“She’s not afraid for herself,” I shot back. “She doesn’t want you to claim Ariel next. Dad, this has to stop.”
“It can’t.” He was calm, almost robotic.
“It has to,” I insisted. “Let it go, before you get us all killed!”
“The Cabal doesn’t let you walk away, son. Once Cabal, always Cabal.” He grabbed the back of my neck. “And I’ve worked too hard to let my collection go. It’s my life’s work, and it means something.”
I broke his hold, stepping back. “You’re losing it. And you can’t seriously put your trophy room above the lives of my friends.” I wouldn’t let Summer’s death be another casualty of his greed.
“You’d rather forget?”
I thought of my aunt and the way she sang nonsense to herself. She’d never been able to complete her Trials. She’d tried three times and failed three times and then the Cabal administered the spell to wipe her memory. It had gone wrong, as it sometimes did. Now she barely remembered her own name. Everything was about keeping Cabal secrets and keeping the creatures contained. If they got loose, we’d all be discovered.
“That’s the only way to break with the Cabal. And it’s no guarantee. Plus, consider this—without us, the monsters win,” he said. “The hiker they found last week? You know it wasn’t a bear. We control the bestiary or it controls us. It’s that simple.”
And monsters called to monsters. Between the wards and the creatures, Dad’s bestiary reeked of magic. It lured other beasts to the castle. Even if we shut the bestiary down, which I’d wanted to do since Summer died, the magic would linger. Dad was right about one thing. Walking away wasn’t an option.
I thought of the broken wards. That hiker wasn’t the first to be attacked. Anyone might be next. Even Kia, and she was innocent in all this. I wouldn’t let the Cabal get her killed just because she had the bad luck to live in my father’s house.
So I’d do what needed to be done.
“I guess you got your wish,” I said. “You’re turning me into one of them.”
“Cabal? Good, they’re survivors.”
“No, Dad,” I said quietly. “You’re turning me into one of the monsters.”
Chapter Thirteen
Kia
“Today sucks.” Sloane fell into step beside me in the hall outside the cafeteria. She wore a pink lily behind her left ear, blowing matching pink bubbles with her chewing gum.
“What?” I said stupidly. It was really hard to concentrate. I was trying to decide if I believed in werewolves.
And if I was living with one.
Oblivious, Sloane licked chocolate shavings off her thumb. “Did you hear about Colt?”
“No, what?”
“He fell out of a tree and broke his back. He might not walk again.”
I turned to stare at her. “Are you serious? He was fine at dinner.”
“It happened really late,” Sloane explained. “He must have been drinking again. You didn’t see anything?” She looked carefully at me.
“Besides the forest fire? No.” I didn’t tell her about the ice monster. I wasn’t totally insane. “You shouldn’t hang out with me, Sloane,” I said bluntly. “You should pretend you never met me.” She popped her gum at me. “Seriously,” I insisted. “You don’t need the kind of baggage I’ve got.”
She stopped, still smiling, though it was slightly sad again, and gentle. “Don’t even try it, Alcott. I’ve dealt with Blackwood tantrums all my life. You’re sunshine and puppies, sweetheart.”
“You don’t know what I can do.”
“What, start fires in the girls’ bathroom? Piss off Justine? Big deal.” She pushed her long red curls over her shoulder, unconcerned. “We’re late for class, so can you walk and frown at the same time?” She choked suddenly. “And hey, school’s on fire.”
One of the flyers on the bulletin board was burning. I hadn’t noticed the spark or the tingle in my fingertips, though now that I was paying attention again, my eyelids felt uncomfortably hot. Sloane leaned over and slapped at the bulletin board, putting out the smoldering flyer before the flames spread. A tiny plume of smoke belched out from under her hand. I glanced around but the hall was empty—everyone was already in class. Sloane tilted her head, watching me curiously.
“Um,” I said. Nice cover-up, Kia. Some superhero you’d be.
Sloane didn’t look particularly surprised. She definitely didn’t look scared. “Don’t tell anyone you can do that.”
