Into the Fire

by Cheree Alsop

  It took longer than I thought it would to fly back to the house. We never hit homes in the same city where Jake lived, and I had paid special attention on the ride home so I would be able to make my way back. Even so, I got turned around a few times because everything looked different from the air. By the time I found it, smoke stained the fresh breeze, but the fire engines were gone. They had prevented the other houses from catching, but Jake’s Molotov cocktails burned too quickly. There had been no way to save the home.

  I felt no regret. Perhaps I should have, and I wondered at my inability to feel bad for my actions. Was it so selfish to want to avoid the Academy? If the family that owned the house had been in my place, forced to face the battlegrounds and fight for their lives, would they have burned their own home to avoid it?

  To me, a house was nothing more than brick and wood, a place to hang pictures of times only the occupants remembered, rooms that held the whisper of memories, of laughter, of tears. I had seen enough families visiting in such rooms while they sipped from steaming cups and snacked on morsels evenly spaced on delicate glass plates, or read from books and cozied up on couches while watching movies to know what I didn’t have. Perhaps burning the houses was my way of destroying the memories that would never be my own.

  I snorted at the thought. It was boring and too filled with self-loathing to be accurate. I merely enjoyed racing against the Molotovs to see if I could escape without burning to death. I grinned. That sounded much healthier.

  I flew over the charred rubble high enough that the people still milling on the ground wouldn’t notice me. I followed the girl’s directions west toward the traffic that raced along the six-lane highway, oblivious to the winged girl taking shelter beneath their road. I landed a ways from the overpass, too cautious from my training with Jake to rush into any situation haphazardly. As if burning houses and running from the cops wasn’t haphazard.

  I rolled my eyes and walked slowly toward the tunnel. I scanned every scraggly clump of sage and heat-withered tree for signs of law enforcement officers ready to drag me back to the Academy. Each shadow bristled with menace. What had I gotten myself into?

  I was about to fly away when a lone figure stepped out from the darkness beneath the road. The sounds of the cars screaming down the freeway, sirens in the distance, and the barking of two dogs a block further south faded away.

  I had heard there were moments that took a lifetime, instances in which every beat of the heart felt like an eternity. I was lost in one of those eternities when she met my gaze. Her expression was forlorn and sad as if she had almost given up on me. I couldn’t breathe; I couldn’t speak. I merely stood there watching her, wondering how the world went on with the emptiness in her eyes.

  “You came back.”

  I expected accusation, maybe scorn. I deserved it for leaving a defenseless girl under a freeway for hours. Yet there was none of that in her tone. It was merely a statement, perhaps a bit of surprise, her eyebrows pinched together to hide her fear that she would never see a familiar face again. I pitied her that the familiar face she had searched for was mine.

  “Sorry it took me so long.”

  She shook her head. “You didn’t have to come for me.”

  I gave an incredulous snort. “Of course I did. You think I would leave you out here?” I glanced around us at the barren ground. A wall sheltered the cars from the ground where we stood, so even their lights didn’t break the gloomy dawn. Sunlight strove to push its way through the overhanging clouds, but the unfallen rain and pollution won the battle, casting even the glorious rays in half-light.

  “You could have,” she said.

  I didn’t answer. Now that I was with her, I realized I didn’t have a plan. Jake’s number one rule was always to have a plan. Now I stood looking at a girl Galdoni, something that didn’t exist as far as I knew, and I had no plan of what to do with her, or for her.

  I stood staring at a supposedly non-existent anomaly whose expression was changing the longer I stared. Was that a hint of a smile? Her head tilted slightly to the right as she studied me. I realized with a start that she was mocking me. She had her arms crossed in front of her as I did and her bottom lip was pushed into her top one with her eyebrows lowered in a searching expression. On me, I figured that the look was captivating, menacing, even. On her, it looked simply ridiculous.

  “Stop that!”

  A whisper of hurt crossed her face and she turned away. The jagged edges of her gray wings made me wince. The wince turned into true pain when I glanced down at her feet. They were bare. She had run all the way from the burning house to the overpass without shoes. The roads in this part of the city were in a horrible state of disrepair, and most of the gutters were filled bottles and trash. Even with the distance between us I could see blood on her heels.

  “Sit down.”

  She glanced at me in surprise. I crossed to her, kicking myself for my thoughtlessness.

  She backed away quickly, her hands raised. She reached the side of the overpass and pressed back into the cement as though she wished to disappear inside it. She looked at the ground, unwilling to meet my eyes, a completely different person than the girl who had told me defiantly when I found her cut wings that I should let her burn.

  The action caught me by surprise. I froze at the look of fear on her face. “What do you think. . . ?” My stomach twisted. I knew such things happened; the look on her face answered my unspoken question all too well. It took my breath away. “I’m not going to hurt you.” I said it quietly, trying to hide the discomfort I felt that she would think such a thing. I shoved my hands in my pockets. “I was worried about your feet.”

  She looked down without meeting my eyes. She wiggled her toes. “They don’t hurt.”

  “Just the same,” I said. She looked up at me and I shrugged. The light made her brown eyes glow and my heart turned in my chest.

