Igniting the Flame (The Ignited Girl Series Book 2)

by EJ Everette

  “Why am I here with you? Why did they take me from my cell?” Her questions make sense, I suppose, but the sneer in my direction is confusing to me. Why does she seem upset that she is with me? Should she not be grateful that at least we are together?

  “They said they had no use for us anymore and that they needed the space. I asked them to place you with me,” my voice is unsteady, nothing like the warrior I know I am, all my fear evident in every word. “I thought you would want to be with me, with someone familiar I mean. Not alone.”

  Her face shifts from afraid to angry at my words. What the hell?

  “And you thought I’d want to be with you? You let them take me. You are the reason I have been tortured, beaten, and sliced open, left to bleed. I want out of here, away from all of this, but not to be with you. Never you, Chance.” This time my name sounds like a curse from her mouth and my heart, the fragile weak organ I wish I could be rid of entirely, breaks at her feet. She blames me. It is my fault. I should have done better, found a way to stop them from taking her. If I hadn’t been such a bitter ass, if I had let myself feel all the things openly, confessed my affections for her or at least acted like a fucking friend, I could have saved her all of this turmoil. My hands come up to grab at my hair, pulling at the strands that fall around my face.

  Gray goes over to the shade in the corner, approaching him before I can stop her. “Get me out of there. Put me back where I was or find me somewhere else, I don’t care. But I don’t ever want to see or hear him again. Get. Me. Out.” The shade bows his head in acknowledgement as Gray shuffles to the door, waiting for him to follow her. I fall to my knees, the reality of what is happening overwhelming everything else. Gray is leaving. She would literally prefer to be alone in a dark cell than with me. I never should have allowed her in. I never should have let myself love her. What was I thinking? This is the only way things like this end. One person leaves behind the other. There is no eternal happiness.

  Still, my heart is so enraptured with this girl, I have to try.

  “Gray, please. Let me fix this. Don’t leave. Don’t walk away. I… I…” My hand reaches for her automatically. Gray pauses by the door, turning to take in the undoubtedly disheveled mess of a man before her. Her face softens momentarily and hope springs to life within me. There, she feels it. I push to rise from the floor when a slew of things happen all at once.

  The large cell door opens to Dagnoroth, a brute by his side. The shade moves beside Gray, attempting to block her from my reach. A wickedly smug smile crosses Dagnoroth’s face seconds before I see the dagger appear from beneath the shade’s cloak. He hands the dagger to the Gash leader as the brute grabs Gray by the shoulders, stopping her from escaping. Her head whips around, her eyes locking with mine, terror pulsing from within them. She barely gets a scream out before Dagnoroth plunges the dagger deep within the chest of the woman I love. Her body goes limp beneath the hands of the brute, the life draining from her until nothing is left.

  The brute drops her at my feet, following the other two out the door, the stone door of the cell slamming shut behind them, leaving me with the body of the girl who was meant to save us all, The girl who was supposed to save me.

  No. NO! This can not be. Gray is not meant to die. Take me. This was not how this was supposed to happen. I do not understand. How? Why?

  My face falls into my hands as I cry tears of surrender. I failed. She is gone. It was always going to be because of me. It is over. The guys will never forgive me. I will never forgive myself. This cannot be happening. I ball my hands into fists, my hair clenched so tightly inside of them my scalp protests at the pull but I cannot seem to care. Nothing else matters. Gray is… she is gone.

  Warmth spreads across my body, unwelcome and unacknowledged at first. All I can feel is the pain of my loss. The despair of Gray’s life ending before it even had a chance to begin. The heat intensifies until I can no longer ignore it. My hands fall to my side as my body is lifted from the ground. What the hell is happening?

