Singe

by Casey Hays

  Part of me wishes that were true, and a tiny fire sears my back right where the scars are. A stark reminder of my loss.

  “Your father told no one of this?” She faces me. “He let the adoption story become the truth?”

  “I think some people had to know,” I decide. “The O’Reillys. Maybe even Mr. McDowell. But probably no one else.”

  Mom and Dad clearly wanted the world—and me—to believe I was human to the core. And we did… for the longest time.

  “So there’s no chance for Joshua to compel Adam and Anika, is there?”

  I ask it, but I know the answer already, and Petra’s eyes grow wet on cue. She shakes her head. But with a quick wipe of her tears, she expertly reverts the subject back to my exam.

  “There appear to be no changes in you physically since Monday.” She offers a wan smile. “That’s good news. Despite the increase of intensity in your dreams, you’re stable.”

  “Good.” I slide off the end of the table, teetering a little as my feet hit the cold tiles, off balanced. My clothes lay piled on a chair in the corner. “Because I’m planning to reach Rylin tonight.”

  I hustle one leg into my jeans while her entire body language shifts.

  “We can’t risk that.” She says it quietly but with finality. I straighten, confused and frustrated all at once.

  “We won’t. Only me.” I pull on my jeans, bunching the gown to the side to button them. “Aren’t you worried about him at all?”

  “Of course, I am.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “You are still having trouble distinguishing when you’re asleep,” she says. Okay… that is a problem. “And we don’t know where Rylin is.”

  “Uh, duh.” I scoop up my bra and slide it under the gown, fastening it. “That’s the point behind finding someone.”

  I sound like a brazen smartass. Petra lets this roll off.

  “How many Firebloods have you let into your dreams?” Calmly, she cuts off the computer and settles on the stool, waiting.

  “That I know of for sure? Kane… and Rylin.”

  “Not too many, then.”

  “What does that matter?”

  “You need to understand that when you invite a Fireblood into your head, whether it’s through dreaming or telepathy—or through linking mantras—you open yourself up to some dangerous possibilities. If Rylin is still in the grip of the Contingent—if they’ve replaced his tracker—then he could expose you, your location, Kane’s location. But worse, he could be used as a conduit for another Fireblood to get into your head.”

  I freeze, horrified.

  “But… I have to invite someone in, right?”

  “Yes. And all you have to do to make that happen is be introduced to one. If they have Rylin, he is susceptible to their methods. He could inadvertently allow someone into your head.”

  And all my light bulbs come on at once.

  “That’s why he won’t let me open the door.”

  Petra’s interest piques. She shifts on her stool, rolling an inch toward me. “There’s a door?”

  “Yeah. He told me never to open it.”

  I’m numb, trying to wrap my mind around what she’s implying. That the Contingent has Rylin as… what? Their prisoner? Are they torturing him for my sake? For Kane’s? Trying to get him to confess our whereabouts? Have they probed him? Are they on their way to find my brother as we speak?

  All the more reason for me to reach him if I can.

  “I have to do this, Petra.” My tears march in, full force. “I’ll be careful.”

  Petra holds still a moment longer. I wrangle into my tee shirt, tossing the gown aside.

  “We had a close call with Anika once.” Petra takes a shallow breath and stands, the stool spinning out from under her, and I pause to listen. “She and Adam snuck into the casino one night. He knew better, but he was going through his rebellious stage. At any rate, she dreamed of a Fireblood shortly after. Meeting one and dreaming about them. That’s all it takes to let a Fireblood in.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “The next time she let Joshua in, he met this man in her head. A strange Fireblood who was clearly infiltrating our daughter’s mind. He came close to breaching the lab, but worse… he nearly found out my daughter. And then, he would have found my son.”

  Her voice croaks with emotion, and a whole new reason for keeping the lab secure slams into me. Maybe she’s not close to her children, but maybe this is why. She spends every ounce of her time and energy keeping them a secret from the Contingent. Because she loves them. I see it all over her.

