Set Ablaze

by Teyla Branton

  More shots peppered the river. Kenna dived, and I followed, letting the water bury me and carry me away. Unbounded could absorb oxygen from the water, so we could stay under longer than the average mortal, but after twenty or thirty minutes, we’d eventually lose consciousness and surrender to the water.

  The river was swifter and colder than I’d expected, and scattered rocks along the bottom battered at me as I passed. When I finally came up, trucks, town, and bullets had been left behind. The whomp-whomp of a chopper reached my ears, but it was still some distance away by the sound.

  “Grab on,” Kenna called.

  She clung to the damaged remains of the wicker basket, and I reached for it myself, floating with the current for a few blissful minutes. The basket was definitely the best option to keep afloat and preserve energy for now. I might even be growing fond of the stupid thing.

  The adrenaline blasting through my body had temporarily masked my need for curequick, but the craving would return soon, and I needed to remain strong. And warm. My ability couldn’t heat the entire river, but I could heat the water around me, even turn some of it into steam, if needed. Letting off only a bit of energy, I heated the water immediately around us so our muscles wouldn’t lock up with the cold.

  Kenna threw me an amused glance, telling me she’d noticed, but she didn’t comment.

  The sounds of the chopper faded—a good sign, I hoped. The river would take us closer to the vineyard, but I knew from studying the layout earlier that it veered off before reaching the buildings. We needed to get out before then—and on the left side.

  As the adrenaline rush eased, my shaking increased. The bend in the river approached, and Kenna took off swimming in an angle toward the bank, but I waited a second too late. I struggled, the rush of water pulling me past the bend. Maybe I’d drown after all, and the Emporium would be waiting with an interrogator when I revived.

  No.

  I took a deep breath and plunged into the water, pushing outward with my hands until the water around me boiled, steaming away like water in a pan on the stove. In that instant, I pushed against the river bottom and drove myself upward, popping out of the water and catching onto the branch of a scraggly tree growing halfway down the bank.

  Crawling onto solid ground, I collapsed, sucking in air and pulling back my gift before I melted the earth and rocks and set fire to the forest. The shaking in my body grew worse, and so did my pain. All I wanted was another swig of curequick so I could do my job.

  Only the image of the little girl waving at me from the car urged me to my feet, to join Kenna at the top of the bank. “Ready to do this?” she asked, seeming remarkably chipper in the face of our dire circumstances.

  This. It was what we were born to do—fight, protect, serve.

  “Yeah.” I unholstered the gun I’d taken from the villa, hoping it still worked after my dip in the river, and started forward. My stumbling pace eventually worked into an awkward jog. Kenna was no longer even limping.

  Reaching the vineyard, we bent over and crept to the last row of vines. My gut twisted in protest and my internal voice told me to wait until backup arrived. But I had a vested interest in these people, and Dona Mafalda’s little family in particular.

  Kenna had lost the binoculars in the river, but we couldn’t see anyone patrolling this section of the fence. Maybe all their guards were out searching for us. These buildings were probably the last place they expected us to go. Crawling on my belly, I made it to the fence, reaching out to melt enough of it to open a good-sized hole.

  So far, so good.

  “Which building?” Kenna asked.

  “I doubt they have a place to keep prisoners in the storage barns or processing facilities. So I’m guessing there.” I pointed to the squat building we’d seen guards going in and out of earlier. The yellow paint on the building’s stucco looked a dull gray in the darkness.

  “As good a place as any to start.” Kenna lead the way, sprinting across the open space to the yellow building. I followed with a lot less grace.

  We found a darkened window toward the back. Kenna stood watch as I heated the glass, feeling it start to buckle under my touch.

  With a warning hiss, Kenna tugged me back from the window. She jerked her head in the direction of two guards swaggering toward the building next door where the cabbage workers had unloaded their harvest.

  Pressing myself to the ground close to the building, I gripped my gun and waited until they disappeared inside. My head buzzed with a need that was growing harder to ignore. I had to hurry and finish this.

