“I’ll figure that out later… I guess,” she said as she noticed my raised eyebrow.
Fair enough.
“Come on, I have to be at Haven in two hours,” I said with a smile as I zipped up the backpack and tossed it at Lacey.
“Oh my god… what am I going to do about work? What am I going to tell David?”
Shit. That might be a little harder to co-ordinate.
Chapter 2 - Maia
Spring in Seattle meant rain. Let’s be honest, every season in the Evergreen State meant rain. You’d think I would have expected it. Then again, I hadn’t expected to be standing on the sidewalk in bare feet while it pelted down in sheets and the firefighters battled the blaze that had enveloped my house.
No, not my house. Their house. My foster home.
Burn it to the fucking ground for all I care.
“Maia Hickson?” A cop with an umbrella held a styrofoam cup full of what was probably terrible coffee out to me. I eyed is carefully before taking it. It only took one quick whiff of the dark liquid to confirm my suspicions. I made a face.
“I know, I know, ‘bad coffee in Seattle is a crime,’ I’ve heard it a million times,” said the cop flatly as her eyes bored into mine.
Comedy is dead.
“So. Are you Maia?”
I dumped the coffee unceremoniously into the grass and handed the cup back to her. “Yup. That’s me.”
“How long have you lived here?” She didn’t have a notepad, so I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. I shrugged.
“Six months, maybe less?” I’d been shuffled around a lot in the last few years. It got harder and harder to find foster homes for the kids who were at the tail end of their term in the foster program, and I’m sure that the houses I’d landed in were some of the worst. I wasn’t being bitter either, and it wasn’t just the adults who made it unbearable, it was other kids my own age.
“Do you know where the fire started?”
“No clue. I was in the kitchen making toast.”
That was a lie. I knew exactly where it had started.
“Toast? At midnight?” The cop arched an eyebrow. I knew what she was thinking, teenagers were all alike.
“Yeah… we were out of milk so I couldn’t have cereal.”
Another lie. The cop looked at me carefully, angling the umbrella so that the streetlight illuminated my face.
“Do you get along with your foster family?” The question was casual, but I knew what she was really asking.
“Yeah, they’re fine.” My feet were cold, and the blanket the fireman had given me to wrap around my shoulders smelled like a wet sheep. I just wanted to have a shower and put on some dry clothes.
“You’re almost 18, aren’t you,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah. Tomorrow...” No, it was after midnight. “Today, I guess.”
She nodded, “Where are you going to go? Do you have plans?” No one had ever asked me that before, and I blinked at her. Sure, the social workers that came by talked about being independent a little bit, and what options were available to me, but I really hadn’t been paying attention. I thought for a minute and then shrugged again.
“No plans, but I’ll figure something out. I’ve got a job, and a place to crash… I’ll be fine.”
I would be fine. I’d honestly be better off sitting on a piece of cardboard outside of Pike Place than being here, and that would have been a step up.
I did have a job, and I did have a place to crash, but it wasn’t a forever job and it wasn’t a forever place to sleep. It was good enough for now. That’s all I needed.
The rest of the family was huddled together on the street, and the neighbors had come out with umbrellas to watch and offer useless advice and platitudes.
Someone let out a thin shriek as a wall collapsed in a shower of sparks and a burst of flame. Water spouted and gushed, and I was pissed that I hadn’t grabbed my boots on the way out the door.
“You should go back with the group, I’ll be back to check up on you,” the cop said, indicating my foster mother of six months who was shaking and moaning as she leaned against her husband.
It wasn’t that I disliked them, Monica had really made an effort to connect with me, and her husband Dan was nice enough, and mostly absent from the house, which was ideal. They weren’t bad people, I just didn’t care enough. Too little too late, right?
Monica’s son, Brett, peered over his mother’s shoulder in my direction. I narrowed my eyes. As nice as his parents were, Brett was a piece of shit. Brett was my age, which meant that we were left to our own devices more often than not. I’m not saying that it’s his fault that the house was in flames, but it might be. What if it was?
“No, I’m good here,” I said. The cop shrugged and held out the umbrella, but I waved it away. I liked the rain. I stared into the fire that raged in the living room, the flames escaping out the windows to leap up the outside walls.
* * *
The fire had started in the living room; I’d been sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace, staring into embers that flickered in the logs. A piece of toast was balanced on the arm of the couch. That part hadn’t been a lie.
