Firelight

4

Az is waiting for us at our house, pacing the front porch in tattered jeans and a blue tank top that doesn’t come close to competing with the glossy blue streaks in her dark hair. Her face lights up when she sees us.

Mom parks, and Az runs through the perpetual mist that covers our township, courtesy of Nidia. This mist is critical to our survival. No random aircraft passing through our airspace can detect us through it.

Az embraces me in a crushing hug as soon as I step from the car. I whimper. She pulls back in concern. “What, are you hurt? What happened?”

“Nothing,” I murmur, sliding a look to Mom. She already knows I’m injured. No point reminding her. “Are you okay?” I ask.

She nods. “Yeah, I did what you said, stayed underwater until I knew they were gone and then flew home for help.”

I don’t remember telling her to bring help. I wish she hadn’t, but I can’t blame her for trying to save me.

“Inside, girls.” Mom motions us indoors, but she’s not looking at us. She’s looking over her shoulder, across the road at one of our neighbors. Cassian’s aunt Jabel stands on her porch, watching us closely with her arms crossed over her chest. She watches us a lot lately. Mom’s convinced she reports everything we do to Severin. With a tight nod, Mom ushers us inside. She and Jabel used to be the best of friends. When I was a kid, before Dad died. Before everything. Now they hardly talk.

When we enter the house, Tamra looks up from where she sits cross-legged on the couch, a bowl of cereal tucked in her lap. An old cartoon blares from the television. She doesn’t look “worried sick” like Mom claimed.

Mom stalks over to the TV and turns down the volume. “Do you really have to play it so loud, Tamra?”

Tamra shrugs and digs for the remote in the couch cushions. “Since I couldn’t go back to sleep, I decided to try and drown out the alarm.”

A sick feeling starts in my gut. “They sounded the alarm?” I ask. The last time they did that was when Dad went missing and they assembled a search party.

“Oh yeah.” Az nods, eyes growing large. “Severin freaked.”

Tamra finds the remote and punches up the volume. Dropping it back to the couch, she lifts a large dripping spoon to her mouth. “Are you so surprised they rounded up the posse for you?” She slants me a tired look. “Think about it.”

The need to defend my actions rises in my chest, but I let it go with a deep breath. I’ve tried explaining before, but Tamra doesn’t get it. She can’t understand draki impulse. How can she?

Mom shuts the TV off. Oblivious to any tension, Az spins her hands in the air. “Well? What happened? How did you escape? My God, they were everywhere. Did you see those net launchers?” Mom looks ill.

“I thought for sure you wouldn’t make it. I mean, I know you’re fast…and you can breathe fire and everything, but—”

“Like we can ever forget that,” Tamra mumbles around a mouthful of cereal and performs an exaggerated eye roll.

Tamra never manifested. It’s a growing trend among the draki, alarming to the elders so desperate to preserve our species. For all intents and purposes, my twin sister, only minutes my junior, is an average human. It kills her. And me. Before I manifested, we had been close, together in everything. Now we share nothing more than a face.

I notice Mom then, moving about the living room closing all the wood shutters, dousing the room in shadow. “Az,” Mom says, “say good-bye now.”

My friend blinks. “Good-bye?”

“Good-bye,” Mom repeats, her voice firmer.

“Oh.” Az frowns, then looks at me. “Want to walk to school tomorrow?” Her eyes gleam meaningfully, conveying that I can fill her in on everything then. “I’ll get up early.”

We live on opposite ends of the township. Our community is shaped like a giant wheel with eight spokes. Each spoke serves as a street. The center, the hub, acts as the heart of our township. The school and meeting hall sit there. I live on First West Street. Az is on Third East. We’re about as far apart as you can get. A vine-covered wall surrounds the township, so there’s no taking the outer edge to reach each other faster.

“Sure. If you’re willing to get up early and trek it over here.”

As soon as Az leaves, Mom locks the door. I’ve never seen her do that before. Facing us, she looks at me and Tamra for a long moment, the only noise the sound of Tam’s spoon clinking in her bowl. Mom turns and peeks out between the shutters…as if she’s worried Az might still be in hearing range. Or someone else.

