Flames in the Midst (The Jade Hale Series)

by Reckenwald, Sarah

  The man laughed and looked at me with hatred and desire in his eyes. I was the prize, the weapon, and he felt, being this close, that I was already within his control.

  “I’m not doing somebody else’s bitchwork, princess. You are speaking to the man in charge.” At that moment, Maggie wiggled free enough to use some of her self-defense tactics she had learned in her Karate classes. With everything she could muster, she came down on his foot. This alone would not have done anything to him since he had on thick, black work boots, but it distracted him for an instant, and she elbowed him in the groin. He let go of her for a split second, and she dove under the dining room table.

  At the same time, the heat rising in me released and the fireplace became engulfed in flame. The mantle was burning and the rug in front of the hearth shot up in flames. The white brick quickly darkened with the rising smoke. Somehow, I had not hit the Shadow Ruler, who was already flipping the dining room table up to get to Maggie. The corner of the table smashed through one of the bay windows and smoke leaked out of the house and into the night air. I could hear the sound of a motorcycle in the distance.

  Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and my focus became clearer. I didn’t need to turn around to realize that Anastasia was behind me. She had either come by to see me, or she knew this was going to happen already. Either way, I was grateful for someone on my side.

  Maggie was already scooting towards the front door; she had never intended to hide under the table, only use it as a means of escape. Had she planned on hiding under it, the Shadow Ruler would have her in his grip already. Although I was certain he was still moving with superhuman speed, the whole scene slowed down for me. I was not going to let anyone hurt Zach’s sister or recruit me. I felt a second wave of heat pass through my body and the man collapsed in a fiery blaze onto the overturned table. The fire I had started began to consume Zach’s living room and dining room, but I continued to feel unnaturally calm and focused.

  I grabbed Anastasia’s hand and turned towards the door. Maggie sat on the floor in shock. I wasn’t sure what she was thinking about the scene that had just played out, but she wasn’t moving herself towards the safety that lay outside the house.

  “Take her outside,” I told Anastasia, not even questioning why she was there. “I have to go get my book.” I felt tranquil even under these unusual circumstances. Anastasia looked worried, but she let go of my hand and scooped Maggie up, heading out the door. I envisioned the years of therapy this event would begin in her life. Presuming Anastasia could get her out of here in time to continue her life.

  As soon as I lost physical contact with Anastasia, I could tell why she looked worried. This was not the serene environment I had been so certain I was operating in. The flames were quickly leaping through the house, and the front door, now behind me, already blazed as the heat spread. Anastasia and Maggie made it out just in time. I would have to find another way out. I raced up the stairs, trying not to dwell on the fact I had just killed a man or that I wasn’t sure how I was getting out of the house.

  The air on the second floor was better, but it too was quickly filling with smoke. The living room had high ceilings that continued up through the second floor, creating an open, airy feeling in the main living room, but providing a cavernous space for the smoke to fill tonight. I moved as quickly as I could, grabbing a T-shirt that had been hanging in the bathroom to dry. I covered my mouth and nose with the slightly damp cotton and pushed on to my room towards the back end of the house. I set the shirt over the bed frame and shoved myself under the bed to grab the book. I pushed it into a backpack, feeling a slight wave of déjà vu. Hadn’t I last escaped a fire with the same book shoved in a similar backpack? Only this time, I would not be handing the book off to my aunt.

  Slinging the backpack over my shoulder, I headed for the doorway, but I forgot to grab the shirt. I entered a smoke filled hallway and held my breath. The smoke stung my eyes, and panic began to set in. I took several steps into the hall, but the smoke was so thick I couldn’t judge the distance I would need to travel to find the stairs. I didn’t want to take the smoke into my lungs, but I didn’t think I could simply hold my breath until I found my way out. I sunk to the floor and let the stale air out, breathing again from a pocket of air close to the floor.