  She sat down on the ground. I crossed the last few feet between us and crouched down next to her. “How did you run on these?” It was more of a whispered statement than a question, and she didn’t answer. I picked up her right foot gently and examined it. Bits of glass showed in the lessening darkness. Blood caked several places. Her left foot was worse.

  “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  I gave her what I hoped was an encouraging smile. I wasn’t too good at those. The only time I had smiled at myself in the mirror at Jake’s made me look like a shark about to snack on a few swimmers. It wasn’t my teeth; they were straight for the most part. It was the fact that my smile didn’t touch my eyes. They stayed wary and distrustful. The smile stayed only on my lips, a lie that would fool no one.

  Yet a hint of a smile touched the girl’s lips in the barest answer. Maybe I was getting better at smiling. Or maybe my smile was real. I snorted at myself for my idiotic thoughts and held out a hand. “You need to get those taken care of.”

  “And who’s going to do it? You?” she asked incredulously, accepting my hand. She rose to her feet, but it was obvious her feet hurt now that I had pointed out the injuries.

  I shrugged with another smile. “Do you see anyone else here?”

  She laughed. It was short, but it made me tingle all over. I vowed to get her to laugh again, no matter what happened.

  Since I had already given myself over to being an idiot, I figured I had better own it. “Your ride, my lady.” I picked her up in my arms and a tiny squeak of surprise escaped her. I spread my wings and pushed down. The day was lightening fast enough that I had to hurry to avoid making us a target. I flew as high as I dared and sped toward Jake’s apartment. I had no plan. Making it up on the fly was against all I knew, but it was also all I had, and ironic since I was actually flying. I grinned.

  “It is amazing,” the girl breathed.

  I realized she had mistaken my grin for enjoyment of the flight. I nodded, eager not to explain my thoughts and confirm any suspicions she might have that I was indeed a fool. “You’v
e never flown?” I asked, though I needn’t have. The truth was in her eyes.

  They were filled with joy and excitement. Her cheeks were flushed and she watched the ground as though amazed that we were so high above it. I could feel her wings move against my arm, straining to join the flight. The anger I felt that such a thing had been taken from her struggled to break free. I gritted my teeth against asking her who had done such a thing. She had gone through enough; there would be time for explanations later. I needed to land before anyone reported a Galdoni in the air.

  I pushed my wings hard. We soared through the early dawn above the pollution and clouds. The air was thinner and I had to work harder to keep us above it, but it was worth everything to see the look of wonder on the girl’s face.

  “What’s your name?” I asked before I even realized I had spoken.

  She glanced back at me with a true smile. “Alana. What’s yours?”

  “Saro.”

  Her smile faltered just a little. “That’s a sad name.”

  I nodded. My reasons were my own.

  We were close to Jake’s apartment building. Though I couldn’t see it through the haze, I felt it in my bones. I wondered if it was the same way pigeons knew when they were home. I tipped my wings and took us in a spiral toward the ground. As we reached the cloud layer, buildings began to appear around us. I heard Alana’s breath catch at how close they were, but I had flown through the area only in darkness over the past year and knew the layout by heart.

  We landed softly on the sidewalk behind Jake’s apartment complex. The city was still locked in the early morning stillness that blanketed the world before alarms went off and work called. It was my favorite time of day. It felt as though magic coated the city; there was no cold, no loneliness, no homelessness, no yelling, no barking, and no dejection. I could imagine that Galdoni were safe inside warm apartments instead of training at the Academy for battle. They were cozy in beds instead of on pallets, with the promise of a real breakfast instead of cold gruel.

  It was ridiculous, really. I hardly ever allowed myself to imagine such silly things. When I did it made the ache in my heart stronger; the need to do something more with my life burned in my veins. Yet what was there to do?

  “Are you alright?”

  Alana’s voice jerked me back to reality. I shook my head at the stupidity of my thoughts and gave her a small smile. “I should be asking you the same thing. How are your feet?”

  “Fine,” she replied, her eyes searching mine. “Where are we?”

  I pushed open the back door to Jake’s apartment complex. Alana took a step forward. She tried to hide the wince of stepping on her damaged feet, but I saw her pain in the line of her jaw and the slight intake of breath as she stifled a whimper.

  Without giving her a choice, I picked her up again and carried her inside. She remained silent, her hands soft on my shoulders. I didn’t know why I cared. I hadn’t cared about anyone or anything besides staying out of the Academy for as long as I could remember. I definitely hadn’t learned compassion inside the walls. The Arena saw to that. Those who had compassion died; if you cared about your enemy, they would kill you for your weakness.

  I carried her past the elevator that hadn’t worked since at least as long as I had been there. I grabbed the door knob to the basement with one hand, but managed to bump her foot into it as I pulled it open. “Sorry,” I said when her hand tightened on my shoulder.

  She gave a soft laugh, a soothing sound I had never heard before. “You don’t carry girls around much, do you?”

  I smiled as I walked down the steps, careful to keep from running either her feet or her head into the bricks. Carrying a girl was a harder task than it looked. “Not exactly.”

