Through the Fire (Daughter of Fire Book 1)

by Michelle Irwin

  “Where do you think they are now?” I asked gently.

  Blowing out a breath heavily, he said, “I don’t know. I’ve tried tracking the GPS on their phones, but they must have changed them.”

  It didn’t surprise me that he had a way of tracking them—or that they’d easily been able to work around it. From the little I’d learned from Clay about the Rain, they were experts in tracking and evasion, in addition to murder.

  “Do they have a way of tracking you too?” I asked.

  “I got rid of my phone before I left the hotel, which means they can only use the normal methods. So long as we stay off the radar, avoid security camera feeds, and that sort of thing, we should be able to evade them.”

  Clay’s words reminded me that he’d chosen a life on the run with me over the security of his family. As much as I hated them for what they’d done to my father and what they’d tried to do to me, I hated that Clay had to turn his back on everything he knew for a meager existence in hiding. All for me.

  “I don’t regret my choice,” he assured me, stroking my hair again. “I know you think I’ve struggled with it, but I haven’t. It’s all new. The week we had back in Charlotte didn’t really prepare me the way I thought it had, but I couldn’t bear to be away from you.”

  “I know.” I kissed the spot over his heart.

  “They’d have hurt you if we’d stayed.”

  “I know.” I rested my head on his bare chest.

  “I love you, Evie.”

  Climbing over his body, I allowed the chain that now hung around my neck to fall against his chest as I leaned in to kiss him. “I know.”

  He wrapped his arms around my back and flipped us so that he was pinning me to the bed. Kissing my throat and chest, he tickled my sides until I squealed.

  “You love me too,” he said.

  “I know,” I giggled.

  His lips met mine and my laughter fell away. I was quickly becoming insatiable when it came to our time together. No matter how often we made love or how regularly he caressed me, it never seemed like enough, and we’d rarely left our hideaway.

  He kissed me hard until I was panting and desperate beneath him. Rolling over and dragging me with him, he stopped when he was on his back and I was perched on top of him.

  “So beautiful,” he murmured as his hands roamed over my exposed body. “This has to be my favorite sight in the whole world.”

  “I know,” I said as I watched the adoration in his eyes.

  AN HOUR later, he’d showered and were getting ready to go out to search for an under the table job. With the city’s municipal resources stretched, there seemed to be an abundance of jobs as cleaners and maintenance workers, jobs that required minimal background checks and which suited Clay perfectly. Few locations had CCTV, which made the area more favorable.

  The money he’d taken from his father’s emergency stash was already starting to run low. He’d shown me a few different techniques of obtaining credit cards—rather than just stealing them as I had been—but he didn’t want to use plastic when we were staying in one place. He wanted to stay off the grid, and I couldn’t blame him. Neither of us was ready to give up what we had.

  “I don’t want you to go,” I pouted. It was going to be the first time we’d be apart since our reunion and neither of us was looking forward to it. I stood at the door waiting for him to leave, but wanting him to stay.

  “I don’t want to go either,” he said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “But we need to figure out a way of getting some more funds if we’re going to stay here.”

  He kissed my pouted bottom lip.

  “The sooner I go, the sooner I’ll be back home.”

  I smiled at the word, home. It was like magic to my ears. I hadn’t had a home since Dad’s death.

  “Go then, I’ll be here.”

  “Okay, I’m going now,” he said as he wrapped his arms around my waist and pressed his lips to mine again. Walking backward so that he could kiss me for as long as possible, he dragged me from the apartment and out into the hall. Laughter fell from between our joined lips as he refused to let me go. He only released me once we were almost at the turn in the corridor. He stopped, wrapped his arms around me, and held me against him for one last, proper kiss before reluctantly pulling away. I watched him walk away until the corridor turned for a second time and he disappeared from my view.