“Hey.” It was after midnight, and I thought I was the only one awake. So much for that. Brett was the kind of shitbird that decided he didn’t like someone within about five seconds of meeting them. I was the same way, but I went with my gut feelings, and Brett went by how you looked.
Brett had given me the ‘no-no’ feeling from the moment I’d met him, and he’d decided that he hated me pretty quickly after that. That was about the only thing we agreed on. His mother commented that we fought like real siblings, and with a house full of other problems, it was probably easier for her to ignore the malice underneath our exchanges.
“I said, hey,” he said again, but I didn’t look up. Usually if I ignored him, he went away, or got bored. Brett brought his face level with mine; I could feel his breath on my cheek. He smelled like the whiskey he’d stolen from his dad’s liquor stash. I was always the one who got yelled at when Dan noticed the level in the bottle had shrunk. “I don’t want you in my house anymore, freak.”
I turned my head slowly to look at him. He smiled and stood up, towering over me as I sat as still as possible. “My mom told me all about you. You’ve been in six foster homes in the last few years... changed schools so many times that they just gave up on you and graduated you early. You’re fucked up, and I don’t want whatever is wrong with you to rub off on my little sister. Do you hear me?”
I stared at him, not blinking. This was an old line of abuse. Next he’d bring up the fact that I didn’t know what a real family was, and that I was trying to turn his mother against him. I wasn’t, not on purpose. I just told her when he did stupid shit... which was a lot.
“You’re a firebug, aren’t you?”
That was new. I shifted a little on the couch, I didn’t like where this was going. He had a funny look in his eyes, like he’d learned something new.
“What?”
“A firebug.” Brett’s eyes glittered in the low light. “You light fires. You can’t help yourself.”
“Shut up, Brett, you don’t know shit,” I said, unfolding my legs to stand up. I was taller than him, and he hated it when I talked down to him. He pushed me roughly back down onto the couch, his hand heavy on my shoulder. I slapped his hand away, “Hand’s off, asshole,” I said quietly. I hated it when it touched me, and he was making me angry.
“You don’t scare me, Firefly,” he said with that awful grin. “You know what I think?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “I think you started those fires. Four houses... four fires that they know about.”
My heart was pounding in my chest, and the headache that had been growing behind my eyes began to pound in my temples.
“Spit it out, Brett. I want to eat my toast without you mouth mouthbreathing all over me.”
Breathe.
“You set the fir
e that killed your mother, didn’t you? That’s what they’re all saying, you know. That you murdered your own mother.” He paused, looking down at me with a smug expression on his pimpled face.
My head was pounding, my heart was racing, I thought I was going to explode. I thought all the rage I felt inside me would spill out of me like lava, but instead it was the smoldering logs in the fireplace that reacted instead of me. The embers flared into flames, crackling and snapping wildly.
Brett’s eyes widened, and he looked scared. That made me smile. The fire rippled higher, spilling out of the fireplace and onto the carpet. My foster brother looked at me, panicked, and then he ran screaming from the room to wake his parents.
Shit. Not again.
* * *
Now Brett was staring at me as the rain poured down and we all stood in the street, and I knew that he was going to tell someone that I’d done it. They wouldn’t believe him, but he would say it anyway, and another note would go on my file.
Fuck this noise. I had better things to do than stand around waiting for shit to go wrong. I pulled the smelly wool blanket up over my head and walked out of the streetlight and into the next yard, cutting across the grass. I had a place to crash; Becca wouldn’t be surprised to see me at her door at this time of night.
It was my birthday. I was eighteen, and as far as the great State of Washington was concerned, I was my own person, which also meant I didn’t have to give a fuck about literally anything, unless I wanted to. No apologies, no nothing.
My bare fleet slapped on the concrete of the sidewalk and I smiled as the train station came into view. I’d be at Northgate in no time, and by the time anyone noticed that I was gone, it would be too late for them to do anything about it, and that suited me just fine.
Riding the train with dirty bare feet and a soaking wet blanket over your head was literally the best way to travel on public transit. Some guy even gave me five bucks to ‘get a coffee.’ If this was what it took to keep people from talking to me while commuting, I might have to make a conscious decision about my wardrobe choices. I mean, unicorn printed pajama pants weren’t exactly badass, but they did the job.