  Visions I can not quite focus on flash before me. I feel joy, elation even, love, and happiness. Such feelings are in direct contrast to what my reality holds, and yet I cannot seem to shake them off. Laughter fills my ears, genuine merriment, and the source is my beauty, though now that I am finally able to single out images, she looks different. Older. Before me she runs through the forest, giggling, a smile lighting up her entire face. She mouths words I am unable to hear, but I swear I see her lips form my name. Still, the older version of Gray runs, looking back as if she is being chased, but no fear crosses her face. Finally she is lifted from the ground by big strong arms before being spun around in circles. Gray is lowered slowly and I am finally able to see who is holding her. It is me. Our hands join and small blue flames wrap around them, though neither of us seems to be in pain. We stare at each other with such love and tenderness, my heart beats harder beneath my chest. Just as she leans up to place a kiss on my lips, the image fades away and I am back in the cell.

  I stand for a moment, centering myself as new strength pulses through my body. When I open my eyes, I realize a few things at once.

  Gray’s body is gone. I imagine she was never there to begin with. The shade… he got inside of my head just like he planned to. He manipulated me to see what truly mattered to me, to get the truth from me, and it worked. However, there seems to be a side effect none of them could have expected.

  I realized how much I love Gray during their little game, and killing her, as false as the skewed reality had been, felt real enough to me to trigger something I never thought I would experience. Looking over my unblemished skin, feeling the extraordinary strength in my body, I roar so loudly I feel the cell shake around me.

  Gray’s death had done the one thing decades of war and pain had never been able to do. It broke me. And in that broken state, I had ignited.

  27

  Gray

  What is it that Tanner is always saying? His biggest flex is that he can wake up, put zero effort into his look, and still turn every head (boy and girl) as he struts down mainstreet? I mean, he isn’t wrong, but that boy sure is proud of his looks. Ah, I miss my friends. Anyway, point being, I think I finally get where he is coming from. Not that I look nearly as fabulous as Tan does on any given day. No, the flex part.

  See, my biggest flex is that I can siphon energy from the world around me to become stronger, faster, and pretty much just more badass. So, yeah. This goddess just upgraded big time.

  After Mom left me with her essence, a power surged through me I was not prepared for. It was so incredibly intense, I basically blacked out for an undetermined amount of time. When I woke up on the floor of my cell, something felt different. I felt stronger, sure, but there was this lingering energy buzzing through me. When I placed my hand on the stone ground beneath me, my fingertips started to glow and I could feel the strangest sensations being pulled into my hands, traveling up my arm, and filling my heart. To be honest, I kind of felt like that scene on Space Jam where the little monsters absorb the NBA players’ powers through the basketball, but that’s neither here nor there. In truth, the whole process sort of freaked me out causing me to stumble backward and right into that damn stone with the spiked edges. The stab in my back caused me to wince, blood instantly travelling down my skin.

  Thoroughly prepared to spend at least a few moments pouting at just how fucking inconvenient life is, my fingers once again locked on to a spot on the ground beneath me where thick dirt was piled up in what appeared to be an ant hill of sorts. The second my hand was in the dirt, the same Space Jam-y awareness flooded over me, this time moving from my arms across my body to the small gouge in my back. I didn’t have much time to react before I could feel the wound closing up, the energy warming the skin where the rock had dug into my body until it was knitted tight, healed as if it had never happened.

  What the hell? I know how to heal myself, I have been doing it for days or even weeks now. But I have never needed or us
ed something else to produce the energy I used. I didn’t even have to concentrate to heal myself, either. Usually after a good healing, my body is drained, desperately in need of recovery time. As I twisted around in my seated position I realized there were no after effects this time. No strain on my energy, no drain on my body. I felt fine, as if nothing had happened at all.

  Hence the beginning of my new favorite game, “Can it be siphoned?” I had spent the last few hours touching every surface, the stones that made up the cell, the dirt, the cobweb-like gatherings in the corners, the metal bars in the small window space of my cell door… any and everything I could get my hands on became a victim to my experimentation. Since the demon scum had yet to come by and check on me, it gave me something to do to stay entertained. Finally, having manhandled (or womanhandled?) everything in my small space, I plopped down on the ground to think, my fist coming up to tap against my forehead as I searched my mind.I am fairly certain I looked like a raggedy version of Winnie the Pooh without the honey.

