Tristan looked over to her and smiled. My blood went cold. It was the single cruelest expression I had ever seen in my entire life. There was nothing but malice in that smile.
I felt Fiona’s blood heat up. It was a feeling I was far too familiar with, one that came with the ecstasy of releasing the magic. It came with finally letting loose and unleashing every flame, every ember that burned in your belly. Fiona’s red dress turned into fire, her hair, her eyes, the ends of her limbs. She no longer possessed the power of flames, the flames possessed her. At first, the kids in the ballroom cheered; Tristan’s arrogant face twisted with satisfaction. He had gotten a reaction out of her, the one thing he’d wanted to accomplish by doing this. He had wanted her reaction. He had wanted her to break down and sob.
But she did not fall to her knees, she did not run away. No, Fiona lost every sense of self and gave in to the magic, the wrath. It felt good, it felt so damn good. Her flames started to heat up, no longer offering a pleasantly warm light. No, these flames were much, much hotter and it set the streamers overhead on fire. The cheers of the crowd turned into screams, but she didn’t care. She had eyes on one couple only. She didn’t know what hurt more, the betrayal of her best friend or the trickery of the boy she had loved for years. Her magic didn’t care. Her magic only wanted revenge. It only wanted to be set free.
Without thinking, Fiona wrapped the room in fire, like a present on Christmas morning. Only this present wasn’t going to be as fun to open. Because when this present opened, there would be nothing but ash inside.
The doors were cut off by the flames. They were unreachable. I could faintly hear Fiona’s name being called, but that didn’t distract her. Hands tried to grab her, but the hands of anyone who touched instantly blistered.
The smile faded from Tristan’s face, and there were tears running down Laura’s cheeks. “We were only dancing,” she mumbled, backing away. “He said he was waiting for you, that you were late. Fiona, please calm down.”
Fiona didn’t care for her excuses. Fiona didn’t want excuses; she didn’t even want blood. Fiona wanted nothing but ashes.
Laura was the first to burn, her screams louder than those of everyone around her. Tristan wept, begging Fiona. He was begging for his life, apologizing, then begging again. Fiona saw nothing but flames. Fiona was nothing but flames, and when Tristan combusted and his cries finally died down, Fiona’s mind was her own again.
She turned around, watching as her classmates backed away from her, sweating and pleading for their lives. But she couldn’t take back the flames. She couldn’t control the fire anymore. Her magic was finally released, and it was hungry—it was hungry for living things.
Fiona’s screams matched those of the students her flames devoured. She could hear them even after there was no one else left in the room. She could hear them even when there was nothing but ashes on the floor. The flames licked at the ceiling, broke through the windows. The flames grew closer, closer, closer. They were so close she could touch it. The heat was unbearable.
Fiona screamed one last time as her own flames devoured her, too.
***
I gasped for air, reaching for something; anything.
The pain, the pain was so bad. Tears rolled over my cheeks as I crawled to my bathroom, my insides still burning. They were burning. They were burning. They were burning. I was desperate for any form of release.
I didn’t notice that I was screaming until I stopped to breathe.
Everyone in that ballroom… every single one of them died by Fiona’s hand. They died because she was stupid and in love. They died because she couldn’t control her rage.
She killed them all. She killed them all. She killed them all. She killed them all.
I couldn’t get their screams out of my head. It was worse than the pain inside of me. Those cries of agony, of desperation, hoping that someone would hear them, hoping that someone would save them. Every teacher present was killed; no magic could combat the flames. Where was the headmistress? Surely, she could have put out the fire, had she been there? Where was she? Where was she?
“Lia,” Fiona’s voice echoed in my head and I ignored her, finally reaching the sink where I pulled myself up. The water wasn’t cold enough. I needed colder water. I needed to put out this fire inside of me. “Lia,” she repeated.
“Get away from me, you psychopath!” I ordered, my nostrils flaring. Fiona retreated. “Why would you show me that? Why would you make me live through that? I felt everything. I felt you die! I felt myself die.”
I fell to my knees, burying my face in my hands. She killed them all. She killed them in the same way I would kill everyone if I ever lost control. But I wouldn’t… Not like that. Not over a stupid prank.
“Wait, what?” Fiona’s voice cracked a little. “Lia, you were only supposed to see snippets, not the whole thing.”
“I didn’t only see it, Fiona. I lived through it. Why would you show me that?”
“I wanted to show you what giving the flames too much room could do. I wanted to—” Her voice broke. “Lia, oh my God, I am so sorry you had to see that. I didn’t… I don’t know what happened.”
“Get the hell out,” I growled. “Go get the headmistress and stay the hell away from me.”
“Lia—” Fiona started. I could have sworn that her face had gone paler, but that was impossible. She was a ghost. She was dead. She’d died by fire, just like the rest of her classmates.
Her fire, her anger, her feeling of betrayal. She’d killed them, she’d killed them all. She’d killed herself and burned down the entire building, leaving only the west wing. So many lives were lost that night, and for what? For her revenge? I couldn’t stand to look at her. Whether it was because of the look on her face or the disgust that turned my stomach, I didn’t know. All I knew was that she had to leave. She had to leave and never come back. I never wanted to see her again. She was no longer my friend.
