At least he had the mind to look apologetic, so I let it slide, though I was visibly creeped out that two alchemists had been spying on me for a couple months. “Do you think this Oliver Benton is a target?”
He ran a hand through his hair, an obvious sign that he was stressed. “I don’t know! It’s not like White would have told us. You were our only target, and that little Dream girl just happened to be collateral damage. Sorry—again. Dammit.”
“Quit apologizing,” I finally sighed.
“So I don’t know for a fact if this is real or not. This is Alyssa we’re talking about. You could send her out to buy milk and she’ll come back bragging about how she blew the entire grocery store down just for kicks.”
But something in my gut couldn’t be quenched. “I’ll help you save your brother.”
Rick blinked, then said, “I…thought you were going to do that already.”
I huffed. “Well, I was on my way to agree with you in exchange for you getting me some of the Elixir, but now I want to change my bargain.” Because with Rick’s help or not, I’d get that Elixir one way or the other. “If you want me to help save Ash, help me find this Oliver Benton. Just to see if he’s okay. And if he isn’t an alchemist, and this really was just some stupid trick, then we’ll head out. Please?”
Rick grumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “I don’t have a choice, do I?” But he finally relented and stuck out his hand, the one lacking a glove.
“It’s a deal.”
I smiled, grasping Rick’s hand tightly. A wave of heat rolled over my skin, but it couldn’t stop the chill that had settled into my bones. I just hoped this really was some dumb hunch, and nothing more.
CHAPTER 11
Maybe it was just me, but the campus of Atlanta Tech looked so…dull. In comparison to St. Mary’s Academy, probably. I was so used to being surrounded by swaying oaks and magnolia trees, stretches of bright green grass and the air thick of summer history. The buildings at St.
Mary’s varied; some were more modern than most, but that’s what made walking through the campus exciting.
Atlanta Tech was all gray. Gray buildings, gray parking lot that seemed to cover every inch of space, and for such college it was painfully small. But then again, Atlanta was a far cry from Savannah: it was like Savannah’s rough and tough, metallic older cousin who was cooler in more ways than one.
Or maybe I just wore rose-colored glasses when it suited me the most. Regardless, the small size (less than half of St. Mary’s) made it easy to sneak in (heck, they didn’t have gates or security or anything; Rick and I could easily pass off as two regular college students), and twice as easy to narrow down our search. But the two-story gray stoned dorm didn’t hold Oliver Benton, even when Rick snuck in to check around.
I was waiting on the sidewalk for him; mindlessly scanning a book I had and hoped that I gave off the “I’m just a college girl” vibe.
Taking a look around the campus, it was pretty cute. And it made me realize that so many things have happened to me, I hardly gave college a second thought. College would be coming in only two years…but it still felt like a lifetime.
And really, could I even go to college anymore? That’s ridiculous
—of course I could. Alchemy or not, that wasn’t going to stop me from my goal: to graduate with the best honors and major in historical reservation. Right?
So why was there a knot of doubt in my stomach?
“He’s not here,” I heard Rick say from behind. He let out a grunt of frustration, and the stress in his eyes from over two hours of searching for Oliver Benton seemed to be wearing him thin. “His roommate says he hasn’t been back all day. He might be at home for all we know.”
“You couldn’t get an address?”
“What, and raise even more suspension? That guy looked like he was only two seconds away from calling campus police. Too bad his phone just combusted in flames all of a sudden…”
My jaw dropped. “You didn’t!”
A cocky grin was his only reply as he swept passed me, our
shoulders brushing together. A brief wave of heat swallowed me before Rick kept on, me pacing behind him. He was like a walking furnace, and in this heat it was best to keep my distance. After all, even though I knew (I think?) he was on my side, he still wore his gloves. I couldn’t be too careful.
At least, that was the reason I was telling myself to stay distant.
“Where are we going now?”
Rick shrugged, looking over his shoulder. “We’ve got no leads. We don’t know where this guy is right now, and unless you wanna break into the records department and find a home address I suggest we call it a night.”
