Fire and Fantasy: A Limited Edition Collection of Urban and Epic Fantasy

by CK Dawn

  “Okay,” Noah said slowly, dragging out the word. “I…used to have the biggest crush on you in middle school.”

  I hardly had the time to process his words before my heart flipped inside my chest. I straightened up, immediately alert. I knew I had to say something back. I couldn’t just sit here like a mute fool. But I couldn’t find the words. “I—what—why… We hardly know each other.”

  Noah shrugged with a smile I could tell he was trying to hide. “I was thirteen. You were cute.”

  “Wow,” I said before I could even think of what to say. “I—I’m flattered?” The words came out sounding like a question.

  “I just remember this one time when I was at my locker and you were walking down the hall with your friends. You were standing in the middle between two other girls—”

  “Probably Liana and Christina,” I interrupted. Woops. I should have let him finish.

  Noah looked at me for a second and then locked his gaze across the room. “I just remember you laughing with them. You made some sort of witty comment. I don’t remember what it was anymore. But I just remember thinking that you looked so confident and that I might really enjoy your company.” He shrugged like it didn’t matter, but he still wouldn’t look at me.

  “You should have said something,” I told him softly after a brief pause.

  “Eh, it was just a little crush,” he said like it didn’t matter.

  It mattered to me. I was incredibly self-conscious in middle school and never imagined someone would have liked me back then. Guys never went after me. Sure, they fell at Liana’s feet but never mine. No guy really showed interest in me until high school, and they were never the type of guy I would be interested in anyway. Noah was another story. I maybe would have considered going out with him if he had said anything. Why didn’t he? And how many other guys out there had eyes for me and I never knew?

  “Your turn,” Noah said, pulling me from my thoughts.

  “My turn?”

  “To tell me a secret.” The blush had left his face for the most part, but I could still see the embarrassment written in the smile he was trying to hide.

  “I don’t really have any secrets.”

  “Right,” he said sarcastically with a nod.

  I was, of course, lying. I was still holding onto the secret of Tristan, but it didn’t seem like I could open up about that. And then there was the dream I had last night. But that wasn’t exactly a secret, was it? Was it really that big of a deal that I’d dreamt of kissing Noah? No, I told myself, but I still couldn’t tell him. If he once had feelings for me, what would happen if he thought I was starting to develop a crush on him, too? I couldn’t get involved, not when we were planning to head our separate ways after getting our magic back. Or were we? We hadn’t exactly discussed how long we’d hang out together.

  “Why’d you get booted out of Sea Haven?” Noah asked boldly.

  Crap. I shouldn’t have offered to share secrets. If I didn’t tell Noah about Tristan, then no one could hurt him if we got caught. He could plead his innocence. I couldn’t tell him, at least not until we knew we were in the clear.

  “A secret for a secret?” I asked with a raised brow.

  “That’s the way it works.”

  “Then I get to choose which secret to share.”

  I swallowed hard, contemplating what to share with him. His secret deserved a good one in return. The one about me breaking my mom’s vase when I was a kid and lying about it wasn’t good enough. It’s not like that was exactly a secret, anyway. I was ninety-five percent sure my mom knew I was lying and chose to ignore it. What else was worthy of rivaling his secret?

  “Okay, I’ve got one,” I said excitedly, straightening up. I immediately lowered my voice after realizing how loud my statement had come out. “When we were in middle school, I was the one who tied your shoes together during the first day of school assembly.”

  Noah’s jaw legitimately dropped. “You’re kidding me.”

  I shook my head and pressed my lips together, the blush returning to my cheeks. “I was late getting into the gym because I was in the bathroom. You were sitting on the end of the bleachers, and I noticed your shoes were untied. I snuck under the bleachers and tied them together. Honestly? I feel pretty bad about it now.”

  “You should,” he said harshly, but the look on his face told me he was only teasing. Noah glanced at the door and kept his voice low, speaking between gritted teeth. “I chipped a tooth because of you.”

  My hand instinctively shot over my mouth in shock as my eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”

  A lopsided smile that sent my heart flipping in my chest again stretched across Noah’s face. “Yeah, I am.”

  “You jerk,” I teased, tossing a pillow his way.

  He simply caught it and threw it back at me, but it missed and landed on the floor next to the bed. “I think I’m going to have to retract what I said before. You don’t deserve the crush I had on you.”

  “You can’t just take that back! It’s fact. You liked me.”

  “I shouldn’t have, knowing you were the one who sent me falling down the bleachers on my first day of eighth grade.” His words made it seem like he was angry at me, but his smile said he was having fun trying to make me feel guilty.

  “Whatever,” I laughed. “It’s still one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.”

  Noah blushed. He wouldn’t admit it, but I had a sneaking suspicion he agreed with me.

  Just then, the door creaked open. The instinct to hide fell over me so quickly that I ended up rolling off the bed and crashing to the floor.

  “You guys need to be quieter,” Liana scolded.

  Realizing it was only her, I let out a laugh and attempted to stifle it with my hand. I noticed Noah’s body convulsing in giggles as well, though his weren’t audible.