  Slowly, I inched along, keeping one hand on the wall as I crept along the hall floor. I couldn’t bear to keep my eyes open, the smoke stung so sharply. I moved blindly, not knowing if I could make it out, not knowing if I would in fact be burned to death, a victim of my own gift—ultimately proving itself a curse after all. If I had not been panicked, if I had practiced it, I might have been able to use my other gift for time traveling to escape, but at the time, the thought didn’t even occur to me.

  Just as I began to think that each inch of progress might actually be leading to my demise rather than my liberation from the smoke filled air, I felt someone pull me upwards. At first, I resisted since I knew that, from a logical standpoint, the air higher up would be filled with smoke. Then I heard Chase.

  “I’ve got you,” he assured me, and I gave in to his tugging my arm upward. He held me very close to him and instructed me to breath. My eyes were watery and burned from the smoke, so I kept them closed, but I took a tentative breath in. The air lacked the thick smoke I was expecting.

  “Trust me, you can breathe,” Chase insisted. “Open your eyes. It will be easier to get out of here if you can see.”

  I blinked several times. Everything appeared blurry from the smoke that had already clouded my vision, but there was no smoke in front of me now. Well, that wasn’t quite true. Chase held me pressed against him as close as two people could be. A small pocket of fresh air floated around Chase’s head. He was several inches taller than me, so my head took up the bottom portion of the air pocket. This would be a useful trick for me to learn since I ended up playing with fire so frequently.

  I looked up at Chase for a moment, trying to process the situation. There may be fresh air for us to breath, but all around us thick billowing clouds of smoke were filling the rooms of the house. We could breath, but it was obvious Chase had risked his own safety to come into the house after me. There apparently wasn’t a spell to teleport us out, and I doubted my ability to focus enough to move us through time. I watched as Chase moved his lips silently and the size of the air bubble around our heads expanded.

  “Ready?” Chase asked me. I wasn’t sure how we were going to get out, but I nodded my head.

  Chase grabbed my arm again and swung me onto his back. I realized then that the spell Chase had cast actually gave me my own air pocket that moved with me. Ordinarily, I would have been horrified at letting Chase carry me on his back, but in the current situation, I could only be grateful. I clung to his shoulders, making sure not to restrict his airflow. We moved down the hall and to the stairs, which did not appear to be burning yet. The first portion of the stairs came down so that the person walking downstairs would be facing the back of the house. Then they reached a landing and did a complete one eighty so that the second leg of the stairs emptied out facing the front door which was about ten feet from the end of the stairs.

  We made it to the landing, but the bottom half of the stairs were already ablaze. Chase looked around quickly and made a decision. Before I could guess his next move, he had swung me over the railing and onto the desk that rested against the wall forming the landing towards the back of the house. After letting me drop, he hoisted himself over the railing and over me and the desk in one leap. He rolled onto the floor and stood back up, scooping me again onto his back.

  I couldn’t see Chase’s face, but I knew he was reciting another spell. The moment before we opened the back door and plunged into the night air, the air pocket around my head disappeared, and I took in a breath filled with ashy smoke. We emerged from the house with me sputtering and coughing over Chase’s shoulder. Having known what was going to happen, he had held his breath as the air pockets disappeared.
Some hero.

  I was ready for him to put me down, but he just continued to carry me around to the front of the house. As we rounded the corner to the sound of the approaching fire engine, Chase began to mimic my cough, as if running into the house had caused the same effect on his breathing. Maggie ran up to us.

  “You’re okay! You’re okay!” she was screaming. “You saved me!”

  Chase put me down and looked carefully at Maggie who was gushing about how I had set the man inside on fire and asking me how I had done it. She could never have convinced anyone I had really been the one to do it. How she had figured that out on her own was beyond me, but she was still a child. An adult would have figured out a more logical explanation by now. Something they just hadn’t seen but that must have been there. A child would just accept the most obvious answer, no matter how impossible it may seem.

  Anastasia slipped behind Maggie and placed both hands on her shoulders. She immediately calmed down. I could see that Anastasia certainly had some talents of her own. She had calmed me enough in the house to focus on the Shadow Ruler, and now Maggie calmed at her touch.