  Mom had said it was time to leave, that I didn’t belong here. Okay, cool beans and all but now what? She acted as if I could just walk out of this place whenever I wanted. Obviously that was not plausible, right? I couldn’t just walk out, with an unknown amount of ugly creatures waiting to attack me. None of it really makes sense and the more I dwell on what she said the more I realize she meant now because now was when I finally have all this extra power coursing through my veins. Her parting gift to me had been this extra bit of energy, enough that I can feel it at all times, no longer confused about my abilities. Well, I'm still confused about how they work, but I can’t deny this shit any longer. My long stretch of denial after the fire, bringing Char back to life, the part of me that dismissed it all after the guys revealed their true selves and told me all about my destiny, all of the doubt that it was real… It's gone now. I am fucking amazing and each new surge of power through my body just serves to prove that. Mom may have left me, giving herself up for me meant I will never see her again, but she left a part of her inside of me to protect me. A big, glowy, fiery, bad ass part.

  But how am I supposed to use it to do anything besides pull tiny pieces of energy from the objects around me? The metal bars and stone floor had proven to be basically useless. I could get a small reading on the stone but I couldn’t tell if that was because of the layers of dirt and blood covering it or from the stone itself. Come on Gray, think!

  As my mind is running through scenarios, a weird tugging sensation comes through on my bond link. I am not entirely sure how I know this, Mom and I didn’t spend too much time on all of the details honestly, but somehow I just know the strands of energy I felt leaving my body before and returning again recently are associated with the bond I have with the guys. My guardians. If I close my eyes and really focus, I can feel them all, even Chance though earlier he wasn’t there. Strange since he is the closest one to me, but again I have no experience in this area so guessing is all I have. When I get out of here, I am going to have to force the god squad into revealing all their big secrets and filling me in on just what the hell is going on between all of us. Of course, that will have to be after I see Charlie and figure out a way to explain my absence. May the odds be ever in my favor with that one.

  The little tug starts to increase in strength until it feels like someone is trying to yank my damn heart out of my chest. I place my hand over the organ currently under attack, willing my body to relax, focusing on tracing the source. Eyes closed, I dive into my mind a little, similarly to how I have always escaped the world, blotting everything out around me. Mom told me there is a space between, a space where we can pull away from the reality in front of us without getting lost in the darkness within us. She called it our happy spot, the perfect place to access our energy. My mind is so used to dwelling in the darkness, it takes some practice to stop in the happy spot, but eventually I settle in, allowing my mind to read the impressions around me.

  The first thing I notice is the urgency within the bond link. Someone is anxious, rushed, desperate. Releasing the last hold on reality, I dive in farther and I feel him. Well, them, I guess, but my initial contact is with just one of the guys. At first it is only Rip, the imagery in my head has him physically pulling at a large rope as if it will lead him directly to me. Right next to Rip, though, are the rest of the guardians. Reid, Mitch, and Dean are all holding on to different ropes. Where Rip’s is relatively thick, reminding me of the ropes in gym class we always had to climb, Reid’s is layered, smaller ropes interlaced to make a large one. Mitch’s rope looks like a damn chain used to anchor ships in place. Dean’s rope reminds me of the time Leanne convinced me we needed to go bungee jumping. We were strapped in with nylon ropes that looked far too thin to hold my weight much less handle the jarring of my body as I fell, and yet they were more than strong enough for both Le and I in our dual jump.

  No wonder the tugging tickle had been so extreme. All four of the guys were working together, albeit from their own energies, to pull at me. What do I do now? Is there some secret release valve I can switch that will allow them to pull me to them? No, that doesn’t even make sense, Gray. Ugh. Ooh, what if I pulled the lines a bit? Could I do that? Grab ahold of the ends attached to me, so to speak, and give my own little tug to show them I feel them? I can feel the presence of sweat as it drips down my forehead while I concentrate but I need to stay focused on all the shit going down in my mind right now. I can worry about perspiration later.