Turning back around, she announces, “Pack your stuff. We’re leaving tonight.”

My stomach drops like it does when I dive fast and sudden in the sky. “What?”

Tamra gets up from the couch so quickly her bowl of milk and cereal tumbles to the floor. Mom doesn’t even exclaim over this, doesn’t even look at the mess, and that’s when I know everything has changed — or is about to. She’s serious.

“Are you for real?” Tamra’s eyes are feverishly bright. She looks alive for the first time in…well, since I first manifested and it became clear she wasn’t going to. “Please. Tell me you’re not joking.”

“I wouldn’t joke about this. Start packing. Bring as many clothes as you can — and anything else you think is important.” Mom’s eyes settle on me. “We’re not coming back.”

I don’t move. I can’t. Somehow the burn in my shoulder intensifies, like a knife is there, twisting, burying itself deeper.

With an excited squeal, Tamra races into her room. I hear the sound of her closet door flinging open and hitting the wall.

“What are you doing?” I ask Mom.

“Something we should have done a long time ago. After your father died.” She glances away, blinking fiercely before looking back to me. “I guess I always held out hope that he would one day walk through the door, and we needed to be here for him.” She sighs. “But he’s never coming back, Jacinda. And I need to do what’s best for you and Tamra.”

“You mean what’s best for you and Tamra.”

Leaving the pride is no big deal for Mom and Tamra. I know that at once. Mom deliberately killed her draki years ago, let it wither away from inactivity once it became obvious Tamra would never manifest. I guess she did it so my sister wouldn’t feel so alone. An act of solidarity.

I’m the only one who feels connected to the pride. The one who will suffer if we leave.

“Don’t you see how much easier, how much safer it will be if you just let your draki go?”

I jerk as if slapped. “You want me to deny my draki? Become like you?” A dormant draki passing for human? I toss my head side to side. “I don’t care where you take me, I won’t do that. I won’t forget who I am.”

She places a hand on my shoulder and gives me a little squeeze. For encouragement, I guess. “We’ll see. You might change your mind after a few months.”

“But why? Why do we have to go?”

“You know why.”

I suppose a part of me does but refuses to admit it. Suddenly I want to pretend everything is right with our life here. I want to forget about my unease with Severin’s dictatorship of the pride. I want to forget Cassian’s possessive gaze. Forget my sister’s sense of isolation in a community that treats her like a leper and forget the guilt I’ve always felt about that.

Mom continues, “Someday you’ll understand. Someday you’ll thank me for saving you from this life.”

“From the pride?” I demand. “They are my life! My family.” A crappy alpha didn’t change that. Severin wouldn’t be in charge forever.

“And Cassian?” Her lip curls. “Are you prepared for him?”

I step back, not liking the emotional quiver in her voice. From the corner of my eye, I see Tamra stiffen in the doorway of her bedroom. “Cassian and I are friends,” I say. Sort of. At least we used to be.

“Right.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not eight years old anymore, and he’s not ten. A part of you must know what I’ve been protecting you from. Who I’ve been protecting you from. Ever since you manifested, the pride has marked you as its own. Is it so wrong to want to claim my daughter from them? Your father tried, fought constantly with Severin. Why do you think he flew out alone that night? He was looking for a way…” She stops, her voice choking.

I listen, transfixed.

She never talks about that night. About Dad. I’m afraid she’ll stop. Afraid she won’t.

Her gaze settles on me again. Cool and resolved. And that frightens me.

Familiar heat builds inside me, burns and tightens my throat. “You make the pride sound like some fiendish cult—”

Her eyes flash. She waves an arm wildly. “They are! When are you going to understand that? When they demand I give my sixteen-year-old daughter to their precious prince so they can begin mating, they are fiends! They want you to be their broodmare, Jacinda! To populate the pride with little fire-breathers!” She’s close now. Yelling near my face. I wonder if Jabel or any of the other neighbors can hear. Wonder if Mom cares anymore.

She steps back and takes a deep breath. “We leave tonight. Start packing.”