Startled, I said the only thing that popped into my head. “Duh.” I was more bewildered than Sloane. Shouldn’t she be screaming right about now? Or fainting? Something?
“Okay, then.” She slipped her arm through mine. “Next time aim for the neon-pink ones. They get on my nerves.”
We didn’t have the same classes for the rest of the afternoon. It was difficult to concentrate now that someone knew my secret. I had a hundred questions for her, mostly because she didn’t seem to have any for me. She was pretty blasé about the whole thing. Starting fires with my mind should have freaked her out a little, shouldn’t it?
The day didn’t get any less weird. When I got home, Clare was letting Sloane in through the kitchen door. “Sloane, honey, you should have gone around the front.”
Sara opened the oven door. “She knows today is blueberry scone day.”
Sloane tried to look both hopeful and hungry. She’d changed out of her uniform and was wearing another long dress, this one in a light plum, under the same military tuxedo-tails jacket. She didn’t point at me and start screaming about fire, so that was something.
Sara nodded to me. “Have a seat. The scones are nearly ready.”
Sloane slid into a chair. “Yum.”
“Should I tell Ethan you’re here?” Clare asked.
“No way,” Sloane replied. “He’ll eat all the scones and leave us crumbs.”
“This from the girl who ate four herself in a single sitting just last week.”
“No wonder Sara likes you so much.” I was dying to talk to her about the fire on the bulletin board, but I didn’t want to be overheard. Sloane snatched a scone before Sara even finished placing the plate on the table. The smell of warm blueberries was both sweet and tart. “We’ll take them upstairs,” Sloane said through thick crumbs. “Before Ethan smells them.” She went up the stairs so fast I had to run to catch up.
“Hey, leave me some!” I took the steps two at a time. She was curled up on the couch, halfway through a second scone, crumbs caught in the toggle buttons of her jacket. She didn’t look the least bit guilty, or inclined to share. “You know, most people are kinda scared of me,” I pointed out.
She shrugged. “I’ve seen weirder.”
“You’ve seen weirder.” I gaped. “You can’t seriously be that cool with it.”
“Looks like you’re freaked out enough for the both of us.”
“I set fire to the flyers. With my mind.” Accidentally. Which wasn’t any more comforting. And I should be doing my best to convince her it had been a trick, that I was a budding stage magician or something equally implausible. I shouldn’t be insisting she be weirded out by me. I was pretty sure Wonder Woman wouldn’t have handled it this way. Then again, I was hardly wonderful.
Sloane hugged the plate to her chest. “As long as you let me have the last scone, I couldn’t care less.”
I honestly didn’t know what to say or how to react. A change of subject seemed wise. “So what the hell is up with Ethan? Has he always been so…”
“Moody?” she supplied. “Temperamental?”
“I was going to say bitchy.”
Sloane choked out a laugh. “That, too.” Her smile slipped. “He used to be nice.”
“Nice?” I asked dubiously. It was such a bland word. Whatever else I might say about him, Ethan wasn’t bland.
“Until he was about fifteen, he was great.”
“And then what? Testosterone poisoning?”
“And then his girlfriend died.”
I blinked at her. “Shit.” Now I felt bad for calling him names. Well, almost. “What happened?”
She put half of the last scone down and pushed the plate away. “He doesn’t talk about it,” she said quietly. “Her name was Summer. She grew up with us. All of our parents were friends. We all thought she and Ethan would get married one day. And then she died.”
“She had really long black hair, right? Super pretty?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“Ethan has a photo of her on his piano.”
Her eyebrows raised up practically into her hairline. “He talked to you about Summer? And wait, what were you doing in his bedroom?”
“Please. I was fixing his leaky faucet. And no, he didn’t talk about her. He threw me out of the room, actually.”
“Yeah, that sounds more like him.” She uncurled from the couch to brush her fingers over the spines of my books. “No vampire or werewolf books.” She smiled, and for some reason it was melancholy. “That’s refreshing.”