  As I turned around in the now-empty hallway, I noticed a fresh batch of graffiti on the wall in front of our apartment. I rolled my eyes at the lack of respect the residents seemed to have for the building. True it was a rat-infested hovel, but it was home. Yet almost every day, a new piece of artwork appeared. This newest piece was odd because it blended so well with everything that had already existed there—usually they were painted loudly, covering over what came before as taggers competed for fast disappearing space. Disregarding the new graffiti—a crescent moon shape with what looked like a crudely-drawn M in the middle of it—I headed back into my apartment.

  Closing and locking the door, I headed for the shower. Standing under the warm stream of water, I allowed myself a moment of pure, unadulterated happiness. My initial joy at our reunion had fast been tainted by the consequences of our relationship. In my darkest times I still believed I was responsible for Dad’s death and Clay’s alienation from his family. It was likely that belief would always linger. After such a perfect morning though, it was almost impossible to linger on the darkness. If only for a few precious moments, I was free of even the slightest twinge of remorse. The time alone under the water gave me the opportunity to process how content I was with the new life I shared with Clay. As long as we were careful and stayed hidden, the biggest problem with our little slice of paradise was the neighborhood.

  As if my thoughts had signaled the neighbors, my perfect moment was broken by shouts and the slamming of door. Before I could work myself up, I pushed my concerns away again. For Clay, I could put up with a few noisy strangers in the surrounding apartments.

  Stepping out of the shower, I reached for a towel, but stilled as I glimpsed movement out of the corner of my eye. For a fraction of a second, a flicker of platinum hair reflected in the mirror. Twisting around, I tried to confirm what I’d seen, but there was nothing there. My imagination was running rampant now that I was alone for the first time in weeks. Maybe some of Dad’s paranoia had rubbed off on me after all.

  I snatched the towel from the rack and worked to dry myself. As I did, I tried to ignore the growing sensation of being watched. It was a ridiculous notion. There was no way the Rain could have found us so soon. We hadn’t been complacent when it came to our safety. If anything, we’d been overly cautious—shopping in the late hours and avoiding cameras.

  None of my silent reassurances calmed the ill at ease rumbling in the pit of my stomach though. Trying to push it aside, I hung the towel over the rack before slipping into my underwear and a T-shirt.

  Another quick flash of blonde flickered in the mirror.

  I twisted in place as fast as I could. A moment later, long before I could comprehend what I was seeing, a blinding blow struck across my temple and everything went black.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  MY HEAD pounded ferociously and my back ached. A noxious smell invaded my nostrils and seemed to surround me completely. My skin was wet. A strange prickly burn coated me, bringing with it an unsettling coolness. Opening my eyes was useless. The darkness at the edges of my vision swallowed the light. It was painful to even try to distinguish anything beyond basic shapes. Wanting to rub away the ache that ran along my side and up into my shoulders, I tugged at my hands only to discover they’d been bound. I yanked harder, crying out as something tightened around my wrists and bit into my skin. My scream was muffled by something hard and sticky pressed against my mouth.

  I forced my eyes open, trying to stretch what felt like too much skin around the sockets, and worked at focusing on the room around me.

  The
blurriness slowly faded. The light that followed burned its way into my mind. I tried to remember what had happened. All I could recall was lying in Clay’s arms in the morning and seeing him off on his job search. My mind refused to offer up anything that would explain the restraints around my arms or the throbbing at my temple.

  As my sight sharpened, I discovered where I was. Tied to a chair, dressed in my T-shirt and underwear, but definitely still in our apartment. Scrawled over the wall in red paint was a symbol, the same graffiti I’d seen on the wall in front of our door. A semi-circle with a wide M—like a child’s crudely drawn bird—across it.

  The memory of a flash of platinum hair reflected in our mirror rushed through me. Following that recollection almost immediately was the strike to my skull. It must have knocked me out.

  Twisting my head as far as I could manage, I tried to locate my attacker.

  “I see you’re finally awake.” Her voice dripped with hatred. The voice was unmistakable.

