This is a disaster, one I can’t step away from even if I want to…which I do, but I’m good and stuck. What’s that old saying? If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em? I might as well jump into the mudhole they’re making and wallow around with them.
Resigned to my fate, I step onto the X.
Wyatt jogs back in with a coiled water hose hanging heavily in his arms. The boom when he drops it shakes the floor. They hook it up to a specialized spout, and then Grandpa, his feet planted wide, the hose tucked under his right armpit, shoots a stream hard enough to peel paint along the ground.
“Don’t want the floor to catch fire.” He cranks the water off and motions Wyatt forward.
Wyatt shoves on his masked helmet, and immediately goes into Darth Vader mode. I roll my eyes and shake my head. Why do I feel like I’m in a Jackass movie waiting for the stupid to drop?
“Okay, son.” Grandpa grips the hose tight. “Light up.”
When I’m not on an emotional joyride, calling forth the flames takes a bit more concentration. I hold out my hand and visualize the fire crawling through me and to my palm. A few seconds later, the fireball pops to life, flickering against my skin, tickling me where it would burn someone else.
“Cute,” Wyatt’s muffled voice says from behind the fireman’s mask. “Can you manage something a little more threatening?”
When the fire is alive, it does something to me. It heats up my blood, like I’ve just won a fistfight and I need to cool down. I want to let all the heat out as fast as possible. I need to let it out.
The flickering orb grows until it’s nearly the size of a basketball. I take aim and pitch it toward Wyatt. It bursts against his torso, sending him flying backward. He lands butt-first on the ground and skids until he hits the wall.
The hose drops from Grandpa’s armpit as he takes a step forward. “Wyatt! You okay?”
Wyatt’s helmeted head shakes as if he’s rattling his brains back into working order, and a string of curses fly.
Grandpa snorts and then mutters, “He’s okay.”
Fifteen minutes later, we’ve stacked some hay bales behind Wyatt, and thoroughly wet them down. “It’ll still hurt like hell,” Grandpa says to Wyatt, “but you shouldn’t break anything. You good to go?”
“I’m game. Let’s do this.”
Adrenaline junkie. That’s got to be his excuse. Who else would do something this stupid? I position myself back on the X, and when everyone is ready, I call the flame to my hand. At first it tickles, like a feather. The little ball is a friendly light, playful and easy to control.
Grandpa shifts the hose higher. “Let ’er rip, Dylan.”
“This isn’t a good idea,” I say one last time. I don’t know why I bother; he’s not listening.
As if I need encouragement, Wyatt starts calling me names that would make a prison guard blush. Usually being taunted never bothered me, but since I’ve gotten back from Teag, it doesn’t take much to stir the heat. I narrow my gaze and let the fire engulf me.
It’s strange, the way it crawls up my skin like a snake curling around a branch until it’s stretched along the limb waiting to strike. It flickers in front of my eyes, and everything I see is bathed in a warm glow. That glow grows until it burns against my heart.
My lashes wipe the flames away for a second and then they pop back, dancing wildly. Sharp, brutal images flash in my mind. I don’t recognize them as my own. I grit my teeth. My heart pounds. Anger floods my gut and the fire brightens.
Water strikes my feet. A sharp sizzle sounds as the flames lick at the water, turning it into steam. I see Wyatt lumber forward in his suit. I can’t hear what he’s saying; only the seductive hiss of fire is in my ears…and it wants to be free.
Wyatt tosses one of those silver fireproof blankets over me. I flare, turning the blanket into ash. As the gray flakes spiral away, I see flames skittering overhead and Grandpa chasing them with water. No matter what he does, the fire crawls along the ground and ripples up the walls. The hay bales behind Wyatt smoke. Soon flames finger their way through the feed.
A hacking cough erupts from Grandpa as the thick, dark smoke builds, curling upward as it presses down. Wyatt pushes him toward the door and takes up the hose. He blasts me with water, thinking he can put out the flames. At first it seems to work. The flames recede. Steam rushes into the air, building a wall around me. For a second I remember who I am, but the fire is insistent and flashes along my skin again. “Get out!” I cry before it engulfs me completely.
Wyatt sprays me again. This time the fire refuses to die. All around us the building has become a living beast of flame. He tosses the hose down and runs for the door. I can feel the power rushing into my body, the fire curling back on itself like a lung filling with air. There’s no way I can stop it. Suddenly, my body arches. Fire bursts from me, rocking the building, tearing it from its foundation and blasting the structure into the air. The power of the explosion rockets the debris high into the sky before it whizzes to the ground like fiery missiles.
When the smoke clears, I’m no longer burning. I’m standing on a ragged piece of charred wood, but not for long. Gravity shifts, and I fall to my knees. My head spins, and as my vision tunnels, I see Grandpa and Wyatt rush toward me.
“You’re okay,” I manage to say, and then I tip forward as the world goes black.
Trust Is a Fragile Thing
The haze sucks me into a dream, something I’ve tried to avoid since the disturbing ones I had before I was released from the hospital. I’m standing in a darkly lit room. The faint shadow of a low bed stretches out near one wall. Closer to me is a small rickety table with basin and pitcher. The stone walls are slick. Water drips. The colors, all grays and browns and blacks, blink dully in the dim light. I hear the flutter of wings, and I whip around. “Who’s there?”
Nothing comes forward. My dreams always carry a sliver of fuzzy truth, and I struggle to find what’s real and what isn’t. The room shudders, as if the walls are taking a deep breath.
It’s odd for me to be alone in a dream. I take a step forward, and immediately get jerked to a stop. Chains fold over my chest, drag to the floor, wrap around my ankles, and slither off into the darkened corners. I shrug, feeling their weight pressing down on me.
I don’t know what they’re made of. Not iron. Whatever it is, the metal has its own power. Keeping me still. Weighing me down. Depressing me in a way that makes me want to curl up and never move again.
I fight the feeling and struggle to be free. The chains cut into my skin.
“The more you fight, the tighter they become,” sounds a deep voice.
I twirl around, and from out of the darkness emerges the man who haunted my dreams when I was in the hospital. Like before, his clothes are tattered, his hair shaggy. Inky crescents mar the skin beneath his eyes. The starved line to his jaw makes hunger gnaw at my own belly.
“Dylan. Do you know who I am?”
Only because Kera told me. “The Lost King.”
Baun. My father. Though I don’t feel any familial warmth toward him.
“Very good.” His lips tilt into a half smile, though his eyes remain dull. “I know all about you.”
Something isn’t right. My skin itches and my head feels soft. I have to concentrate in order to understand everything he’s saying.
His own chains clatter as he moves closer. “About now, you should be feeling the strain of your added powers.”