  “You’re lucky the rest of my family is in the kitchen,” Liana hissed, “because I can hear you two laughing from down the hall. You need to keep quiet. I’ll be back in a bit, and I don’t want to hear another peep out of either of you. If you get caught, we’re all dead.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Noah replied, sending me into another fit of laughter. I had to bury my face into the pillow next to me on the floor to keep from being heard.

  Liana turned and shut the door in a huff.

  “Sorry,” I whispered, peeking up from behind the bed.

  Noah and I both fell silent, and I crawled back onto the bed in disappointment. At the very least, the last few minutes had taken my mind off things. In the silence, I let my thoughts drift back to my magic. Glancing out the window, I noticed the sun had fallen low in the sky. It wouldn’t be too long now before darkness settled and we’d be on our way to getting our magic back.

  Twenty-Five

  It was just past midnight when we decided it was safe enough to begin sneaking around town. Noah and I decided to walk to City Hall because we could sneak around better without a vehicle, and we really didn’t want Liana’s parents’ vehicles to get involved anyway. Noah and I dressed in our darkest clothes to minimize the risk of being spotted.

  I stopped Liana when she began digging through her own dresser. “No,” I said with so much conviction that it surprised even me.

  Liana dropped the shirt she was holding back into her dresser and looked up at me.

  “You’re not coming,” I stated flatly.

  “Huh?” she asked quietly as to not alarm her family.

  “You’re not coming,” I hissed back. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t discussed this earlier. I thought it was just something we all silently agreed on. “I already got you involved earlier today, and I don’t want you involved any more. You’ve helped enough.”

  Liana’s face fell. “You don’t want my help?”

  My shoulders dropped. I didn’t mean it that way. “If we get caught… I just don’t want you to get hurt. It’s one thing for us to get caught. It’s another for you. You still have your magic, and they can ta
ke that away if they know you’re involved.” I paused. “We’ll be back shortly to drop off the keys. You’ll have your fun tomorrow returning them. But this…it’s more risky.”

  I could see Liana swallow hard in the dim room. As much as I knew she wanted to tag along, I think the idea of losing her magic frightened her. She couldn’t deny my insistence.

  “Okay,” she whispered back, her voice cracking.

  I crossed the few steps over to her and pulled her into a hug. She squeezed me back.

  “I’m really going to miss you,” I whispered into her ear.

  “Me, too. You’ll stay in touch, right?”

  I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, but it didn’t work. “I’ll try, but I think it’s best if I lay low at first. I don’t want to know what they’ll do if they find out I took my magic outside of Sea Haven.”

  Liana pulled away from me. “It’s a dumb rule anyway. They shouldn’t be allowed to do that to you.”

  This time when I swallowed, it helped a little bit. “I know. Bye, Liana.”

  “Bye, Bree. Bye, Noah,” she whispered back.

  Swinging my backpack over my shoulder, I turned to the window and crawled out, followed by Noah.

  “You ready?” I asked, turning back to him.

  He had his own bag strapped to his back and was struggling to fit through the window. Finally, he landed on solid ground and stood up straight. “Ready.”

  “Let’s do this.”

  Even though I’d stepped out of the window first, Noah ended up being the one to lead the way, taking alleys and dodging street lamps wherever we could. The closer we came to City Hall, the more nervous I became. Something’s going to go wrong. This isn’t going to work, the pessimist inside me repeated.

  No, I told myself. This has to work. I’m not leaving Sea Haven without my magic.

  It took me several blocks before I realized I was clenching my fists. If I did have my magic right now, the ocean waves nearby would be going mad. At least, I liked to think so. I didn’t actually have that kind of power. Noah didn’t notice when I pulled the vial of ocean water out from under my black shirt and gripped onto it as we zigzagged ourselves through the streets of Sea Haven. Though I knew I couldn’t influence the water inside, something about keeping it close to my heart left me with a sense of comfort.

  I let the vial fall back under the collar of my shirt. By the end of the night, I thought, I’ll be able to control that sea water again. Then all of this will be worth it.

  The nervous patter of my heart returned when I spotted City Hall ahead of us. Street lamps brightened the parking lot on the side of the building and at the front entrance, but the lights didn’t matter when the rest of the place was deserted. Noah and I rounded to the back of the building, making sure to stay in the shadows. We stopped at a metal door complete with a silver door knob.

  “Ready?” Noah turned toward me, wiggling his eyebrows and dangling the keys in front of his face.

  “Ready,” I agreed.

  When Noah turned back to the door and slipped one of the keys inside, a layer of confidence settled over me. This wasn’t so bad. I’d already snuck into someone’s house today, and I hadn’t been caught. I’d snuck into the pool and the gymnasium in high school, and I turned out fine then. Just because my magic was at stake didn’t mean this would be any different. We’d get in and out unnoticed.

  I glanced around at high places on the outer brick wall, into corners where I could, looking for any sign of security cameras. I had been right; in a town like Sea Haven where crime rates were nearly non-existent, nobody bothered with security cameras. I was almost surprised they locked the place up, but I guess that was because it was a public place and not somebody’s home. I didn’t know anyone who locked their houses.

