“Stay with them!” I order Brody.
“You stay with them,” he counters. “They’ll need me up there.”
“I need you down here. I just got her back, Brody. Please. Stay. Keep them safe.”
He grunts. “Such a hot head.”
“I agree, but I trust you most with their lives.”
“Who can I trust with yours?” he murmurs.
“Me. Just me.”
I climb the ladder fast, running through the basement and up the stairs, skipping two at a time. I don’t expect to be able to offer much assistance, but trying? I’m all over that. I’ll try with everything I have. At the very least, I can warn them.
Only, I can’t warn them. I hit an emotional wall in the living room, stopping me dead in my tracks. A nauseating scent paralyzes me. It’s burning flesh mixed with smoke and ash, yet there’s no fire. There’s only a sea of endless crimson in the gross visual presentation. Nothing could prepare me for this.
I’ve thought about death a lot, about what it’ll be like for me or the innocent people incinerated in my transition, but what I imagined was nothing like what I see through the picture window. Not even in my most horrible nightmares did I envision true desolation. Carnage. It’s total carnage.
Mom was right. They aren’t coming. They’re here. Our time is up. What started as a party, complete with full catering and a band for entertainment, has morphed into a wasteland of bodies drowning in a red river of pain and death. Bile rises in my throat as I share their agony, fear, and final breaths. I’m helpless to stop it.
Their piercing cries blow through my brain, drilling holes in all my senses. Is it a hundred enemies having so unconscionably massacred this group of innocents? No, it’s the Sentry. I recognize Molly and Connor at once, though they aren’t among the still-dying crowd. They’re off to the side, incapable of standing against their leader. Literally. Phelan is in creature form, tearing the partygoers to shreds. My family is standing with the Sentry. No one’s taking action. Is it a can’t or won’t problem? Moot. They couldn’t have done anything to stop it, regardless.
The wolf-bear rears his ugly head and makes eye contact with me, roaring so loudly it rattles my heart. I want to run. I want to hide. I want to crawl inside myself by flipping my emergency shut-off switch, yet I can’t move. I can’t do anything except stare blanks as he barrels toward me, smashing the window in pursuit of his target. The glass shatters around me. My blood paints the shards on the floor.
Phelan snaps his teeth at me, but I’m not what he’s after. He stalks toward the basement door. White heat, blinding and burning, rushes through me, and I know the burning flesh I smell isn’t coming from the crowd. It’s coming from me. Pain. Flesh fire means pain.
Phelan disappears into the stairwell while the fire thaws my frozen limbs, urging me to follow. It demands release, and he’s what it wants. He can’t fit down the hatch in behemoth beast mode, so he’s shifting back to human skin when I catch sight of him again. I steady my hands, aiming my palms at the murderer planning to finalize his mission by eradicating my bomb shelter residents.
Before I can release the stream, someone shoves me from behind, causing the fire to miss its target and ricochet off the far basement wall. The force of the impact blows a hole in the concrete. Connor. He wasn’t trying to stop me so much as shove me out of the way. He’s following Phelan through the entrance before I can ready a second blast.
Molly isn’t far behind. She has a tagalong. Not that I care to be curious, presently. All I care about are the people I love, who need my help battling the monsters set on slaughtering them.
I start down the ladder, only getting halfway before Phelan knocks it free from the wall as he unleashes the wolf-bear once more. I go toppling toward the reinforced steel floor below, cracking my head off the release lever. The hatch closes above me shortly after Molly and the final Sentry member hit the bottom, right next to me. Blood is trailing down my forehead, pooling in my left eye. It twitches. Oh good, we’re on that again.
“Not a hair on her head,” Molly seethes. “That was the order.”
Phelan can’t respond. He’s already shapeshifted and is making his way toward Brody, who’s standing protectively in front of my mother and father. They’re cowering on the bed. He wants to come to my aid but can’t without exposing them.
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The electrical hum grows inside him. Can he fry them all? My heat is also rising, so I’m confident we can keep them at bay, but how long can a standoff last?
Only moments ago, I was the happiest I’ve ever been. Selfish. I was selfish, and Karma saw fit to rectify that slight. I want to go back there. Rewind time. I’d give it up. My joy. My Dad. My Mom. Even Brody. I’d give it all up to know the price of my happiness was this much death.
I misfire gloriously when I attempt to stand. My thigh bone is playing a grotesque game of peek-a-boo. Blood pools below me. My stomach rolls, bringing with it all the pain I hadn’t felt until I saw the physical damage.
The Sentry stranger shifts beside me, drawing my attention. What does he plan to do? Definitely nothing good. His grizzly beard masks his face. All I can see are his dark, angry eyes. He uses both hands to hold my leg and stomps on my thigh with his ratty old combat boot. As searing pain shoots through my body, I forget momentarily to be afraid. Logic prevails. He wasn’t taking advantage of my damaged state to further ruin me. He reset my thigh bone. Bedside manner rating? Zero stars. Do not recommend.