  “It happened again; we tried sedating her, which helped some. But finally, we had to prevent her from dreaming at all with an implant. She’s Fireblood enough to not need REM sleep.” She blinks back tears. “But she missed her dreams. It took months for her to finally sleep through the night when we stopped them.”

  I let this sink in, feeling Petra’s dilemma in my own heart. It’s a tough call, and I understand her reservations. I want to be sensitive to them, but they don’t change the fact that Rylin didn’t come back when he promised to.

  And I’m not Anika.

  “Why am I here, Petra?” I ask.

  She looks at me, sighs. I press her.

  “This is an opportunity. A big opportunity to make a breakthrough. The longer I’m in my natural form the more control I seem to gain over my dreams. You want to find answers that might change things for Anika? I’m your girl. Put me to the test.”

  I watch her, hopeful. I understand her motives so much better now, and I sense a slight fear in her that makes her stall. Because what if, instead of finding answers, my experiment raises her worst nightmare? It might. But we will never know if she doesn’t let me take this risk.

  After a long hesitation, she falls back onto her seat.

  “You must identify whether you are awake or dreaming. This is essential for what you are wanting to test, and we are just not there yet.”

  “So help me,” I plead. Rylin may not have much time left, and I’m done stalling.

  Petra taps her fingers to her lip, as if she’s trying to decide if she should divulge her thoughts. But something else lies underneath this: a heavy load of invisible bricks balanced on her perfectly poised shoulders begins to crumble. I practically hear the imaginary thud as her body relaxes to let them slip.

  “I’ve been considering a therapeutic technique. It may work; it may not.”

  “Let’s hear it.” I sink into the chair.

  “Do you have an object you associate with being awake? Perhaps something that you have never seen in one of your dreams?”

  That’s a tough one, and I scramble through the memory of every dream I can remember. I scratch an itch near my throat, bump into the smooth, flat metal key hanging from its chain, and there’s my answer. It’s as if it the darn thing summoned my fingers.

  “This.”

  I lift the beautifully painted key. My most treasured gift from Kane, which has never been in my dreams.

  “It’s beautiful.” The light reflects off the piano keys, and for a second, it looks like someone plays them.

  “Thank you. My friend Frankie is a brilliant artist.”

  I let the key fall back into place, its familiar coolness already doing its work of centering my emotions. There’s so much of my life behind the symbol of this key; it’s as if Petra knew.

  “I want you to plant in your mind that this key will never be in your dreams. And I want you to look for it when you aren’t sure whether or not you’re asleep. If you can’t find it, then you’ll have your answer. This is the first step.”

  “I can do that.” No key in my dreams. I find it in the folds of my shirt and wrap it in my palm. I’m awake.

  “Is there an item, an object, a place in your dream that might be the doorway to letting Rylin in?”

  I rack my brain, and can literally think of nothing. No object, no location. Although, there is the cornfield
dream. But then again, I dreamt of my brother in a cornfield too, so…

  “My brother has shown up with Rylin a couple of times,” I shrug. “And a cornfield once.”

  “A cornfield.”

  She strums her fingertips against her cheek, and I get caught up in the movement, visualizing my own fingers plinking across piano keys. I crush the key in my palm more tightly.

  “What about Kane?” Petra reaches for the clipboard that has become thick with sheet after sheet of information on me.

  “I’m not sure.” Kane is always with me. In my thoughts, my dreams, right next to me when I’m wide awake. He could be part of the reason I’m unsure whether I’m asleep now that I think about it. “This isn’t an object, but I’m always in control of myself when he’s there. I know I’m in a dream, but I also know something outside of my head is happening, or will happen. Or has happened. In the real world. And he tells me it smells like roses.”

  “Roses.” She scribbles quickly and raises her eyes with a smile. “And corn. I sense a gardening theme here.”

  “Kane can be really skeptical,” I add. “Sometimes he has to see a scenario in my head before he owns it for himself.”

