“Cairo!”
Cairo looked back in time to see a silver baton flying quickly toward his face. He moved out of the flight path and closed his hand around the baton as it arrived.
“Go!” The thrower yelled as they continued to run toward him.
The runners next to Cairo took off as they were passed their batons, and he remembered where he was.
Cairo’s feet pushed off of the ground and propelled him forward. Breathing evenly, he sprinted easily past the other runners while they strained their faces as they tried to keep up. He had to stifle a yawn as his legs moved almost automatically, bored by the activity.
“Hey, Dipshit!” Someone yelled from behind him. He looked back again to see another baton flying toward him, but this time not from his teammate. The baton hit him in the face, causing him to lose balance and trip. The baton changed its course just before it hit the ground and flew against gravity toward the girl who was now passing Cairo. She caught it and sprinted ahead as it glided into her hand. Cairo could already feel a bruise forming on his forehead as the area throbbed. He pushed himself back to his feet and picked up the pace, enjoying himself now.
The two runners behind them were too far back to even bother thinking about. Right now his target was the blonde head that bobbed fifteen feet in front of him. Her steady pace would have been easy to catch up to, but the blood within his fingertips had already started to boil. He shifted his gaze to the metal baton in the girl’s right hand and stretched his lips into a smirk.
Three feet from the finish line, the girl yelped in pain and dropped her baton to the ground. She skidded to a halt as she shook out her hand—the flesh of her palm was as bright red as the baton burning on the ground. The flames around it dissipated as Cairo jogged past, finishing first. The girl circled back around begrudgingly and kicked her smoking baton to second place.
“Wooooooo!!” A mousy brown-haired boy jumped on Cairo’s back as he tried to catch his breath. “Take that, Farrah!”
The blonde girl snapped her head in their direction and flashed a nightmare-inducing glare.
A whistle sounded in the distance before either boy had time to piss himself, and the class turned to look at the teacher who wore a deadlier glare than Farrah. The teacher continued to blow his whistle until he was close enough to pop Cairo’s eardrum.
“Mr. Tanaka, how many detentions are required to break this habit?”
“Twelve.” Cairo sighed. “But she used her abil—her ‘habit,’ too!”
“I did not,” Farrah said. She smiled sweetly as her hair flowed gently in the wind.
“Yes, she—” His eyes glanced to hers. “Nevermind.”
“Rowyn, I’ll give you a detention too for encouraging this behavior.” Mr. Valderamo filled out two slips and passed them to the boys.
“Oh, God da—” Mr. Valderamo caught Rowyn’s eye, ready to fill out another form. “Gosh darn—toodily doodily,” he quickly amended with a smile.
Cairo snickered from next to him, but quickly dropped his mirth as he looked down at the pink slip in his hand. Number of detentions: 12.
“If any of you protest to this punishment, please speak now.”
None of the students spoke, but instead hung their heads in silence.
“Good. Farrah’s team takes first by default. Cairo and the others are disqualified and owe me a mile while the rest of you go change.”
The students dispersed except for Cairo and his teammates. Raine and Matija shoved past him angrily while Rowyn jogged at his side.
“You couldn’t hold back a little?” Rowyn asked, peevishly.
“You were on my side a second ago.” Cairo defended. “Besides, she started it.”
“Let’s finish so we can get to detention.”
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Cairo and Rowyn changed out of their sweaty gym clothes but had no time to shower. Sticky in his polo shirt and fitted jeans, with his hair matted beyond control, Cairo led the way to the all-familiar detention hall. Rowyn struggled to keep up with his pace, hobbling behind with one shoe on and the other in his hand.
The final bell rung and students filled the halls to clear their lockers for the day; some making plans to hang out, others rushing to leave the premises. Cairo’s phone buzzed in his back pocket, but he ignored it as a burly Mr. Valderamo came into view. He stood outside room 2-E with his arms crossed and a permanent look of disapproval etched on his face. He slid the door open for the boys and shut them in with the rest.
“Back again, Cairo?” someone asked from the back of the room.
