"ASHLEY!"

Ashley woke as cold water splashed over her—she gasped and sat up, blinking and breathing hard.

"Ash, are you okay?"

Ashley blinked again and looked around, focused on her sister.

"Wha?" she managed.

"You ... you had a nightmare. You, um ... you set the bed on fire."

"What?" Ashley sat up and looked back at the bed, which was, as well as being wet from the water Maya had dumped over it, blackened and burnt. "Aw, no ... so you—"

Maya nodded. Ashley gritted her teeth as she got up, her underclothes damp and fresh burns on her hands. She gestured for Maya to step away, then closed her eyes and concentrated, a familiar warmth soon spreading through her body, bringing with it an uncomfortable awareness of the blood flowing through her veins. Soon steam began rising from her body, from her wet clothes—she nodded at Maya and she stepped close, holding her hands out, helping to draw out what water wasn't evaporating and directing it into a bucket beside the bed.

"Get dressed," Ashley said, now that she was dry, moving to collect her own clothes from the floor. She glanced at the wet bed. "Do you think it's worth drying the bed?"

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Maya was already moving to do so, her hands over the sheets. "It's mostly just the top that got burnt ... it's lucky we were sleeping together, I felt you get hot before you set anything on fire, it was just starting to burn when I came back with the water."

Ashley scowled and shook her head as she tugged her boots on.

"Maybe we should leave some money or something," Maya said, as she finished drawing the water from the bed.

"Nah."

"But they helped us—"

"Yeah, and I'm real grateful to them for it," said Ashley. "But we need everything we've got."

"Then maybe a note?"

"What, burnt into the wall? 'Sorry I singed your sheets, thanks for the soup'?"

"You don't have to get like that, Ash!" Maya said as she got dressed herself, putting her shoes on. "We can find some paper—"

"Some of their paper, you mean. Take more from 'em than they've already given, no, let's just go, they don't—"

Ashley froze, eyes wide, as she heard a sound from elsewhere in the house.

"Out the window," she said—Maya was already moving, grabbing up her bag before pulling at the window.

"It's stuck!"

Ashley pushed her sister aside and took hold of the window, tugged hard at it and jerked it open as she heard footsteps approaching their room.

"Go!" she said, helping her sister up, nearly pushing her out the window before following, grabbing hold of Maya's wrist and pulling her up, and then running, through the trees that surrounded the house, into the night, an all-too-familiar shout of surprise sounding out behind them.