  “And what is it that you do to allow Kane to enter your dream state?”

  And my conversation with Kane about letting Rylin in is fresh at the front of my mind.

  “I fall asleep thinking of him, and he’s there.” I play with the arm of the chair, running my finger over its smooth surface. “He says he comes into my dreams through a tunnel on his end.”

  She jots this down and studies her notes, chewing on the end of her pen.

  “It sounds to me like you’ve already figured this out.” Her voice lifts in a moment of excitement.

  “Figured out what?”

  “How do you control your dreams,” she grins. “You don’t let your imagination do it for you without being a part of the creative process. It’s your dream world; you make the decisions. You decide if you will be aware of your waking world or not. You add the components you want as you go. This seems to happen most naturally with Kane, but it has all the makings of a tool to be used with any Fireblood.”

  “All along, I’ve been saying things just happen. And you’re telling me they happen… because I will them to?”

  “Yes.” Her voice rises with a chirp, and she reaches forward and gives my hand a tiny, happy slap. “If you teach your brain to know the difference between being asleep and awake, and…” She points at the key pinched between my fingers. “Use an object to help you know the difference… ” She clenches her fists with an excited tremble and busies herself with the clipboard again. I just smile.

  It’s so simple.

  “You need to be extremely careful. Alert.” Petra’s dark eyes pierce deep, permission to move forward written inside them. “Fall asleep with an agenda on your mind, and I guarantee this will help.”

  “Okay.” Excitement flutters low and cautious in my belly.

  “And… if Rylin closes a door on you… leave it closed. He’ll have a good reason for it.”

  A streak of fear strikes like lightening. Because I’m not sure that will be an option.

  “One more suggestion.” Petra stands, so I do to. I’m at least five inches taller, and she suddenly looks so small. So insignificant. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. “Let Kane into your dream tonight. From what you’ve told me, you may be able to keep better control with him there, and I’ll feel much better about that.”

  She says it hesitantly, but I like the idea of Kane. An easiness swarms over me, but so does a shiver of anxious anticipation.

  And so… the real experimenting finally begins.

  It’s about time.

  Twenty

  “I feel like all I do these days is sleep.”

  It’s dark, but the drapes stand wide open, and from my position on the couch, I can see the city lights for what seems like miles. They sparkle against the night sky in a myriad of colors.

  I’m curled up on the sofa in my suite with Kane slouched on the other end. Feet stretched out in front of him, he clicks through the channels. That’s how bored we are. At home, we don’t sit around contemplating which television show to watch like an elderly, settled couple. Not that I’m not looking forward to that one of these days. But in Carson City, we’ve got things to do, friends to see, a tan to work on. I sigh, stretching my legs out, tucking my toes under Kane’s thigh. I miss our friends. I wish I could pick up my phone and call Devan.

  “Are you tired?” He rolls his head toward me.

  “Not really.”

  My camouflage has worn completely off, and my skin is bright orange. I trace a finger along a veiny marking running the length of my palm. Finally, I’m getting used to the constant light. Kane’s skin shimmers, but he’s put his wings away for now. I wish it were that easy for me to switch from one form to the other.

  “I saw an ice cream parlor right next to the elevators in the casino,” Kane winks. “You wanna be rebels again and go get some?”

  “No.” First off, I’m not about to pull on my camouflage, and he knows it, and secondly… is he joking? “We are not going to the casino.”

  “I’ll go by myself. In and out.”

  He camouflages and shimmies into a sweat shirt he slung over the arm of the couch earlier. Flipping the hoodie into place, presents himself for approval. Yeah, that doesn’t make him look like he’s hiding anything at all.

  “You’d better be careful,” I warn with a tip of my head.

  “When am I not careful?” He hands me this look of sheer innocence. I frown; he grins. “Don’t answer that. But what do you want?”

  It’s clear he’s got his heart set on ice cream, so…

  “Bring me something with pecans?”

