JACKIE:

I snapped awake with a snort and found myself back in the Life Rite apartment. Beatrice was no longer by my side on the couch. I rubbed my eyes and looked around to find her standing behind me. She looked the same as before she fell to her death into the volcano with Mark. How could this be real life?

“You haven’t aged…”

Beatrice smirked, pleased that I knew the truth about her.

“Are you… Did Grace’s mother have a twin?” I stammered.

“Interesting take, Jackie. Is that who you think I am?”

I swallowed and gathered the courage to say what I really thought. “You’re Grace’s mom?”

“Not anymore, but I was then.”

Off my look of disbelief, Beatrice added, “That little twit killed her own mother and father, and showed no remorse. Do you still choose her side?”

I charged back, “But you’re still alive!”

“And looking better than ever,” Beatrice said with a wink. “But Mark didn’t make it, and Grace didn’t know I’d survive. She wanted to get rid of me. She’d rather keep the miracle treatment for herself instead of sharing it with the world. Grace abandoned her own child, you dear Jackie. She let you live in squalor as a janitor instead of allowing you to lay claim as the rightful heir to our wealthy estate. Is she who you should focus your energy on in the slipstream?”

Beatrice had a point there, but I still couldn’t get over the fact that she survived the fall.

“How?” was all I managed to say.

Beatrice rolled her eyes at my hesitancy to accept the facts.

“The injections not only cured me, they gave me access to the slipstream. I got my first taste when I re-birthed in that volcano. That’s when I saw what Life Rite could truly be.”

“What happened to Grace and Zayne?”

Beatrice walked toward the door. Without looking back, she said, “They murdered the love of my life. I’ll never forgive them for that.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

Beatrice unlocked and opened the door with her Universal DNA Identifier.

“I’m going back to Bennu Island. Now that I know about fire portals, I’ve got work to do. Thanks for that information, dear Jackie.”

Alpha followed her out the door, which slammed shut behind them.

I sat alone on the couch, speechless. The back of my neck stung, so I reached around to touch it and found a little blood on my hand, the size of a prick. Not only had I given Beatrice the valuable piece of information on how fire portals into the slipstream worked, she also got another sample of my blood while I was out. She was a master manipulator, and I felt plain stupid.

“What’s my next move?” I had no idea.

I looked at the fireplace. It was off, so I felt around for the remote control to turn it back on, but couldn’t find it. I threw off all the couch cushions and pillows. It was gone. No doubt Beatrice took that too, leaving me there without access to the slipstream. I was truly her prisoner now, but I was also her… granddaughter?!

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“It can’t be true…”

That fact rattled around my brain, but it was too strange to process. I had to get the fireplace working to figure all this out once and for all.

I tore the kitchen apart, searching for matches like a fiend without a fix. The drawers were empty, only staged for pretend luxury living, straight out of a sales catalog. I tried to turn the stove on, but that too was a shallow prop. Nothing about this place was real. Except for my pain… That was the only real thing I could ever count on.

Since I didn’t have a fire portal to get back to the slipstream, I’d have to rely on a near-death experience. I pulled up my hospital gown and looked at my gunshot wound. Blood had soaked through the bandage.

“I can push on the wound enough to make myself pass out, but what if I lose too much blood and actually die? Would I rebirth?”

That would surely get me back to the slipstream, but fear gripped me. I lost my nerve and did a few laps around the kitchen island to pump myself up.

There was no other option. This was it. I had to find Firestorm and tell him what I did, what information I naively gave to Beatrice that put the people of Bennu Island in jeopardy once more.

“Now or never…”

I pushed on my bandage until it bled and screamed out in agony, putting pressure on my wound until my legs went weak. I fell to the floor, pressing until tears streamed down my face.

“It’s not working!”

My eyesight blurred. I wasn’t in the slipstream, but I saw Firestorm flying outside my window. The vibrations of his wing flaps shook the floor. His massive body emanated heat. His talons gripped the glass and cracked it open, creating a wind tunnel in the Life Rite living room. I pushed on my wound again because the slipstream felt so close.

Firestorm burst through the broken window, jumped onto the coffee table, and broke it. I looked up at him through my watery eyes.

“What are you waiting for, Jackie? Jump on!” he called.

“Are you… are you really here?”

“Yes, now jump on!”

I had only seen him in the slipstream, so it was hard to understand that he was there in the flesh.

“Move it, Jackie!”

I scrambled to my feet, but slipped on a small pool of blood from my now dripping wound. It took every ounce of energy left to lift my frail body up and onto his back. He crouched down low enough for me to mount him clumsily.

“Let’s get out of here.” Firestorm ran through the broken window and flew out, soaring above the cityscape. The Grid twinkled above us.

A chill ran through me as the wind opened the back of my bloody hospital gown, but that was the least of my worries. I had to tell Firestorm what happened. We needed to save Bennu Island now, on top of saving my mother and Baxter. My problems mounted as I rode away on my powerful phoenix guide. At least Life Rite no longer held me prisoner.

“Firestorm, I made things worse!”

“That can happen when we tinker with the timeline.”

I wanted to reach out and touch the Grid, but guilt prevented me from enjoying the breathtaking views as we flew over downtown, not to mention my bleeding abdomen.

Firestorm called out, “Grab what you need,” as we passed an outdoor clothesline between buildings. He flew through it, and I grabbed what I could.

A minute later, we landed on the roof of an abandoned building. Surveillance drones hovered nearby, so we had to be quick.

I dismounted and almost fell, but caught myself by grabbing onto Firestorm’s beak. I looked into his eyes and felt his scaly skin.

“You’re real,” I said in a daze.

Firestorm averted his eyes. His drooping neck hung low to the ground.

“I thought maybe you were my imaginary friend or something,” I added.

He looked back up at me and said, “I’m real, Jackie. I’ve been watching you since you were a child.”

“I never knew… How have I been so ignorant of my connection to the Claudi family my whole life? We should have tried to find my mother sooner.”

Firestorm shrugged. “The time is now.”

Regret swelled inside me. I wished I’d felt Firestorm’s presence and tried to explore my deep connection with fire instead of shying away from it.

“Firestorm, I messed up,” I admitted through tears.

He put his wing around me. “The most probable future is being written. The scorching has begun. We’ll go back to Bennu Island. Get dressed. It’s going to be a long flight.”

The surveillance drones flew closer, scanning a nearby building.

“Hurry.”

I put my new clothes on; sweatpants and a dumb T-shirt with a cat on it that said, ‘Hang in there.’ Better than my hospital gown, but only just. I used that gross gown to soak up as much blood from my gunshot wound as possible.

“Time to soar.” Firestorm bent down for me to mount him.

I jumped on his back and gripped his neck.

The surveillance drones scanned us. “Phoenix gene detected.”

Firestorm blew his flamethrower and charred those suckers.

“More are coming. Let’s roll.”

We set off to see the effects of my mistake firsthand. How far-reaching was the devastation on Bennu Island? How much blood was on my hands?