  Kenna gave the all clear, and I climbed to my feet. Reaching out to the window, I finished heating the glass, sending a molten mass dripping down both sides of the sill, glowing with the intensity of my ability.

  As we waited for it to cool, another guard rounded the building, giving a surprised shout as Kenna launched herself toward him. Her movements were liquid and sure, but the Emporium agent met her stroke for stroke.

  Combat Unbounded, I thought, watching this strange and deadly dance.

  Kenna spun and offered a final kick in the stomach that sent him careening backwards into the building. His head slammed into the stucco with an echoing crack! As he slid down the side into a messy heap, Kenna bent over him, her hands coming up with a gun and more ammo.

  Climbing through the window, we found ourselves in a small, deserted kitchen. Kenna raced across the room toward the door, opening it to reveal a narrow dimly-lit hallway. No one in sight. Kenna took two steps, but jumped back before I could follow. Her hand signaled for silence.

  Clop, clop, clop. Measured footsteps came down the hall. A man spoke, his voice soon joined by two others, the tones urgent. More footsteps. We waited, my heartbeat sounding like a drum in my ears. This time the adrenaline didn’t seem to take even the edge off my craving.

  Far too soon, Kenna moved forward in a blur, shooting a woman and sending a man to the ground with a few choice kicks. I pushed the remaining man against the wall, my gun pointed at his pale face.

  “Don’t move,” I ordered in English, almost hoping he’d disobey so I could shoot him.

  “Okay! Okay. Don’t shoot!” His entire body shook.

  “Your people stopped two women with a couple kids trying to leave town,” I said. “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His glance strayed to his fallen companions. “Please don’t hurt me,” he pleaded. “I’m mortal. Not like them. Please, don’t kill me.”

  He was probably telling the truth. The Emporium typically employed more mortals than Unbounded, and though their leaders normally chose Unbounded for the most important ops, they always needed someone to make coffee and clean their toilets.

  Kenna put her hand over his throat, bringing her face close to him. “I’m giving you two seconds to tell us where they are, or I will shoot you.”

  “Someone said something about a woman and some kids over the radio an hour or so back. I don’t know anything more, I swear! There isn’t a woman here. I would know.”

  Kenna seemed to accept that. “The Emporium is killing people here. How?”

  “I-I-I don’t know.”

  “Wrong answer.” Kenna pushed harder against his neck, making him gasp for air. “Another wrong answer, and I’m going to put a bullet in your leg—and then in every other part of your body until you tell the truth. What are you doing here? It’s in the crops. That much we know. Is it a disease? Some kind of virus?”

  The man gagged, his breath coming in huge panicked gasps. I didn’t blame him. Kenna was scary—it was downright awesome.

  “Not disease. The crops have been engineered to enhance a few natural toxins. I-I don’t know the science. I just manage the harvest workers.” He paused, as if waiting to see if that was enough information.

  Kenna pointed her gun at his thigh. “And?”

  His voice rose to an annoying squeal. “It accumulates in everyone who eats it—mortals, I mean.”
A slight curl of his lips hinted that he might not be as content with this as he might have led his employers to believe. Of course, that would be a matter of self-preservation. One never left Emporium employ, unless it was in a casket.

  “It kills all mortals?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Mostly it depresses the neurotransmitters in the brain. I don’t know the science, but it makes people calm. It’s only fatal to older people as their organs age. Their systems can’t handle the accumulation—but that’s a sign they are becoming less effective anyway.”

  I sneered. “So you murder them.”

  “It’s better than other alternatives,” the man said, his eyes haunted. Sweat sheened across his forehead. “Believe me.”

  “You’re sure it doesn’t kill anyone else?” Kenna asked the question before I had the chance.

  “Well, there is also a fifty percent higher fatality rate in the babies of the women who consume—”

  Kenna’s grip on his throat must have increased because he choked off and his face, even in the dim light, was bright red.

  “Please!” he gasped.