  “Pecans it is.” His fingers give my ankle a little squeeze, and he hands off the remote. “Maybe you can find something worth watching by the time I get back.”

  “I’ll get right on that,” I laugh, tossing the remote onto the coffee table.

  He leaves and a slight anxiety settles over me, but I push it off. He’ll be fine. In and out. He said so.

  In the kitchen, I rummage through the cabinet for something to go with the ice cream. I find a box of Little Debbie chocolate cakes and slap them onto the countertop.

  I try not to think about my wings, or my lack thereof, I should say. When I do, I just get angry. I want so badly to call up my mom and ream her out. But then, I take a step back and look at it from my parents’ perspective, and it’s easier to not be so mad. My dreams, or rather my memories of myself as a baby, are starting to make a whole lot of sense. My parents loved me enough to protect me from a Contingent law that would have killed me, and that’s what I have to focus on. Unlike Jarron, unlike Adam and Anika, I never had to hide. At least, not in the same way.

  I’m working on being grateful.

  Petra spent some time walking me through the delicate procedure of wing removal. Even if she wanted to remove Adam’s wings, it’s just not possible at his age. She’s done the math—all the research from every angle. Wings become a part of the spinal structure during the first few months of a Fireblood’s life, making it near impossible for an extraction, especially by one year old. In fact, a Fireblood with all of his healing attributes, would likely not survive such a procedure after this point. And Adam? Well, he would not be able to heal, and he would die. As of right now, he’s perfectly healthy. There’s no need to put his life in danger. For him, it’s too late.

  I can’t be too presumptuous; I mean, I don’t know Adam. But from our one conversation, I have a suspicious feeling he’d be willing to take a risk. How wonderfully terrible it is to be blessed with a pair of wings. It’s a conundrum.

  I asked Kane to find some roses. My thought: the smell will ensure that I let him in tonight in case I fail on my own. The idea of him not being there sends my nerves into a frenzy. Because the closer it gets to showtime, the more my fear sets in�
��for many reasons. I need him to be there.

  Kane teased me, saying there was an unspoken rule about how a girl isn’t supposed to ask for her own flowers; they’re always supposed to be a surprise. But he called up a flower shop that delivered a bouquet of assorted roses intact with a card that read: “For the girl who writes my dreams.” I plucked the card up immediately and tucked into my bag, a small skip in my heart. All right, so it’s not the most ideal way to get flowers, but the card was his idea. I’ll keep that thing forever.

  The vase of flowers sits on the nightstand, the petals doused in water from a spray bottle I happened to have in my bag, and the room is pungent with their smell. Next to them, Angelica slumps. She was the last thing I grabbed before we left my house four days ago, and tonight, I feel better just having her by my bedside.

  Angelica looks a little worn these days, and I re-prop her floppy, cotton body before I unhook the key fastened around my neck and drop it next to her. The chain slips through my fingers and piles with a metallic rattle.

  I wash my face and climb into my pajamas before slipping on the monitor vest. Petra definitely wants me monitored, but she didn’t feel the need to attach a thousand wires to my body this time. She has the data she needs for the most part. Dara gave me a thorough lesson on how to put the equipment on myself. Only three wires tonight: one adhered to each temple and one suctioned to the area right over my heart.

  The monitor vest is snug, which doesn’t accommodate the itch that invades my waistline five minutes after I fit myself into it. I try to scratch it with a pen up under the edge. No luck. Great. Off it comes.

  I’ve just buckled myself back into the vest when I hear Kane in the kitchen. And he’s not alone.

  His voice carries through the place as he talks to someone. At first, I think he’s on his phone, until I remember he doesn’t have it. And then, for a brief second, I hold out hope that Rylin has finally come back. But another voice rings out, destroying that theory. A girl’s voice. Puzzled, I slip into the living room.

  “Hey,” Kane grins. “You’ll never guess who I found.”

  And I’m glued to my spot in the doorway, staring at a familiar freckled, ivory face under a bush of frizzy hair.