I bit my lip. Rick must have sensed my hesitance so he turned around, his eyes soft. “Look, we can just come back here tomorrow and see if he shows up. He’s a college freshman for Christ’s sake; he’s probably out skipping class and getting drunk.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right…” I agreed reluctantly. Or maybe licking his wounds somewhere. As long as he was safe and away from the clutches of Alyssa. There was a good note to this whole chaotic mess of a half-baked orchestra: she was powerless now that Rick destroyed her Runes.
But why was I so nervous, though? Maybe I had been wrong all along? But remembering Oliver being strangled by Alyssa, how he kept
clawing and kicking for freedom even though it was a lost battle, there was something about him that made me want to know for sure he was all right. And it took me even longer to realize I had felt like this before, something nostalgic, to one other person.
I almost slammed into Rick’s tall frame; my nose only inches from his chest and my heart whooshed into my throat. Taking a step back I had to mentally tell myself to chill as Rick’s brown eyes gazed over me. Then, he jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Wanna grab a bite?”
I blinked, confused, then saw what he was pointing at: a diner. As if on cue, my stomach rumbled, and I realized I hadn’t eaten since this morning. I blushed fifty shades of red as Rick laughed. “C’mon, it’s on me.”
This isn’t a date, this isn’t a date.
I swallowed, then picked myself up and followed Rick inside. The diner was super tiny but long, the walls painted a mint green and the aroma of eggs and bacon filling the air so much that it made my mouth water. A sign up front said we could seat ourselves so Rick chose a booth in the far back, away from the windows.
A petit woman with Asian features gave us our menu, eyeing Rick with disdain and set off. As he opened the menu I couldn’t help but stare.
“What?” he snapped, but it was soft, as if all his energy had been drained.
“Do people always give you that look?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Which one?” he retorted. “The ‘what are you plotting, delinquent?’ look or the ‘Shouldn’t you be in juvie?’ look or the ever infamous ‘So when’s your next parole hearing?’ look?”
“The ‘Don’t even think about burning this place down,’ look.”
He laughed at that, snapping his menu with a close. “You’d be surprised. Alchemist or not, I seemed to have always had some sort of fascination with fireworks. It’s like I’ve got ‘PYROMANIAC’ stamped to my forehead in bold. But people assume because I dress like a punk, and I talk like a punk, and I look like a punk means that I must be…”
“A socially challenged, misunderstood lonely boy?”
“How did you know?” He mocked, grinning. The waitress came by and took our order, seemed to shot him another troubled glare before turning. When she returned with our drinks, she actually stared at me as if to say “Can’t you do better than that?” I felt my insides churn, and slurped my water angrily enough to dribble some of it on my shirt.
“Need a bib, Time Bomb?”
I almost choked on my own spit. “‘ Time Bomb’?!”
“Yeah, Time Bomb,” he pressed. “Like a ticking time bomb. Cute, right? Girls like those stupid cutesy nickn
ames. Time Bomb no good?
How about Clockie? How about Timer? No wait, that sounds like a name you’d give to a dog. ‘Here Timer! Come on, boy! Timer!’”
“I’ll be honest: both of those nicknames suck,” I hissed, yet, I couldn’t stop the flush crawl up my cheeks and the giggle that threatened to come out. “Even I could do better than that!”
“Oh yeah?” He snorted. “Last I checked ‘Fire Boy’ was the best you could come up with, T.B.”
Ooh, that nickname was going to get on my nerves.
“Yeah,” I racked my brain. “Cinder.”
His jaw dropped. “You’re kidding. Like that freakin’ fairy tale?”
“Yes!” I laughed out loud, so much that the people sitting two booths down shot us a glare. “Cinderrick. It has a nice ring to it! We’d better get you home by midnight or your pumpkin might turn to ash.”