When my mother screams, I push the man out of the way just as Phelan launches himself at Brody. Brody releases an electrical pulse, deflecting the brunt of the blow. Still, Phelan knocks him away from the bed. Connor throws down four departure stones. He’s preparing their getaway.
I try to stand again but can’t move from my position. Why? Because the Sentry stranger is holding me down with his bulky palms, burying his fingers in my shoulder blades deeper each time I attempt to change my position for better leverage.
“You’re hurting her, Seán,” Molly admonishes sternly, and the grip loosens considerably.
“This is too much.” His voice vibrates with emotion. “It’s gone too far.”
He isn’t angry. He’s terrified, having no idea how to get out of this nightmare he’s found himself in.
“We can’t go back,” he mutters. “We can’t let them take them.”
“I know,” she whispers.
She heads to where Connor’s positioning the stones, but he surprises her by standing his ground. He isn’t on board the defection train. He’s not giving up the fight and shoves her back with full force. She rams into Seán, who falls on top of me. Defector dominos.
Sheelin’s kaleidoscopic glory illuminates the small space, and Connor yoinks my mother right out of my father’s hands. She kicks and screams to no avail as Connor holds her firm inside the transit circle.
“Phelan, come on!” he yells. “We’ll get Sheyla later.”
“Please, Connor,” Molly begs. “Stop this.”
His cold as ice glare cuts Molly deep. Her brother, her blood, is choosing the side opposite the one she’s decided to stand on. She won’t fight him but won’t go with him, either. Between Molly and Seán, there’s no way Connor or Phelan are getting to me. That doesn’t matter to Phelan, anyway. The only thing that matters to him is finishing the one thing he’s really come here to do. End Brody.
Brody resists as the electricity overwhelms his body. It’s too much to contain, but he isn’t trying to stop the imminent arc flash. He wants it to come. He’s radiating that fabulous fireplace smell. Comfort. He’s happy to use the full extent of his powers to decimate Phelan if it means protecting me. He’s holding off for a fatal blow.
He makes eye contact with me when it happens.
He smiles reassuringly at me when it happens.
He takes my smile with him when it happens.
He releases the excess electrical surge into Phelan just as Phelan tears into his neck, from one side clear to the other. A cloud of smoke creates a haze around them, and as the smoke is dying down, the flashing transit lights bounce off the four steel walls, disappearing as Connor escapes with my mother.
Where Brody and Phelan were fighting, two departure stones lay in their place. That’s the only thing left of my friend and the vicious beast who destroyed him.
My tinder heart explodes in my chest. All the chaos overhead was minor trauma compared to what I feel from the loss of Brody. My mother being taken? Still doesn’t compare to the loss of Brody. My best friend. Maybe more. Probably more, if I’m being entirely honest. He was the one holding that glass of water for me after my marathon. There’s no water now. There’s only fire. I want to go into the blazing abyss, too. There will be no phoenix rising from this pile of billowing ash. There will be no more anything. I’ll burn through the world until there’s no world left. Scorched earth.
Ryan’s at the open hatch, unfashionably late to the desolation party. He’s the last thing I see before my flame erupts and dances across my flesh, igniting the blood coating my skin. “Put her out!” Seán releases a fire extinguisher on me.
We’re moving. I drift off. We’re moving again. I drift off again. I’m in and out of consciousness several times over the next few hours. Derry’s here, but I don’t want Derry by my side. That isn’t his place. He isn’t my rock. Brody’s my rock, my literal rock now, and he’s been killed in the war I had no business assuming I could fight in.
I’ve saved no one. I’ve accomplished nothing. I’ve cost the lives of countless innocent people. It’s me who should burn. Why haven’t I exploded yet?
I can’t find the dividing line. For every towline I disengage, a thousand more grappling hooks ensnare me. We’re flying. When I stir, Derry places something smooth in my free hand. It’s Brody. He’s given me all that’s left of Brody. My heart breaks all over again. The fire stirs, and something sharp pricks my arm. I fall asleep.
My temperature spikes every time I’m awake for more than a few minutes, which leads to a stick in my arm where Ryan injects me. They’re drugging me. Mandatory cooldown.
We’re at an airport. “She’s sick,” Ryan claims. “We’re taking her to a special doctor.”
There’s no special doctor who can save me. I can’t be saved. The universe has swallowed me whole, and I’m digesting in the pit of despair. I feel another prick in my arm. Darkness again.
They think we’re leaving the desolation behind us. How can we possibly run from it? How can I? The simple answer is I can’t. I can’t run from my fate since what I’m trying to outrun is inside me. I’ll carry it wherever I go. It’s part of me. It’s all of me. Without it, I’m nothing. I want to be nothing.