“I like the postapocalyptic stuff.”
“And comics, apparently,” she said, motioning to the shelf of graphic novels and DVDs. “X-Men, Smallville, Batman.”
I didn’t tell her it was partly research. That sometimes I thought about wearing a red leotard and calling myself Solar Flare. I could rescue people from lukewarm tea and freezer-burned food. I could light stubborn barbecues and save summer, one picnic at a time. Solar Flare to the rescue!
Sloane’s lips pursed disapprovingly. “But you don’t have any poetry. No Edgar Allan Poe, no Emily Dickinson.” She shook her head. “Savage.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “One of your parents is an English lit professor?” She had that look.
“Actually, I’m an orphan. Both my parents died when I was little.”
“Shit. Sorry.” This was what happened when you talked to people. Way to shove your big foot in your big mouth there, Alcott. Sloane, thankfully, didn’t look like she was going to cry or anything. I shifted awkwardly.
“It’s okay.” She shrugged. “It was a really long time ago. I barely knew them.” She glanced at the sun setting on the other side of the window. “I should get back to the dorms.” Her eyes went hard. “Be careful in this house, Kia.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Ethan, you mean?” Maybe she knew something.
She wouldn’t say anything else, just took the empty plate back downstairs and then left. I grabbed my bag.
“Where are you going?” Abby asked.
“To practice self-control,” I told her.
On the days that I didn’t deliver Danishes and doughnuts for Sara, Ethan’s dad let me borrow one of the cars. No one would notice me in the weedy parking lot of an abandoned factory, not like they’d notice the pink cupcake van. Still, I pulled around back where I’d be hidden. I needed to focus on important things, like werewolves and dead rabbits. Especially since it seemed, against my better judgment, that I had a friend again. I had to do better at protecting her.
And I’d spent too long pretending I couldn’t create fire. It wasn’t helping. I had to try another tactic, especially now that I knew there was something skulking in the forest. I briefly considered telling Abby, but decided I really didn’t want any more therapy.
Absently rubbing the burn scars on my elbow, I sat on the cracked pavement and ripped blank pages out of one of the notebooks in my bag. I crumpled them into balls and set them out in a line, like glass bottles on a fence for a sharpshooter. I took a deep breath and then held out my right hand, palm out.
Nothing happened.
Well, not entirely nothing.
I did feel like an idiot.
Maybe I needed incentive. Fear. Surprise. I needed something to strike against, like a match. Maybe friction would be enough, since neither Justine nor Ethan was around right now to piss me off. I rubbed my palms together until they chafed. I concentrated on the sensation of burning on my red skin, pushed it out like heat waves, visualized the paper catching fire, smelled the smoke in my nostrils. I concentrated so hard my face went hot, my breath caught, and I probably looked like I had a lemon wedge stuck in the back of my throat.
But the paper finally caught.
There was the barest spark, and then the edge burned, slowly crumpling in on itself as the fire got hungrier. The flames went high, then low, and then it was ashes. The next paper caught fire and the one after that. “Ha!” I cried triumphantly, before I remembered to be freaked out about it.
Especially since now all the paper was burning, as well as the litter next to it and one of the dandelions growing up out of the broken concrete. “Oops.” I leaped to my feet and stomped it out. The garbage pushed by the wind against the wall of the building began to smolder. Grass caught along the edge of the lot. Clearly, starting a fire on purpose wasn’t a problem.
Controlling it was something else entirely.
“Stop!” The stench of burning garbage made me cough. “Stop it!” I waved my hands around, and the fires hissed and jumped higher, as if they were attached to a propane hose. Oxygen. I was flapping my hands around, and fire needed oxygen to burn. I’d spent a lot of time researching fire when Riley was in the hospital.
So maybe in some weird way I was fanning the flames. I dropped my hands. The fire didn’t go out, but at least it looked less likely to jump to the surrounding birch trees. I tried to picture rain and waterfalls, but it didn’t help. Except now I had to pee. I took a deep breath. My heartbeat stopped racing quite so frantically. I clenched my hands together.