  My gaze sprung back to Noah when I heard the sound of the back door creak open. Excitement sizzled in my bones. I was so close!

  Noah led the way into a dark hall.

  “I can’t see anything,” I whispered. Reaching out my hands, they met cool cinderblock walls. I used the walls to guide my way.

  “Me, either,” he whispered back. “Stay close.”

  Apparently I was too close because in the next step I took, my toes caught his heel.

  “Not that close,” he teased.

  “Sorry.” I reached out to rest one hand on his shoulder so I wouldn’t lose him—or bump into him again. His body was warm, inviting. I almost wanted to be closer to him. You should not be thinking that type of thing in a moment like this, I scolded myself.

  “Any idea where we’re going?”

  “Hold on.” Noah slowed, and I was glad I was touching him to feel it, otherwise I would have rammed right into him.

  The sound of Noah’s hand running over a solid surface reached my ears. Then I heard a click of another door, and suddenly, there was enough light to see into the hallway we were standing it. It wasn’t much, only light spilling into the next hall from open doorways that had windows leading out near the street lamps. Noah pulled the door open further so we could both pass through.

  Once we could see the shadows of the walls in front of us, I dropped my hand from Noah’s shoulder. It suddenly felt incredibly cold.

  “We need to find the stairs or an elevator,” I whispered his way. I didn’t know why I was whispering. I didn’t think anyone would be here at this time of night, but instinct told me I should whisper when sneaking around like this.

  “Yeah,” Noah agreed. “Where do we find one of those?”

  “Uh…” I glanced around. In the darkness, it was difficult to find my bearings. I tried to imagine where the door we’d come in would have led us. Most times when I’d been to City Hall, I’d only been down the hallway my father’s office was in.

  “I think the stairs might actually be the way we came,” I said.

  Noah twisted toward me, but I couldn’t read his expression in the dark. “You sure?”

  I bit my lip, though I didn’t think he could see that, either. “No. I never had to worry about leaving the main level whenever I visited. I think it is…it looks like…yeah.”

  The longer we stood in this hallway, the more I recognized my surroundings from the times I’d passed through the building to visit my father while he was at work. It wasn’t like I’d been into City Hall often, but I remembered one time when my father took me to show off my swimming trophy to his co-workers. It was just a dumb participation trophy for a kids’ fun swim when I was seven, but he’d walked me through almost every hall in the building so I could show off my “accomplishment.” Whatever. But at the very least, I remembered bits and pieces of the building enough to get my bearings.

  “Yeah,” I repeated. “I think the door we walked in led to the stairwell.”

  Noah turned and pushed past me back the way we came. I followed behind and reached for his shoulder again so I wouldn’t lose him. This time when we found our way to the pitch black hall, my fingers clamped around a railing on the opposite side of the hall instead of a wall.

  “They should really have some sort of emergency lighting in this stairwell or something,” I complained in a whisper.

  I could practically hear Noah’s eyes roll. “They should, but I bet no one comes down here during off-hours. Maybe they did and the bulb burnt out.”

  Thanks to the railing, I wasn’t surprised when we began to descend. I let go of Noah again, using the sounds of his feet against the stairs to guide me. The stairs hit a landing and then turned in the opposite direction. I kept my hand locked on the railing until I felt it end, indicating that I’d reached the bottom.

  Noah’s hands made that sound again, as if they were running along the wall in search of a door. When he found the handle, he opened it to an almost equally dark hall. This one, at least, had working lights. The main ceiling lights weren’t on, but there were a few dim lights set at the corner between the wall and the ceiling to just barely light the way.

  I hadn’t been into the basement of
City Hall before except for a few days ago when Carson Ray led me down here to steal my magic. Looking up and down the hall at all the dark wooden doors, each with their small window in the middle, made it look like an impossible labyrinth. Each door looked the same as the last. I could walk around down here for hours without realizing I’d passed the same door twice. Then I noticed the numbers on the doors. What had the numbers been when Carson had dragged me down here last time? I tried to remember, but I couldn’t. The numbers all jumbled together in my mind. Would I even recognize the door we needed?

  “Which way?” Noah asked, almost in desperation.

  I glanced up and down the hall. It stretched in both directions, each taking a turn at the end. I again tried to picture where we were at inside the building. Which room were we standing under right now? To our right was closest to the edge of the building, and I was pretty sure we wanted to head toward the middle of the building.

  “This way,” I said, nodding my head to our left.

  Noah walked in front of me, going the way I suggested without question. Before we reached the end of the hall, another hallway cut through to the right. That looked like our best bet to reaching the middle of the building.

  “Let’s try this,” I suggested.

  Noah stopped in his tracks and looked back at me. He seemed to accept that I had a better idea of what I was doing and let me lead the way this time. Sure, I could pretend I knew what I was doing, but I honestly had no idea.

  At the end of the hall, it split into two directions again. I was honestly starting to wonder if we’d find our way out of this maze. Looking to my left, I felt a sudden wave of déjà vu.