“Yep.”
“What’d you do this time?”
“Punched a girl in the boob.” He said, sitting down in the second row.
“You too, huh?” Devon snickered. “What’d you do, Rowyn?”
“I was the girl.”
He sat down next to Cairo as Valderamo entered the room, locking the door behind him.
“Think we’ll have time to make it to the club meeting afterward?” Rowyn whispered to Cairo.
He hushed his friend as Valderamo pulled the loathsome Clipboard of Hell from behind the teacher’s desk and read down the list.
“Devon: report to the library for reorganization.”
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“You get me every time, teach.” Devon stood up and took his stuff out of the room.
“Marshal, you’re on sports equipment.”
A tall boy with dark hair left the room and headed toward the locker rooms with sloping shoulders.
“Sarai: Printing duty in Administration; Rowyn: Shower scrubbing duty; Cairo: Hallway scrubbing duty.”
The remaining students groaned loudly as they stood up, Valderamo shooing them out of the room.
The boys split outside the door. Cairo, knowing exactly where to go, grabbed a bucket from the janitor’s closet, rolled up his pants and headed down the hall. If he couldn’t go to his club meeting, he could at least go near it. He pushed the bucket toward room 3-A and dropped to his knees outside of the door. He saturated a sponge with soapy water and began scrubbing against the wooden planks with both hands. With each scrub, he got lower and lower until he could see light underneath the door crack. It looked like there were flowers budding on the floor in the room, and he scrubbed angrily at the thought of his friends having fun in there while he was stuck cleaning.
He scrubbed furiously for fifteen minutes, too frustrated to notice as the door beside him opened and his hands smacked into a pair of leather oxfords.
“Ow—” a voice squeaked.
Cairo looked up to apologize, only to realize he was looking up a girl’s skirt. He fell backward into the bucket of soap as his face turned bright red. The girl shifted her feet out of the way as the water from the bucket creeped toward her.
“Sorry—” He looked up to see a pair of blue eyes sparkling with amusement as the girl laughed. “Mae…” He turned his face away from her, blushing harder.
Mae looked down the hall, checking to see if anyone else was around, and stepped closer to him. She glided her hand through the air, and the water that drenched the floor slowly rolled back into the bucket, fighting gravity to stay inside until Cairo lifted it off its side.
“Thanks,” he said.
She held out her hand for him. He stared at it, his heart beating quickly. He reached out to take it, keeping his body temperature under control, but his hand stopped in midair as a voice sounded from 3-A.
Cairo looked over to see Farrah leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed, laughing viciously.
“This is great,” she said. “Enjoying cleaning duty?”
His heartbeat dropped back to normal as his blood curdled. “Come to mock me?” he snapped.
“I came to get a soda,” she mused. “But while I’m here…”
“Don’t drink too much sugar,” he warned. “It’s bad for your acne.”
Farrah hissed at him as she headed toward the vending machine.
Mae sighed and crouched down next to Cairo.
“You two are awful,” She smiled at him.
His heartbeat picked back up; he had never been this close to her.
“Wh—what are you guys doing in the club today?”
“Oh,” She hummed as she thought of an answer. “If you didn’t get detention, I guess you’d be able to find out.”
She stood up again and walked back into the classroom, closing the door quickly behind her.
Cairo exhaled deeply and laid back on the damp floor. Farrah stomped toward him, opening a soda can and pouring its contents out into the hall.
“Guess you can’t make it to the club, since you’ve got so much cleaning to do.” She smirked.
She screamed as Cairo chased her down the hall with fire in his hands, earning 15 more detentions as he ran into Valderamo.
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Cairo grabbed his stuff from his locker, disappointed at having to work extra-long and completely missing the club. He checked his phone as he headed toward the front gate of the school, remembering receiving a message earlier.
A text from his mother popped up, reading: “Can you walk Alex home from school today?”
“Shit!”
He sprinted down the street until he had reached their thin, two-story house. He hopped over the broken gate and fumbled to unlock the front door. The lock jammed two times, but opened on the third.
