The gross fluorescent lighting of Flick’s bathroom reveals the damage César did to me, and the results of a storm so strong it took the roof off of a gas station.

My arms, legs, and neck carry lightning-shaped bruises, weaving up and down my veins in violent shades of purple. My eyes are cloudy, the left side of my face swollen into a raw meat-colored mass, an inch wide gash nearly touching my eye. Flick did his best to pull it closed, bits of tape and gauze tugging at the skin, but there’s no hope for a small scar.

More bruises, cuts, and scrapes litter my chest, hands, and back, making me look less like a sixteen-year-old boy and more like a body in a morgue.

I can’t look away.

If I look this bad how bad does César’s body look? Lying in an actual morgue somewhere, maybe waiting for someone to come by and identify him.

Waiting for someone to save him.

The thought makes me sit hard on the cracked tile floor, squeezing my hands together like I can take back the lightning strikes, sucking air through my teeth.

A raindrop smacks into my broken nose and I whimper in pain, pulling my knees to my chest.

I did it.

I killed him.

All those years fearing him, thinking he would go too far and kill me and it was me all along.

I was the murderer.

Rain is falling harder now, like tiny bits of ice biting my skin, and I can’t get it under control, my breath coming in tiny, tight gasps against cracked ribs, eyes squeezed shut.

If I can’t get it under control Flick might be next.

“You are flooding my bathroom,” Flick yells distantly, the door slamming open like it’s on another planet.

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For a second the storm holds its’ breath.

“This isn’t how normal people shower,” He says softly, sitting next to me and prying my hands from my face.

In.

Out.

In.

I try to force myself to breathe like mama would, the rain pausing and resuming with every choking breath, ice in my throat.

“What’s going on, El?”

He draws circles on my forearms like he’s trying to pull the wind out of me, and for a moment I imagine it works, tiny tornados spinning off of my arms, pulling the storms out of me.

“I killed him,” I whisper when I’ve finally found enough strength for words, wind no longer whipping at our backs.

Flick shifts so he’s sitting in front of me, his back crammed awkwardly under the sink, holding my hands in his.

“He would’ve killed you, you know that, right? If not that night then some other time soon. He was never planning to let you go,”

I look up at Flick, trying hard to ignore the breeze pushing through his hair when I look at him.

“I know, but that doesn’t mean I wanted to kill him either. I don’t want to be out of control, Flick,”

He shakes my shoulders like he’s done since we were kids, trying to snap me out of it.

“I’m just scared,”

“I know. I am too,” He pauses, tilting his head like a dog, watching my face with a puzzled expression.

“Did you know your eyes turn white when you storm?”

I rub at my eyes, trying to clear the tears and wind out of my vision.

I didn’t know that.

It is not comforting.

“We’re gonna get you out of here, El. Once that hole in the side of your head heals up some and the heat dies down. We’ll get you out of here and to that school. You won’t have to be scared anymore,”

Flick talks easily; like he can guarantee the solution to all my problems.

I know it’s fake.

Mama always said he had the gift of the gab, a sly, charismatic way about him that meant he could charm anyone into anything. It had gotten us into and out of more trouble than I could remember, but it was always uneasy when he turned it on me.

I don’t particularly like him trying to comfort me. Not when heat and electricity are surging in my chest, making my heart burn as it begs to be expelled.

But he was so sure of those damn letters.

So sure that there was a whole section of the government dedicated to me. Positive that I’m something special; like he’d been even before the storms started. Before César had killed his family.

Before I’d killed César.

I’m nodding before I can even finish thinking, sinking into Flick’s confidence.

“I’ll figure it out,” I mutter.

The letter and its bus pass mock me from the other room, calling me a liar, but Flick seems satisfied, pulling me to my feet and trying to assess my destroyed face, our feet splashing in the puddles I left on the floor.

Is it really so simple?

Other people like me? Trying to figure the whole thing out? People who want to help?

Can I trust it?

~