  Chase acted quickly. His lips reciting a spell and his hand on Maggie’s forehead. He bent down and whispered something into her ear. He looked up at Anastasia, somehow understanding she had helped here, and nodded. She removed her hands from Maggie’s shoulders, and Maggie slowly started talking and working herself up into a frenzy again. Only this time, Maggie went on about how she came home to find the house on fire.

  When the fireman came up to talk to us as his colleagues were dousing the flames, Maggie told the fictitious story Chase created. The man looked to us, and before I could speak, Chase broke in.

  “We were riding by,” Chase motioned to his bike, “when we saw the smoke. We stopped and heard someone calling for help. We had to help her out of the house,” he explained. My jaw just about hit the ashy sidewalk. Surely, Maggie would correct that version. But she didn’t. As a matter of fact, she looked at me as if I were a stranger or a mere acquaintance, not someone who had lived in her house as a part of her family for two years. The man nodded and had Maggie walk over to an ambulance to have her lungs checked. Maggie didn’t even look back.

  “What have you done?” I asked Chase. I had the distinct feeling I had just lost another family.

  “I did what I had to in order to protect them,” Chase explained. “I’ve put a spell on her and on this place, but Madilyn and Amy will have to reinforce it or it won’t last. It is as if you were never here, in this house. The family may remember you as Zach’s friend if you knew each other outside of this place, but no one will remember you living here as long as you stay away.”

  “What? Why would you do that? Without even asking me? They’re my family,” I protested.

  I expected Chase to look fed up with me, but he actually looked compassionate. He put his arm around me, and I realized I was crying.

  “Jade, you know this is what’s best for them. I couldn’t catch the other Shadow Ruler or apprentice or whatever he was. They know you are here now. With this spell, they won’t be able to find the house. Zach and his family will be safe, but you have to stay away to keep them safe. You can’t endanger them. If you go back in that house, the spell will be broken, and next time it might not just be their house they lose. It’ll be okay. You’ll come back to Amy’s. You have family there.”

  “What about my stuff? Won’t they think it odd that a bunch of a stranger’s things are in their house?” I tried to poke a hole in his theory.

  “Amy and Madilyn are on their way. After everyone leaves tonight, we’ll get all of your things and finish the spell. Then we’ll head back.”

  “This is the way it happens,” Anastasia added. “I’m not supposed to tell you things, but you did tell me about this. Moving away is just a part of your journey. But don’t worry. Zach will still be a part of your life.”

  Chase scowled. I figured Anastasia must be able to keep a lot of secrets if she knew this was going to happen and didn’t tell me.

  “What about the man I killed? What will they think about that?” I whispered to Chase even though none of the firemen were very concerned with us, the good Samaritans they thought us to be.

  “A firestarter is very powerful,” Chase started, once again in teacher mode, “they probably won’t find much of him, if any. They’ll think an arsonist used some type of accelerant to cause this fire, but they won’t be able to find any traces of the accelerant, so they’ll be baffled.”

  I stared at Chase.

  “So I’m the accelerant they won’t be able to find. Great. I can add that to my resume. Undetectable accelerant. I’m sure I’ll get all sorts of job offers from Shadow Rulers and Guardians alike.”

  Chase backed away from me and held me at arm’s length in front of him.

  “We’re not going to have this conversation here. You feel like everyone wants to use you, but you are tired, and you’ve been through a lot tonight. Let’s finish up here, get you settled in, and figure it out tomorrow.”

  “Fine.” I didn’t have any fight left in me. We stood there on the sidewalk and watched the fire consume the front portions of the Holmes’ house. We watched the firemen do what they do best—fight fire. We watched as the neighbors who were home stood in their lawns to gawk at the spectacle in an otherwise quiet neighborhood. We watched as Zach’s parents came to the house and were told they would not be able to go in for the evening. We watched the firemen point towards Chase, Anastasia, and I. When Zach’s parents smiled at me, I thought for sure that Chase’s spell had failed, but when they approached us and started speaking, my heart sank.