“Go!” I shouted, tears running more freely now. “I don’t want to see you again.”
It was the last thing I remembered saying. I passed out before I could watch Fiona disappear into the wall.
Chapter 24: Damien
Nearly two weeks had passed since the incident with Fiona, since I’d passed out on the bathroom floor and the headmistress and Mr. Henry had to lull me back to consciousness with their magic. The headmistress has been fuming ever since. Fiona had somehow trapped me inside of her past’s body, and when that body was set on fire, my body thought it was dying, too. My body was reacting to me dying, not to watching someone else die. It reacted as if the flames had consumed me; had burned me to ash.
It took me days to recover. It was worse than a burnout. It was much, much worse than a burnout. I had to sit in bathtubs filled with ice for hours. I watched the ice melt almost instantly around my hot body. The headmistress would drain the bathtub as soon as it heated up again, scared that the water would boil me alive. Sebastien had snuck in every night when I was alone. It was only when he was around that I could sleep. I didn’t want to be alone when I dreamed about Fiona’s death, when I dreamed about being burned alive by my own flames.
Once I recovered and went back to class again, I felt different, somehow. The ballerina could sense it, too. I had a wariness of my magic that I hadn’t had in weeks. The fear was back, and I didn’t know how I would ever get rid of it again. The familiar didn’t seem to burn as bright anymore, either. My “death” had had an effect on her body, too. We were damaged now, and I didn’t know how to put us back together—and neither did the headmistress, although I doubted she even wanted to. She was too happy that I didn’t have out-of-control magic anymore. She enjoyed the fact that my flames were weaker and duller now. It meant less for her to worry about.
I still practiced with Mr. Henry, but I was no longer able to keep a flame alive underwater. The flame was dead before it even reached the pool. To my dismay, even Mr. Henry seemed relieved. Were they all so afraid of my magic that, when
I was broken and weak, they were happy? They were relieved?
Chewing on the back of my pen, I flipped the page of the tome. I didn’t even know what I was supposed to be studying anymore. I found my mind constantly wandering around that fountain, before falling into it and finding nothing but flames at the bottom.
There was a knock at my bedroom door. It was calm and collected, like that hand had knocked on my door a hundred times before. It was Damien.
“Come in,” I said, closing the tome. It wasn’t going to be read tonight, anyway. I’d been hoping for a distraction for hours. He wasn’t the distraction I was hoping for, I realized. But he was a distraction, nonetheless.
Things had been a little weird between Damien and me since the kiss, and I wished it had never happened. Perhaps at another point in time, but not now. Things were too dangerous with me at the moment, and I knew that if we got any closer, Damien would be at risk. Damien would gladly put himself at risk for me, and I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to him. He was the sort of guy that either hated a person with all his might or loved someone with all his heart. There was no halfway with him and right now, it wasn’t a good thing. I couldn’t protect him in the state I was in; my magic wasn’t nearly strong enough to even protect myself.
“Hey, you,” he said with a smile as he closed the door behind him. His knuckles were split again, but that was normal for him. He always managed to get into a fight with someone over something. I just hoped this time it wasn’t over me. It wouldn’t have been the first time. I didn’t ask him about it. He would have told me if he’d wanted me to know.
“Hi,” I said, matching his smile. “What brings you around?”
“The dorm was getting crowded. Patrick was going on and on about some stupid football game and I just had to get away. I found myself in front of your door.”
I nodded. “That sounds like a Patrick thing to do, yes.”
He smiled again. There was an awful lot of smiling going on, and I wasn’t sure exactly how I felt about it. “Besides,” Damien continued, stepping forward, and before I could take a step back, his arms were around my waist, “we haven’t had a chance to talk about us.”
An uneasiness gripped me. It felt as if my stomach was lined with oil. “Us?”
“Well, yeah,” he said, leaning down. Was he going to kiss me again? I swallowed. “I assume that once your secret was out about the ballerina, we would pick up where we left off, but it feels like you've been avoiding me. It feels like everyone gets a chance with you except for me. So I figured it was time I took things into my own hands.”
I pushed him away from me before he could lean down any further. He looked at me, shocked. I knew that I’d hurt him by doing that. Why couldn’t I just have let him kiss me? Why couldn’t I just bring myself to be happy with him? If I only had limited time left, I wanted to spend it with someone I actually enjoyed spending time with. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. If we were in a relationship and something happened to me, it would have killed him. It actually would have killed him. Every day of my life I would worry about what would become of him when I was gone. Perhaps I was overestimating his feelings for me, but if Fiona was right and he really was head over heels, I couldn’t do it to him. It was better to shut down whatever this was now than have to do it later and cause more of a fuss.
“There’s so much going on, Damien,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “I’m sorry. I just don’t have the—”
“Screw that, Lia,” he exploded. There was a vein bulging in his forehead and his fists clenched. “I have been with you through all the shit in your life. I have stuck by you through every fight, I’ve stood up for you when everyone was trying to knock you down. This is the thanks I’m getting? You’re just going to reject me?”