Before Rick could come up with a witty resort, the waitress came and plopped our meals down. I ignored any look she gave me and immediately dug into my ham and cheese omelet. It tasted so good and seemed to melt in my mouth. Crappy service, but excellent food. Rick ordered a double cheeseburger and was woofing it down at such an alarming rate I thought he was going to choke. He was really like a kid, even though he was an alchemist—and probably an even better alchemist than I’d ever be. Rick had the advantage of using his alchemy as a living weapon. Me? Stopping and slowing Time could only do so
much. If I wanted to fight, I needed a weapon on hand, like a sword or a pipe. The best I could do was give myself a head start in a race I knew I would lose.
That’s right… a little voice in the back of my mine seemed to creep through my heart like fog. You’ve only depended on everyone to get to where you have now. Dove…Leon…Chrys and Ru…and now, Rick.
Was I really that weak? That pathetic?
Something whacked me on the forehead, shaking the fog of depressing thoughts. I blinked, and saw a crinkled fry had landed on my omelet. I shot Rick a look, but it evaporated when I saw him watching me with apprehensive eyes. “What is it?”
I shook away any lingering, negative thoughts. “Just…nothing.
I’m fine.”
“Really.” He leaned back against the squeaky seat of the booth and chewed the end of his straw. “I’ve seen ‘fine’ and you don’t even meet the definition of it.”
“I…just wondering…” Think, Emery. “How did someone like you get involved with White?” Smooth lie, Emery. Way to go. When Rick flinched, however, I felt like swallowing my words back up. “Sorry I brought it up. It’s not my business anyway.”
“No, it’s…whatever. It’s nothing huge, but it’s okay. To ask that, I mean.” Rick had polished off his plate and had taken his crumpled
napkin in his hand, twisting it in his palms. “The thing is…” he let out a soft laugh. “…it sound so pathetic, but White saved my— our lives, when he took us in.”
My throat felt as if it was coated in dust, and no amount of water could dampen it. This kind of conversation sounded eerily familiar, and I suppressed the shivers that ran along my spine, waiting for Rick to continue.
“Ash and I were in foster care since before we could walk, really.”
He began, and his eyes seemed to dull, as if he were lost in a long forgotten memory. “All we know is that our Mom didn’t want us so she dropped us off like trash. I couldn’t even tell you who our Dad was, but it’s always been Ash and me. Nobody else. You know, we always believed we were special, in our own way. But our attitudes got us into a lot of deep shit. We bounced around to so many homes they all just blur together.
“It was always the same: nobody wanted us, everyone only pretended to be nice or sympathetic, but I could see it in their eyes that they were scared of us. You know, Ash and I never knew about alchemy.
We just thought something was wrong with us, but at the same time, we believed we were given that power because of all the shit we’ve went through. It started off little at first. One of us would blow up in a tantrum and the gas stove would suddenly burst with fire, or in the
summer the fireplace would suddenly be ablaze, even though nobody had any kind of matches around them.
“At first it was all fun and games. Ash and I would have fun playing around with our foster family’s kitchens, or lighting someone’s shoes on fire if they pissed us off. Until it took a dangerous turn when we both turned thirteen. At our last foster home, some big kids cornered Ash and beat him senseless. He was so damned scared—and I was too late to even save him—but that’s when his ‘powers’ seemed to unlock.
He set all three of those bastard kids on fire and sent them to the hospital.
“One of the kids was in a bad coma; the leader of the gang. His entire body had caught fire. He was covered from head to toe in third-degree burns. His two goons got away with minor burns, but they both said that it was like Ash was enveloped in fire and looked like he had pushed the fire towards them. Ash didn’t have a single burn on his body after the attack, not even on his clothes.
“Ash was just scared. He might not look like it. On the outside he’s just a punk, but on the inside he’s just a softie. He never would admit to me how scared he was, but I could just see it in his eyes—how terrified of what he’d done. He thought he was a monster. He’s my little brother, and I always looked after him. But after that, I thought I was going to lose him. They were going to take him away, and lock him up.
