him punching in the broken window at the motel rushed my brain. I gasped, and the towel in my hand fell to the ground and covered my feet. “Where else are you hurt?”
     
    He shook his head. “I’m not.”
     
    I grabbed his hand and brought it back up, studying the damage done to his skin. Lightly, I traced my finger along the edge of one of the more jagged cuts. “They need bandaged,” I murmured.
     
    He shook his head. “Bandaging cuts like these on a hand is practically useless. The bandages would just fall off.”
     
    “I don’t know what to say.” My voice was raspy.
     
    “You don’t have to say anything. The medics already cleaned and took care of these.”
     
    “No,” I said, still holding on to his hand. “I don’t know how to thank you for saving my life. Again.”
     
    “Stop thanking me,” he ground out.
     
    “I have to,” I said, looking straight into his eyes. “If you hadn’t been there…” My sentence trailed away. We both knew what would’ve happened.
     
    “But I was,” he said softly.
     
    “About that…” I began, wetting my lips. “Why were you there?”
     
    “I needed to talk to you about something.”
     
    “What?”
     
    He withdrew his hand, reaching into the back pocket of his jeans and pulling out a folded piece of paper. “About this.”
     
    It was a plain white piece of paper, the kind that anyone would use in a printer. I unfolded it, noticing there was some kind of writing on the inside. When I got to the last fold, I glanced up at Holt who was wearing a very grim expression. Clearly, whatever this was wasn’t good.
     
    I pulled it open and stared down, my brain not really comprehending what it saw. I had to read the line over three times before I really got what it was saying.
     
    My stomach clenched.
     
    My hands trembled slightly.
     
    You should have let her die.
     
    “Where did you get this?” I finally asked.
     
    “It was on my truck when I left work earlier tonight.”
     
    The paper fluttered to the floor slowly, joining the towel by my feet. “So you got this before the fire tonight?”
     
    “Yes. It’s the reason I came looking for you.”
     
    “You didn’t say that.”
     
    “I figured you were dealing with enough at the moment.”
     
    “Did you tell the police?”
     
    He shook his head slowly.
     
    “But why?”
     
    “I wanted to talk to you first. See if you knew what it meant.”
     
    “It means someone wants me dead!” I shouted. My voice seemed to echo