My mouth went dry. It was as if there was another person standing in front of me. He was no longer my best friend. No, this person was something different. Perhaps this was someone Damien was concealing all of this time.
“What the hell is your problem?” I asked, lava running through my veins. I was taken aback for a moment. Lava… the lava that I hadn’t felt since the flashback.
My magic stirred inside of me, a beast waking up from its slumber. It sensed my anger, my distress. It wasn’t gone, only dormant. I realized that I had never lost it, but it had stayed away, instead. It had nothing to do with fear, but recovery, instead. If the fire was beneath my skin, I would not have recovered. I needed to cool down first.
It was giving me space. It was protecting me.
“I did the same for you, Damien, and I didn’t expect anything back,” I retorted, feeling braver. “I didn’t expect shit. You’re supposed to do all of those things because we’re friends, not because you were trying to win me over. And now that I can’t be with you, now you throw a damn tantrum?”
“Were,” he spat. “We were friends.”
“That’s very mature, Damien.” My chest rumbled with magic and I wanted to roar. I wanted to spit the fire that pounded at my chest. “Maybe, if you took the time to listen and tried to understand why I can’t be with you instead of acting like a child, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I have too much going on. There’s an organization after me, for heaven’s sake! They are hunting me down. I can’t have you with me when they come for me. I’m doing this to protect you.”
“Sure, Lia,” he said, his nostrils flaring. “Because I’m just another weakling. Because I need your protection. Don’t you remember that I’m always the one protecting you?”
“And now it’s my turn,” I said, tears stinging my eyes.
“Because no one can be as strong as you? I understand perfectly now. Thank you for explaining that to me.”
“That’s not what I meant, Damien.”
I yelped when he reached over and swept the books from my desk. I looked at him, horrified by his behavior. This was not my friend. This was not the Damien I knew.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the ballerina move closer, blazing brighter than ever. She was ready to protect me when I needed her to. Not just yet. I had to handle this on my own, without magic, first. I had to deal with this in a way where we were on the same level.
I didn’t want to bully him with my magic, didn’t want to take that chance. If my magic broke through his, which I was sure it was going to do, I could have hurt him very, very badly. I wasn’t prepared to witness another death by fire. I couldn’t stomach it. Especially not if that person has been by my side for years and years. I couldn’t bear even thinking about it. I wondered if he felt the same about him hurting me. I doubted it.
“Get out,” I said softly.
“Excuse me?”
The ballerina inched even closer, looking at me, waiting for my command. She was ready to pounce on him and although I knew he deserved to get his ass kicked, I had to give him a chance to get out first. He deserved an opportunity to redeem himself. I owed him that much.
“I said get the hell out, Damien. If you want to act like a child, I don’t want to be around you. This is my room, my space, and you are invading it. You are attacking me; you are accusing me of shit that I’ve never even thought of. You’re being a jerk, and I don’t want you around when you’re being like this—when you’re acting like a person that I don’t even know anymore. So get out.”
Damien opened his mouth to say something but found himself at a loss for words. I was seething, ready to set his hair on fire.
I thought it was over when he walked to the door, but as one last act of defiance, he knocked the sconce clean off the wall. The glass shattered and the flame that was inside got a taste of my carpet, devouring it faster than I could react. What did he think he was doing? Did he think I was going to beg him to help me, to stop the flames?
It was then that I realized he didn’t know the extent of my power now. I realized that I had never told him about the progress I was making. It was time to show him. It was time that he understood just how far I had come without
his help.
I didn’t need his help anymore. I didn’t need anyone’s help anymore. I had my magic, I had my familiar, and I had Sebastian. The headmistress was no help, and Mr. Henry was acting stranger by the day as my magic grew. I hadn’t noticed it at first, not until he was back to normal when my magic was weaker again. But it didn’t matter. I didn’t need them. I didn’t need any of them.
As if reading my mind, the ballerina flew into the fire, absorbing it. She grew bigger, bigger, until she was the size of a human being. Her dress dripped fire, like the liquid flames of the volcano. Damien took a step back, swallowing.
“I said get out, Damien. And don’t bother coming back.”
There was a look in his eyes that I had never seen in them before. He turned around and stormed out of my room.
Chapter 25: Unexpected Field Trip
“I don’t know about you,” the ballerina said, back in her smaller form, “but I never want to be that big again.” She rolled her shoulders, holding the dustpan for me to sweep up the remains of my rug. The stones beneath it were burned black. That asshole. Just who did he think he was? Who did he think he was, coming in here and demanding things that I had never promised to him?
“I never want to see that ass again,” I added, glaring at the door as if Damien was still there. All the sadness and hurt I felt a moment ago has disappeared, and I was now left with nothing but anger.
How dare he? How dare he come in here and insult me like this. After I was only trying to protect him. After I was only trying to do the one thing he had done for me my entire life. I realized then how stupid I had been all this time. I wasn’t supposed to avoid him. I had no reason to avoid him, but I was afraid of hurting his feelings. I was afraid of ruining our friendship.
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