“Alex?”
He rushed through all the rooms of the cramped house, tripping over his feet on his way up the stairs. Finally checking her room, he discovered the house was empty except for a cat that he had never seen before. He pulled his cellphone from his pocket and dialed his sister’s number, practically screaming her name as she picked up on the other end.
“Jeez, Cairo, what is it?”
He sighed in relief and sat down on her bed.
“Where are you?”
“I’m at Morgan’s house.”
“Did you walk home with her?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Nevermind—”
“Oh, were you scared because you were supposed to walk me home from school but didn’t show up again?”
Cairo calmed his breathing and walked down the hall to his bedroom. He closed the door and dropped his bag on the floor.
“Sorry, Alex,” he said conversationally. “Just come home now.”
“Fine.” She snapped. “You’re no fun.”
She hung up the phone before he had a chance to respond. Cairo sighed again; it seemed like he hadn’t been able to catch his breath all day. Realizing how gross he felt, he threw his clothes in the laundry hamper and showered.
Alex arrived home from the neighbor’s while Cairo was in the shower and did her homework in the living room—a sight that pleased their mother as she came home from work at six.
“Cairo!” His mother called up the stairs.
Cairo was doing his own homework at his transparent desk, tempted to turn the computer on in front of him and watch the first mind-numbing thing he could click on. He reached over to open his door and called back down to her.
“What?”
“Come help with dinner!”
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Dinner was awkward as always as Autumn watched her children glare at each other while harshly chewing their food. The silence was extra heavy in the cramped kitchen; a space that was barely able to fit the three of them in any normal circumstance.
“How was school?” She finally asked, trying to break the silence.
“Fine.” They both snapped in unison, never breaking eye contact.
“Sorry you had to miss your study club to walk your sister home, Cairo.”
He opened his mouth to make up an excuse, but was interrupted by Alex, who had been waiting for this moment all night.
“He didn’t miss it!” She smiled gleefully.
“Alex!” He shot his foot toward her under the table but missed.
“What?” Autumn asked.
“Actually, I did miss it,” he said. “I had detention.”
“What do you mean? Did you not take your sister home?”
“She went home with Morgan.” He tried to minimize the damage as much as possible.
“I had to,” Alex continued to smile. “Because Cairo borrowed my house key last week and never gave it back.”
“Cairo.” His mother chastised him with just one look.
“Sorry.” He hung his head. “It won’t happen again, Mom.”
“Why do you keep getting detention?—and stop losing your house key, I can’t afford it! Do you know how much I pay for this school? You’re going to flunk out before your third year!”
“Good.” He mumbled under his breath.
“What?”
“I hate that school.” The air around him lit up as flames spread from his shoulders to his neck, scorching his t-shirt.
“Put those out right now.”
“They punish me anytime I use my abilities—”
“Well, that would be the point of a reform school, Cairo—”
“I have to scrub the floors every day, they’ve all but given me the key to the janitor’s closet—”
“I’m sure you’d lose it anyway—”
“They make us call our abilities habits—”
“Because it is!” His mother snapped.
He stopped his angry muttering. A feeling of intense pain shot through his body as water rushed down on him from the fire sprinklers overhead.
“This is the nineteenth house we’ve had in 6 months! I work overtime just to pay our insurance bills! Do you know how many arson investigations I’ve been through because of you?”
He stared at her, hair dripping wet, and shaking with pain. The water turned to steam the minute it touched his skin.
“Can you turn it off?” he asked calmly. “It hurts.”
She rushed to the control panel on the wall. “Go upstairs, Alex.”
Alex sighed and pushed her soggy food away, leaving the room.
His mother turned off the sprinkler system and retrieved a towel from under the closest cabinet. She wrapped it around her shivering son, holding onto him tightly.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, tears slipping from her eyes. “It’s not your fault.”
“The longer I go without using it, the more it hurts.”
“The pain will go away soon.” She rested her head against his. “It’s for the best.”
He stared forward, no longer shivering.
“I know.”