  “We wanted to thank you two for stopping to save our daughter, Maggie,” David Holmes began.

  “We only did what anyone else would,” Chase spoke for us.

  Patti Holmes looked at me curiously.

  “I think I know you,” she said. “Aren’t you Lynn’s niece? We used to spend weekends together when she was well. I’m so sorry for your loss. I know it was a few years ago, but I never got the chance to tell you. I always wished we could have done more for you, and now here you are helping us.”

  “Thank you,” I managed to squeak out, on the verge of tears again. They were my family, and the past few years had been erased. They didn’t know me.

  “Patti, you’re babbling. Don’t make the girl uncomfortable,” David stepped in, misreading my emotions. He leaned over to Chase and handed him a business card.

  “We can’t repay you for saving our daughter, but if either of you ever need anything, please call me.” He must have assumed Chase and I were a couple because he only gave Chase a card. Chase did not correct him, and I was too upset to care. Patti’s cell phone rang, and she looked down at it.

  “It’s Zach,” she said to David, before turning to us. “Excuse us. We have to tell our son what’s happened.” With that, they were gone. Back to the ambulance with Maggie and their lives without me. So I wouldn’t even get to see Zach one last time. Anastasia said he would still be a part of my life, but I just didn’t see how.

  After giving our contact information, or rather my old apartment information, to the police, we were free to go. Anastasia had disappeared without talking to the police, and no one asked about her. She had really perfected the art of not being noticed. I hopped on the back of Chase’s bike, and we took off. We waited outside the lighthouse on Anastasia Island. Amy and Madilyn had to make it over from Gainesville, but they were probably halfway to St. Augustine before we ever left the smoldering house.

  Chase tried to talk to me, to console me for my loss, but I wouldn’t speak to him. He was right. I had been through a lot, but not just tonight. I needed to step off the rollercoaster my life had become for a little while, so I just shut him out. I shut out the pain I was feeling. I shut out the sound of the fireworks display that had started on our ride to the lighthouse. I shut out the intense sense of loss that threatened to swallow me whole, like the whale swall
owed Jonah. I closed my eyes and did nothing but wait.

  Amy and Madilyn arrived while I was waiting. I wouldn’t talk to them either. Madilyn hugged me. Amy patted me on the shoulder and instructed me to go back home with Chase. I couldn’t muster up the energy to explain I didn’t really have a home. Since it would look suspicious if Chase and I showed up at the Holmes’ place again tonight, I had no choice but to leave with Chase. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Amy and Madilyn would go to the half-burnt house later in the night and reinforce Chase’s spell. I knew they had to do it, but I hated them for it. They would cast a few more spells to get my stuff and keep the family safe. They said goodbye to us, and I shrugged back at them. Madilyn looked worried, but Amy looked strong and confident.

  Chase helped me onto his bike. I cooperated and held onto his waist the whole way back. It was nice to ride on the back of a motorcycle. I didn’t have to focus on anything but staying on the bike. I didn’t have to talk to anyone, and no one could try to talk to me. I just watched the moon cast shadows on the landscape as we flew down country roads on our way to my new home.

  Chapter 12

  I woke up in the extra bed in Stefanie’s room. I didn’t even dream that first night. Stefanie was not in the room when I woke, so I just rolled over and went back to sleep. If I didn’t get out of bed, maybe I could forget about the turn my life had taken in one short night. Zach and his family were the ones who made me feel like I could hold on to normalcy. With them, I felt like I could successfully be someone other than a witch and a firestarter. Now they were gone. Well, not literally, but they might as well be. I had been erased from their lives. The only place I had left to turn was a coven of witches. I hated my circumstances more than ever.

  Around noon, I snuck into the bathroom. I didn’t bother changing my clothes, taking a shower or even brushing my teeth. I snuck back to the bedroom, but Stefanie was sitting in the window seat watching me slink back into the room.