  When I turned in the direction of the nasally voice, Louise’s face swam into view.

  “For a monster, you’re pretty pathetic. I mean, you didn’t even put up a fight.”

  I shook my head and tried to speak. I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t a monster, but it was useless. Even without the tape over my mouth gagging me, she would never have stopped her attack long enough to listen.

  Yanking my hands again, I tried to free them from their binds.

  “It’s no use,” Louise said. “I’m the best at tying ropes—Dad reminds me of that all the time. I learned the things I was supposed to, trained hard, and I use my skills the way they’re meant to be used. I’m not a disappointment like Clay.”

  Pleading to her with my eyes, I tried to get her to stop what she was doing, but she just lifted her lip into a sneer. I yanked the cords one more time, only to have them bite tighter around my wrist. They were tight enough for my hands to lose all sensation.

  Another course of action came to my mind and I wrapped my fingers around the rope, focusing heat into the tips and knuckles. It was difficult to concentrate on anything other than the throbbing in my head, but it might have been my only chance.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Do you think I don’t know all your little tricks? Don’t you realize I’ve dealt with your filth before? You’re not getting away again. I won’t assume you’re dead like Ethan did. I will wait until I’m standing over your corpse, and I will toast marshmallows on the fire that follows.”

  I forced more heat into my hands knowing it wouldn’t take too much to burn through the rope.

  “Are you stupid?” she asked, grabbing at my hands from behind. She leaned against me, her face suddenly appearing right beside mine. “I told you not to do that. Can’t you smell it?”

  I inhaled deeply through my nose—the noxious scent still surrounded me. Something familiar about the odor danced through my mind, but it was too out of place to work out why.

  Slowly, realization dawned on me as I recalled the smell from the years that I’d spent on the road with Dad, memories of gas stations and the scent of flammable fumes slowly seeping through the open window as he filled the car. My eyes widened when I identified the cause of the cold liquid that burned over my skin as gasoline.

  “Now you’re getting it,” Louise sniggered. “There’s only one reason you’re still alive, and that’s because I want to save my brother before I kill you.”

  How long had I been out? My concern grew over how far away Clay might be. Had he been captured too? Was he being held somewhere else, or was he being dragged back to his former life at that moment? I wanted him to walk through the front door and rescue me, but simultaneously, I hoped he was safe and far away.

  “I’m going to give you one chance to release Clay from whatever spell you’ve put on him.”

  Wriggling my arms desperately, I struggled to free my hands from their bindings again. I needed to get away, whatever it took.

  “I have to admit that the ability to ensnare victims was something we’ve never encountered from your kind before, but we’re already editing the lore books. We’ll of course need to know how you did it.”

  I dropped my chin to my chest in defeat as the things Clay had told me about his family and the Rain rolled through me. They were willing to change their beliefs as often as necessary, so long as you weren’t asking them to give mercy to anything that didn’t fit their specific definition of human. Whether they were wrong or not didn’t matter, because their single mission was to kill everything not human.

  She stepped closer to me and ripped the tape off of my mouth with one hard pull. My whole body shook with the effort it was taking to keep myself calm and not allow the heat within to build.

  “Tell me how you trapped my brother.”

  “I didn’t,” I whispered. “He just loves me.”

  She swung her arm and slapped my face hard enough to rattle my teeth. I bit on my tongue to stop myself from crying out—my pain would no doubt please her.

  My cheek flamed with the outline of her hand. I longed for my hands to be free to rub it soothingly. The sunbird whispered soothing words to me, trying to force me relinquish control.

  I couldn’t though.

  If I did, both Louise and I would be dead.

  “Don’t lie to me,” Louise screeched.

  “I’m not.” I tried to infuse my voice with a peace that I didn’t feel. Taking a deep breath, I tried to cool myself down. My cheek still stung from the pain of the contact, and a fresh heat radiated from that spot to envelope the rest of my body.