I rush into my room and slam the door. Dramatic, but it makes me feel better. Pacing my room, I breathe in and out. Steam wafts from my nose in angry little spurts. I drag a palm down the side of my face and neck, over my warm skin.

Falling back on the bed, I release a puff of breath and stare straight ahead, seeing nothing, feeling only the heat bubbling at my core. Gradually the fire inside me cools and my eyes begin trailing over the glittery stars hanging from the ceiling on strings. Dad helped me hang them after we painted the ceiling blue. He told me it would be like sleeping in the sky.

A bitter sob scalds the back of my throat. I won’t sleep in this sky ever again, and if Mom has anything to do with it, I won’t fly either.

Hours later, while the township sleeps, we creep through Nidia’s fog. The very thing that protects us, hides us from the outside world that would harm us, aids in our escape.

Once we turn off our street and move onto Main, Mom sets the car in neutral. Tamra and I push as she guides the vehicle through the town center. The school and meeting hall sit silently, watching us with darkened windows for eyes. Tires crunch over loose gravel. My calves burn as we push.

Holding my breath, I wait, listening for the alarm as we approach the green arched entrance of our township. Nidia’s little ivy-covered cottage looms ahead, a guardhouse nestled at one side of the opening. A dull light glows from the large mullioned window of her living room. Surely she will detect us. It’s her job to let nothing in — or out.

Every pride has at least one shader — a draki who shrouds the village with fog, as well as the mind of any human who should stumble within. Nidia’s fog could make a person forget his own name. Her talent surpasses my own. The pride lives in fear of her death…the day our grounds will become exposed, visible to passing aircraft and anyone who travels deep enough into the mountains.

I hear nothing from her house. Not a sound. Not even when I let the soles of my shoes slide and grind against the gravel a little too loudly, earning a glare from Tamra.

I shrug. So maybe I want Nidia to catch us. Once we clear the arch, Mom starts the old station wagon. Before I climb in, I take a final look behind me. In the soft glow of Nidia’s living room window, a shadow stands.

The pulse at my throat skitters wildly. I inhale sharply, certain she will sound the alarm now.

The shadow moves. My eyes ache from staring so hard.

Suddenly the light vanishes from the window. I blink and shake my head, bewildered. “No,” I whisper. Why doesn’t she stop us?

“Jacinda, get in,” Tamra hisses before ducking inside the car.

Tearing my gaze away from where Nidia once stood, I think about refusing to go. I could do that. Here. Now. Dig in my heels and refuse. They couldn’t overpower me. They wouldn’t even try.

But in the end, I’m just not that selfish. Or brave. Unsure which, I follow.

Soon we’re whisking down the mountain, rushing into the unknown. I press my palm against the window’s cool glass, hating the thought of never seeing Az again. A sob wells up in my throat. I didn’t even get to tell her good-bye.

Mom clenches the steering wheel, staring intently out the windshield at the little-traveled road. She’s nodding. Nodding as if every bob of her head increases her determination to do this.

“A fresh start. Just us girls,” she proclaims in an overly cheerful voice. “Long overdue, right?”

“Right,” Tamra agrees from the back.

I glance over my shoulder at her. As twins, we’ve always shared a connection, a sense of the other’s thoughts and feelings. But right now I can’t read past my own fear.

Tamra smiles, staring out the window as if she sees something in all that black night. At least she’s finally getting her wish. Wherever we’re going, she’ll be the normal one. And I’ll be the one struggling to fit in a world not made for me.

I belong with the pride. Maybe I even belong with Cassian. Even if it breaks Tamra’s heart, maybe it’s right. He’s right. I don’t know. I only know that I can’t live without flight. Without sky and moist, breathing earth. I could never willingly surrender my ability to manifest. I’m not my mother.

How can I fit in among humans? I’ll become like Tamra, a defunct draki. Only worse. Because I would remember what being a draki felt like.

I once saw a show about an amputee who lost his leg and still feels it. He actually wakes up at night to scratch his leg as if it’s still there, attached to him. They call it a phantom limb.

I would be like that. A phantom draki, tormented with the memory of what I once was.