  “I can’t really complain since you saved me from the fire. That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.” The awe in her voice gripped my heart in a tight fist. “Why did you go into the house in the first place?”

  I was glad she couldn’t see my face in the darkness. I wasn’t sure I could hide the truth from her searching gaze if she did. “I, uh, I saw the smoke and worried someone might be inside.” I couldn’t explain why I didn’t tell her the truth. I robbed houses; that’s all there was to it. But there was something in the way she looked at me, trust, friendship, things I had never seen before. I was afraid if she knew I was responsible for the fire, I would lose all of it.

  “That was incredibly brave,” she said quietly.

  I reached the bottom step to the basement. No one ever went down there. It was dirty and carried a hint of mouse in the musty smell that permeated everything. Random pieces of furniture occupied the space, remnants of tenants who had moved or passed away and left the items behind. I set Alana carefully in an overstuffed armchair. Dust rose around us and tickled my nose. I reached up and pulled the chain to the overhead light. The single bulb swayed gently from side to side, casting shadows around the room.

  “You’ll be safe here,” I said as I turned away.

  “Where are you going?” The fear in Alana’s voice made me pause. I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to be alone, but I couldn’t help her if I didn’t leave.

  I took a calming breath to steel my heart against her fear. It ate at my willpower, asking me to stay beside, to reassure her that she was safe. I gritted my teeth. I had to be strong. I glanced back at her. “To get some things for your feet.” I replied gruffly.

  “You’re going out like that?”

  The concern on her face gripped my heart tighter. No one had ever cared. I pulled the trench coat from the satchel I always carried and slipped it over my shoulders. “I’ll be in disguise.”

  She smiled as if I had revealed the world’s best trick. “Good luck, Saro.”

  “Thank you,” I replied hesitantly before heading up the stairs. They were strange words, and tasted unfamiliar. I had never spoken them before; I had never owed them to anyone before. My arrangement with Jake was give and take. I knew he used some of the money to pad his own pocket, but the fact that he kept me out of the Arena by paying the substantial fees made it all worthwhile. I didn’t owe him and he definitely didn’t owe me anything. Appreciation for what each did remained unspoken because each cancelled the other out.

  Yet Alana’s wish after my wellbeing was unnecessary. Yes, I was risking discovery to get bandages for her feet, but I had gone out many times. If I hit the convenience stores super early or extremely late, usually the individual behind the counter was weary enough not to question anyone buying sundry items. Was it her concern I was thanking or her smile? All I knew was that I had never before confronted something so powerful. I would do anything to see it again, even if it meant risking life, limb, and Jake’s temper.

  Chapter Five

  I heard a slight scuff from below as I took the stairs two at a time a half hour later, yet when I reached the basement, it appeared empty. Had someone found Alana? Had she given up on me and left? I willed my eyes to adjust faster to the darkness. The swaying light played with my nerves that were still tense from the fear of discovery despite my bravado on my walk to the convenience store. Every trip outside meant the threat of being discovered; Jake made certain I never forgot.

  “Alana?” I called quietly. I liked the way her name felt. It rolled off my tongue as though it was a foreign language and a prayer wrapped in one. I grinned at myself. Leave it to the mysterious Galdoni girl to make me take up religion.

  “Saro?”

  All thoughts fled my mind at the sound of her voice. How could I have missed it so much in the short time I was gone? I hurried forward. “Are you alright?”

  She stood gingerly from behind a brown, green, and yellow wool couch. The relief on her face was unmistakable. Never before had the sight of myself filled someone with such obvious joy. I didn’t dare get used to the sight, but it buoyed something up inside of me. It made me feel as though I mattered more than air or water. I felt like I was flying even though my worn shoes were most definitely on the cem
ent ground.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” she said.

  I held out a hand and she accepted it. She tried to climb over the back of the couch, but I could see a million things that could happen if she tripped. There were lamps and end tables waiting to be crashed into, a pile of tattered blankets that might upset her balance, and the unforgiving floor just waiting to break an arm or wing. I jumped onto the couch and lifted her over, amazed at how light she felt.

  She laughed when I set her carefully on the cushion.

  “What?” I asked, feeling a wall rise in case she laughed at me.

  “I’m not made of glass,” she said. “I can climb over a couch.”

  I grinned at myself. It wasn’t a smile; it wasn’t a predatory shark-like revealing of the teeth before I attacked. It was a true grin, and it felt good and strange for my mouth to turn up that way. “I thought you were going to hurt yourself.”

  She laughed out loud, showing her own pretty white teeth. “Are other Galdoni klutzes then?”

  “No other Galdoni are like you.”

  I regretted it the moment I said it. She dropped her gaze and studied the floor; the wall I had felt moments ago chased the emotion from her face. I hadn’t had enough social interactions to know how to bring her back from wherever she was hiding. I let out a slow breath and lowered to my knees. I could feel her eyes on me as I took out the bandages and ointment I had bought with the few dollars I always kept hidden in my pack in case of an emergency. Even Jake didn’t know about that.

  When everything was ready, I felt suddenly nervous. “I’m not exactly a doctor,” I said.

  “You could have fooled me,” Alana replied.