I’d never see him again. Until White appeared.”
Rick was so lost in his memories—and I too, for that matter—that I almost missed the smoke coming from the napkin in his bunched up hand until I snatched the burnt napkin out of his grasp. He blinked, looked down at his hands, then gave a simple shrug before taking his gloves off. It was like he caught things on fire accidentally all the time and didn’t care. I didn’t even realize he had eaten with his gloves on; I guess they were just as much part of his body than anything else. When I thought of the Runes on my chest, I couldn’t bear to part with them, even if they were etched onto a piece of jewelry or cloth.
Rick continued after taking a sip of his drink. “White just came to our doorstep out of the blue. It didn’t even take much to convince us to leave. All he said was ‘I know what you did isn’t your fault, and I know what kind of powers you have inside of you. Come with me and I’ll teach you how to control this power called alchemy.’ We were gone the next morning, and we never looked back. White taught us lots of things: what alchemy was, how we could control it, and not let our tempers get the best of us. He even taught Ash archery. We’ve been under White’s wing since that day. And if I had to chose going back to that shitty foster system or being under him, I’d pick White in a second.”
CHAPTER 12
“And yet…” he continued and blew out a sigh. “This past year, things have changed. White’s always been patient, but lately he’d snap at any given moment. He’d get so angry that he’d punch right through walls. It wasn’t until recently that he started taking his frustration out on us—
Ash, mostly. I don’t say this for fun, but it’s the plain truth: out of all of White’s men, Ash is the weakest. And the weakest always get pushed down first. When we were assigned to get you out of that fancy ass school, every time we caused too big of a scene he’d punish Ash, and he’d just take it there and accept it, like he deserved it or something, promising to do better. I think he purposely did that to get me riled up, to see what I would do…and to warn me that if I didn’t step up Ash would pay for my failure.
“Maybe he’s always been a monster, but even now I can’t bring myself to hate him. I just couldn’t take it anymore—and now I have to go back and get Ash. It’s gonna be damn hard. Even now, Ash can only see White as he was to us when we were stupid little kids: a hero. A father we never had but always wanted. White did a lot of good things for us, but that doesn’t change the fact that, in a heartbeat, I would take Ash’s
side over his, any day. Even if Ash hate
s me for it.”
I fiddled with my straw, letting Rick’s words sink into me like a stone in water. He acted like an arrogant guy, but really he was just someone looking out for his brother. It would be like Guinevere turning on Dove and Leon…wouldn’t they act the same? She had practically rescued them, too, and took them in and sheltered them, taught them everything they needed to know. They stuck by her like glue, and every mention of her made stars burst in their eyes from pure admiration. So how could I really blame Rick for being under White’s control when, in a nutshell, White rescued them from the worst fate?
“What will you do when you rescue Ash?” I asked softly.
Rick blew out another sigh. “Who knows? I’ll just take him and run. As far away as we can, maybe get out of the country if we gotta. I’ll find a job so we can live by ourselves; maybe even go to school…”
A light bulb blinked overhead. “Why don’t you come with me?”
“Huh?”
“I mean—not come with me like…I don’t know!” I flustered. “I mean, the Black Crown isn’t very trustworthy, but there are some people there who I know I can trust. She can help you, maybe help hide you from White, give you two a place to stay…” I trailed off, feeling myself blush.
“You’d actually do that for us?” Rick asked, eyes wide underneath
his reddish bangs. “After everything we did?”
I blew out a breath, but nodded. “The way I see it, I think you are trying to change. And whether Ash wants to change is up to him, but my offer does still stand, okay? People just can’t fight alone.”
Rick’s own skin tanned a little and he turned, gazing intently at the mint green wall. I could swear even his ears turned pink and it was like the heater went up ten notches as he mumbled something that sounded like “Maybe…” under his breath.
I couldn’t help but smile.
○○○
We both agreed that wasting any more time searching would be bad.
The Fake Voice (Time Alchemist) Page 7