  Kenna eased off and leaned forward to speak in his face. “You’re going to help me get the crop information. Now.”

  His eyes darted wildly. “I don’t know the computer password! I don’t have access to the print records.”

  “I’ll get access. You show me where.”

  He flung out his left arm. “Down that way. The office.”

  Kenna pulled him from the wall, grabbing the back of his shirt. To me, she said. “Look for Dona Mafalda and her family. I’ll get the records.”

  Without seeming to look, she fired down the hall as a figure rounded the bend. “They’ll track us here eventually,” she added. “We don’t have much time. Get out as soon as you find them or determine they aren’t here. I’ll meet you in the vineyard.”

  Our captive turned slightly toward us, stiffening as he hit the barrel of her gun. “Try the barns. They sometimes sport with locals there.”

  “Get going.” Kenna pushed at him.

  I went back inside the dark kitchen. Kenna would check rooms here as she went, clearing a path to the office, and if she found the family, she’d get them out. My best bet was to do as the mortal agent had said and search the other buildings.

  I had almost reached the melted window when a terrified scream shot through the night.

  KENNA! WAS MY FIRST THOUGHT. But Kenna would die before she gave that kind of satisfaction to an Emporium agent. No, the scream was coming from outside, and I was guessing it was Dona Mafalda or Brigida.

  I sprinted the remaining steps to the window and peered out into a deceptively quiet night. The faint stench of smoke filled the air, but there were no guards in sight. Another high-pitched scream split through the calm, coming from the cabbage barn the two guards had entered earlier when we’d arrived. I vaulted through the window and darted across the open space, expecting at any minute to feel the hot slice of a bullet piercing my body. But I reached the barn doors in safety—and none too soon. Two of the black trucks were rolling through the main gate, stopping out of my sight behind the stuccoed building. Kenna was about to have more visitors.

  Nothing I could do to back her up. Not with the panicked cries and whimpers now leaking from the barn. I pulled one of the massive doors open a crack and peered in. Not more than a car length away, a guard gripped Brigida’s arm, keeping her in place while the other guard held his gun to her little boy’s head. The child stood on unsteady feet, crying for his mother, but each time he tried to go to her, the guard pushed him back with the gun. The little girl clung to her mother’s leg, whimpering.

  “Please,” Brigida said in broken English. “I no know this man. I see him today. I no know anything. Please, please, no hurt my baby!”

  “If you got nothing to tell us, we don’t need any of you.” The guard jabbed his gun into the boy’s head, sending him sprawling backwards onto the ground. The child’s scream was garbled with tears.

  “I don’t know,” the other guard said with a smirk at Brigida, jerking her back as she tried to run to her sobbing child. “She’s awfully pretty.”

  “So are dogs,” retorted the other. “But you do whatever you want. I’ll get rid of the kids.”

  “No!” Brigida cried.

  I fired, hitting the man with the gun in the forehead. He crumpled at the same time Brigida yanked away from the second guard, rushing to her son and snatching him up in her arms. The second guard pulled out his gun, aiming at me, but I was already firing. One bullet slammed into his left shoulder. The second shot brought only a click!

  Grinning insanely as if he didn’t notice the bullet, the guard pulled his trigger. I dove to the side, heating and throwing my gun at him. I missed his face, the molten metal hitting his chest instead. He screamed but didn’t retreat, his leather jacket apparently protecting too much of his skin. Lunging at him, I punched hard at his face, leaving a deep burn across his cheek.

  His returning jab to my ribs felt like being hit with a sledge hammer. Biting down on the pain, I drew closer, slamming him with first one fist and then the other. His clothing and skin blackened wherever I touched. He fought back with viciousness, his hands blurs that barely registered in my vision. He knew the places to hit that would bring the most pain and struck relentlessly. Blackness threatened to plunge me into unconsciousness, but I pushed it back, just like I did with the cravings. If I could hold on for just a few seconds more.