  “Please let me go,” I begged, unsure of how long I could keep control. My anger and fear were making my body go into overdrive. The hold I had over my ability faded more with every passing second. The sunbird struggled to the surface.

  “Tell me what you’ve done to him!” she demanded.

  “Please, I don’t want to hurt you. Just let me go.”

  The fear that I could lose control and unintentionally ignite the gasoline that coated me, made my ability to hold myself together that much harder. Allowing the flames that were always so close to me to take over would be deadly.

  She laughed darkly and moved quickly, pulling a knife out of a garter under her skirt and pressing the blade against my throat. “Don’t threaten me, you piece of filth.”

  “It’s not a threat,” I tried to warn her. “I can’t . . .”

  Before I even got the words out, before I could warn her that I couldn’t contain the dangerous parts of me, the pressure of the blade increasing against my throat was too much for my self-control.

  My whole body tingled and ached. It was only a matter of time before I completely lost control and my body burned—just like it had in the back of the police car the first time they’d caught me. The gas Louise had poured over me only made the situation more uncontrollable.

  “You need to leave. Now,” I warned her through gritted teeth, my voice ice and venom as my control began to slip. I was completely unable to repress the sunbird within me for even a moment more. It was the part of me that had no logic, just the need to protect and survive. It was the sunbird who haunted my dreams and sometimes made me worry that Clay’s family was right—that I was nothing more than a monster. Whenever the sunbird would take over, I would become nothing more than a passenger in my own body.

  Louise pressed the tip of the knife harder until it bit into my skin, and a small trickle of blood dribbled down my throat. “You don’t scare—”

  Her eyes widened at the precise moment a thousand tiny fires burst to life across my body. The ropes fell away almost instantly. Louise dropped the knife quickly as the heat transferring into the handle became unbearable. She brought her fingers to her mouth to try to soothe the burn and stepped away from me.

  I stood seconds before the chair I’d been secured to was consumed by flames. The propellant around me fed the inferno; flames quickly ignited the liquid that had surrounded me.

  In an ins
tant, the room burned. It was too hot even for me. My body shuddered with pain. Unable to control my actions, I stumbled forward under the control of the sunbird. My entire being was under her control—I was unable to warn Louise to run.

  Anything that happens now is her fault.

  The thoughts in my head came from the darkest places within me, and I didn’t agree with them. I couldn’t force my voice to form the words that might save her though. I was nothing but a passenger in my own body.

  Louise stumbled backward away from me as I took another step toward the door to escape. She fell. The flame that trailed along the carpet followed her path, as if it was alive. After pushing herself up onto her feet, she scrambled for the door. The fire licked at her heels with every step. I thought she might be free when she fell again. The fire was on her in an instant. Her screams echoed loudly around the enclosed space.

  I wanted to help her, but I couldn’t. The fire tore over my skin, blistering and bubbling patches as it went. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold onto consciousness.

  The pounding in my head, which had never really abated, grew in intensity. Everything around me throbbed in time to my heartbeat. I pushed through the control of the sunbird as the need to escape the apartment grew in intensity. The flames might have originated in my body, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t consume me as surely as they devoured everything else.

  I stepped forward as fast as I could. Reaching the door after what felt like an eternity, I pushed against it again and again until it finally gave way.

  Without the resistance of the door, I stumbled into a corridor filled with smoke and screams. My relief only lasted a second as the flames reached my legs and the pain sent me back into darkness.

  LIGHT FLOODED IN.

  Handcuffs secured around my right wrist chained me to a bed.

  A hospital bed.

  Every part of my body ached. Pins and needles raced over my skin, burning and stinging every inch. From past experience, I understood the sting would linger for a number of days because I’d allowed the sunbird to take full control over me. Despite the effort it took to concentrate on anything solid, I attempted to pushed the pain out of my mind and figure out exactly why I was in the hospital.