The fire died, belching smoke.
Fingers trembling, I ran back to the truck and jumped inside. My hands felt too hot, my eyelids gritty.
I might still not know why I had this power, or where it came from, but once, just once, I’d stopped it before it did any real damage.
It was a start.
Chapter Fourteen
Kia
The fire started in my locker.
I was rushing into school after dropping off an early-morning delivery for Sara. I pushed through more students than should have been standing around as the bell rang over our heads. They turned to stare at me. “Yes, new girl.” I rolled my eyes. “Get over it.”
And then I saw it. My locker door was open, hanging off one hinge and scorched black. The surrounding lockers were burned as well, and sticky with the residue from a fire extinguisher. The smell of smoke was acrid and burned my nostrils, familiar enough to send my stomach cartwheeling. A firefighter stood next to it in his gear. Headmaster Bradley saw me as I was wondering if I could vanish back into the crowd. “Kia Alcott.”
Students stepped back, leaving me exposed. I felt dizzy and nauseous. This was too familiar, way too familiar. Did I look guilty? I felt it, even though I’d been nowhere near the school when the fire broke out. I was used to evading accusations of firestarting, but mostly because I was used to actually starting them. This kind of irony made me feel brittle, breakable.
“What’s going on?” I asked, my voice squeakier than I would have liked. Seeing the firefighter made my palms sweat. I was back at my old school, smelling burning roses and hearing Riley scream.
“Come with me, please,” Bradley said curtly. “I’ve already contacted your grandmother.”
I followed him because there was no convenient window to climb through. “I didn’t do it,” I said as he sat behind his desk.
“You can see how I might question that.”
“I was delivering pastries at Brontë’s Café,” I told him, clenching my hands when the nervous sweat on my palms started to feel like sparks. “You can check.”
“You can be sure I will.”
“I didn’t do it,” I said again.
“You are suspended, Miss Alcott, pending further investigation.”
“Absolutely not.” Abby marched into the office in her plaid coat and work boots. She must have collected a bouquet of speeding tickets to get here so fast.
“Arson is a very ser
ious offense,” Bradley said. The word “arson” made my head spin.
“I agree. Which is why you will not accuse my granddaughter without serious and irrefutable proof.”
“The fire started in her locker.”
“Circumstantial evidence at best. Kia will continue to attend classes until you can verify without a shadow of a doubt that she was behind the fire. Innocent until proven guilty.”
“Her transcripts speak for themselves,” Bradley said. “Even you must agree with that—”
“If I’d set the fire,” I interrupted, “don’t you think I’d be smart enough not to set it in my own locker?”
He paused at that. “Perhaps it wasn’t intentional, but it’s still serious. Do you keep flammable items in your locker? That is against school rules.”
“I don’t exactly collect Molotov cocktails, if that’s what you’re asking me,” I said. “Maybe someone framed me.”
I’d said it because I was grabbing at straws, but now I wondered. The coincidence was too perfect. And for once, I hadn’t done anything. Even Justine, who was possessive and jealous about Ethan, wouldn’t go that far. She was bitchy, but she clearly didn’t see me as an actual threat. And as a prank, it was over-the-top, especially since I had exactly one friend to my name. There was no way Sloane would ever pull something like this.
“Framed? Let’s not stray into the realm of the ridiculous,” Bradley returned, annoyed. “This isn’t a detective show, Kia. It’s a cry for help.”
I suddenly really, really wanted to flick fire from my fingertips just to see the look on his face. Abby’s hand clamped around my wrist. “Kia wasn’t even here at the time of the incident,” she pointed out sharply. “I trust that will be in your reports? The ones you send to Holden Blackwood’s lawyers?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not the bad guy here.”
“Prove it,” Abby said.
There was a very, very long pause in which I thought very, very hard about self-control.
“I suppose since the incident occurred when the school was empty, we might discuss probation. No extracurricular activities, no failed assignments, and absolutely no infractions of any kind while the investigation is underway.”
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