  Channeling my own energies, I picture myself grabbing each of the ropes the guys are holding. Mitch’s is pretty damn heavy, but I manage to get them all in my arms. Now what? Now I guess I just pull. Seems simple enough. I begin to tug, gently at first and then realizing nothing is happening I amp up my movement. Nothing. Not even the slightest pull on their ropes. Monkey speckled ass cheeks! Why does everything have to be so damn hard and how do they make it look easy? Shit! Okay, new approach. Maybe one rope at a time? Afterall, they are only holding one rope, right? This shit is so confusing. Where is my own personal Yoda when I need him? That’s right, my Mom was my Yoda and she legit sacrificed herself so that I could be strong enough to get out of here so I really need to stop fucking around and figure this out.

  Breathe, Gray. Focus. Pick a guy to focus on and give their rope a tug. Oh shit that sounded bad in my head. Gah! Not what I meant! I laugh a bit in spite of the jacked up situation I am in and the humor in even the craziest moment makes me think of Reid. The offhanded innuendo-laced comment sounds exactly like something he would say, followed by a wink or wiggle of his eyebrows. With that image in mind, I set the other ropes down, figuratively of course, until I am only holding his interlaced one. It feels softer in my hands than I expected it to. Slowly, I focus on Reid and only him. I think about the first time we met, the walk home after the bar fight, his humor and smile. I think about how crazy flirtatious that fucker can be, constantly tempting my resolve to keep him at a distance. I wrap my hands around the rope that leads to my Joker and with all of my strength, I pull.

  For just a moment, the line goes slack, as if Reid has released the other side, probably out of shock. Then, as if with renewed effort, tug-o-war begins and we both pull at our sides with all of our might. I can feel the others start to loosen their lines, maybe choosing to let me focus on Reid. We pull and release for a few moments before a warmth fills my heart and I know he can feel me, too. Right then it’s like my life force is connected to theirs entirely, a beacon for them to find. I know it now. Mom was right. My guardians will be coming for me. They were always going to come for me. Despite the hardship to push it away, this whole experience has taught me that dwelling on negative experiences will just serve to corrupt the future and allowing those who hurt me in my past to taint my faith in those in my present can only lead to more pain. Shaking the doubts away, I refocus on the task at hand.

  Chance isn’t with them, of course, but in that moment I wonder if I could reach out to him instead of waiting for h
im to reach out to me. Using my boost of energy from the guys’ bonds, I look around for a way to get to Chance. Sure enough, laying on the floor beside me I see a fifth rope. This one is worn, battered and torn as if it has been through many storms, but it is strong nonetheless. I grab it, wrapping my hands around it the way I had with Reid, and focus on my broody asshole of a guardian.

  All I see is Chance. Chance playing the guitar. Chance’s big hands preventing me from falling when I smacked into him in the cafeteria. Chance smiling as Reid played air drums next to me in the truck. His voice as he sang with the radio. I pull, tentatively at first but as soon as I feel the slightest resistance, I go all in. My hands slide across the rope but I just tighten my grip. Good thing you can’t get rope burns in your mind! Just when I think it won’t work, I feel him. The second he realizes I am pulling for him, he returns the favor. Power surges through me at his reaction. We are so close. I can feel him now, pinpoint him as clearly as if my eyes could see him before me. He feels so incredibly close I swear I could reach out and touch him.

  The powerful realization that he is within reach, just a few walls away, morphs my surroundings until I can just make out his figure in a cell similar to mine. I can see him! I try to speak, to call out his name, but obviously that isn’t how things work in mind world so no sound leaves my mouth. Still, my attempts to connect with him prove to be effective. He turns in my direction as if he heard me anyway and my heart sinks down deep into my stomach. He looks horrible. I mean, I am sure I won’t be winning any prizes at this month’s state fair for my looks, but Chance looks utterly destroyed.

  Thick, dark, purple bags surround his eyes, some of the discoloring continuing up and around the entire eye socket leading me to believe he has been beaten just like I have. His shirt is torn, slashed in multiple places, covered in dried blood. Huge red and black welts cover his exposed skin. He looks almost nothing like the man I saw the night I went for my run. And yet, despite all of it, I still see so much beauty in his features. Even as my eyes water, my real physical eyes, I know this man has endured so much because of me, and yet he still looks almost happy to see me. Is that relief in his expression? It is hard to tell in this mystical minds-eye sort of situation, but I swear I see a small smile on his face once he realizes I am “there”.