  Blood dripped down my face, obscuring my vision. I lashed out, connecting with his jaw. The skin melted in a rush, burning away his entire face. His mouth opened in a scream—one he never uttered as he collapsed to the floor and lay there unmoving.

  Brigida stared in horror, both children now in her arms, their faces pressed to her body. “You,” she said hoarsely.

  The heat seeped from me in a rush. “Where’s your mother?” I asked her in Portuguese.

  Brigida shook her head, her face crumpling. “She said she didn’t know anything. They didn’t believe her.”

  “I’m sorry. But you have to get out of here now.”

  Shouting outside told me it was already too late.

  “Come on!” Jumping to my feet, I grabbed Brigida’s shoulder. She resisted at first, but when I pulled her daughter from her arms, she stopped fighting me. We ran behind the large wagon the workers had used to haul the cabbages, coming up far too quickly against the wall. “Look for a door!”

  “There’s none. I looked earlier when they first left us.”

  Pushing the little girl at her mother, I strode to the wall, calling on my ability. It answered my demand, eager and willing. Almost immediately as I touched it, the wood burst into flame. Ignoring the renewed sobbing from the children and Brigida, I grabbed a shovel from the wagon and struck the burning wood until I cleared a hole large enough for them to exit. The fire spread faster, greedily consuming the dry wood.

  I peeked outside and saw no one. “Get your kids out,” I told Brigida. “There’s a break in the fence leading into the vineyard. It’s by one of the poles opposite the short building.” I pointed in the general direction to be sure she understood. “Run to the fence and work your way up until you find it. Go into the vineyard. If you see a woman with red hair, you can trust her. No one else. If you don’t see her, run as far away as you can. Hide until it’s safe.”

  Would it ever be safe? Had Kenna even gotten out?

  Brigida hesitated, her chest heaving. Behind us, both double doors burst open.

  Brigida needed no more convincing. She bounded through the hole in the wall, as if the children in her arms weighed nothing more than a couple of kittens.

  I turned back to the wagon, sending my heat into it. Between the blood drenching my face and the effects of my withdrawal, I was having trouble seeing, but my ability was working well. The wood of the wagon burst into flames, the metal parts beginning to melt. I pushed the entire thing in the direction of the oncoming m
en, hoping the wheels held up long enough to deliver my little surprise. Then I dived through the hole in the wall, summersaulting into a squatted position. Brigida was nowhere to be seen.

  More shouting, but still no guards in sight. I headed for the next building, also setting it on fire. Kenna and I would be harder to catch if they were worried about saving their new buildings. They might even think twice about staying in Monte Vinha if they had to start completely over. I ran to the next building, tripping twice on my way and hitting the ground with a painful crunch. I was still having problem seeing. Bile rose in my throat.

  The shouting was now accompanied by wailing sirens. Additional people arrived in trucks and began running around purposefully. Two strode in my direction, but I ducked behind the building I’d torched and hurried on. I risked melting two of the metal buildings, touching all the sides to hasten the collapse, and set fire to a third wooden barn. The last building I touched was an older one made of brick, and as heat funneled through it, the entire wall exploded in a rush of falling bricks and flaming debris, nearly trapping me in the process.

  Coughing up smoke, I stumbled through the rubble to the fence and melted another hole, falling through it into a field of wheat. I was tempted to set it on fire as well, but I was already worried about Kenna, and about Brigida and her children. And the whole town.

  Had my distraction been enough to save them from the Emporium? Or had I just hastened their deaths?

  Every part of my body ached with agony. I crawled until I could no longer see the wheat around me.

  Finally, I let myself collapse.

  ANGUISH PIERCED MY AWARENESS AND forced me to crawl from the blackness. I was on fire, pain filled my entire body, except my hands and feet, which felt blissfully numb.

  Oh, God in heaven, please let me die.

  “He’s coming around,” said a female voice. “Now that he’s awake, we need to get him into the curequick.”

  Yes, dump me into an ocean of curequick. My body shook with need.