I buzzed Becca’s apartment the same way I always did, leaning hard on the button to really get my point across. She claimed not to be able to hear it sometimes, so I always made sure I really hammered it. Becca and I had been friends for just about as long as I’d been working at Jet Diner. She was about a hipster as they come, and her apartment smelled like patchouli and coconut oil. She was a student at UW, but she only went to classes part time, and only worked part time, so I wasn’t quite sure what she was doing, or where her money came from.
I didn’t ask either; she was just cool to hang out with. She didn’t ask any questions, and she didn’t hesitate to share whatever she had on hand. Wine, beer, weed, no big deal.
“I saw the news, your house was on fire, huh?” she said when she opened the door. She looked at my grimy bare feet and firehouse blanket and opened the door wider. “You look like a drowned rat.”
“Better than a burnt one,” I replied, walking through the door.
“What the hell happened?” she asked, making a face as I flopped down on her couch and threw the wet wool blanket onto the floor.
“Dunno. The fire must have sparked onto the carpet and then fwoosh…”
“Fwoosh?” Becca wasn’t buying it.
I shrugged, “Yeah.” I wiggled my fingers.
“Is that supposed to be fire?” Becca raised her eyebrows.
“Yeah… do you have anything to eat?”
Becca rolled her eyes and went to the kitchen and slammed some cupboard doors before tossing a box of pop tarts at me. “Knock yourself out, kid.” She eyed my dirty feet again. “So, are you crashing here for a bit?”
I nodded, “Is that okay?”
Becca nodded, “Yeah, I’m guessing you’ll need to borrow some clothes too… good thing we have the same shoe size.”
I wiggled my toes and grinned, “It’s one of your best qualities, Bex.”
“Ha. Ha. You’re disgusting. Don’t use the white towels, okay?” Becca pulled some blankets out of a closet and threw a pillow at me.
“Thanks, Bex. You saved my ass.”
“Are we going to be getting a visit from the cops or a social worker or anything?” She threw a towel and some clean pajamas at me.
We’d been down this road before, Becca and I, and she was always there for me.
“Nah, it’s different this time,” I said with a smirk, catching the towel and getting up from the couch. “This time, I’m eighteen, and there’s nowhere to drag me back to. Literally nowhere after the firemen get finished with it.”
Becca’s eyes widened, “Oh, shit. Happy birthday… I guess we’re having cake at work tomorrow. My treat.” She picked up the dripping wool blanket I’d deposited on her hardwood floor. “Can I throw this out?” she asked, holding it gingerly and looking at me with a grimace on her face.
I laughed and went into the bathroom and undressed quickly, tossing my wrecked unicorn pajama pants and soaked tank top out the door. “Throw it out, throw it all out Bex! Goodbye old life, hello my life!”
* * *
Becca and I were the only staff on at Jet and we were making the most of a quiet day at the diner. That meant eating day old pie, sitting on the counter and watching re-runs on the grainy television that Kenny, the owner, liked to reserve for Mariners games. What Kenny didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt us. He wasn’t a bad guy, he was just a little too hands off with his greasy spoon than he should have been. We didn’t take advantage of his negligence often, but when we did, it was to eat pie and ice cream and watch Golden Girls.
“Whaddya think; will that be us someday?” Becca asked, pointing her spoon at the television. “Housecoats and curlers in the middle of the day? Getting old and cranky together...”
I laughed, “Really? Is that your idea of a life goal? Trapped in a house with your mother and a couple of other old broads complaining about how life passed them by?”
“Picture it...” Becca said, a faraway look in her eyes, “Sicily, 1922...”
I laughed harder and flicked some ice cream at her. Becca shrieked and jumped off the counter, running for the kitchen to escape my attack.
But for once, I didn’t chase her. I stared up at the TV while Becca crashed around in the kitchen. Becca wasn’t much older than me, but I couldn’t imagine planning out my retirement before I’d even hit the legal drinking age.
Something on the corkboard Kenny kept in the corner of the diner caught my eye. A poster I hadn’t seen before. I set my fork down on my unfinished pie and jumped off the counter.
The poster was electric blue, a color I hadn’t seen on any posters in Seattle. It was simple, no artwork, just mismatched lettering spelling out the name of the bands that would be playing. I stood in front of it staring wide-eyed.
SPIRAL CLUB, BROOKLYN NEW YORK
MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION
CD RELEASE
ONE NIGHT ONLY
“BEX!” I shouted, my heart was racing; goosebumps ran up and down my arms, and there was cold sweat on the small of my back. Holy shit. “BEX. BEX. BEX. BEX!” I ripped the poster off the wall and ran towards the kitchen, the poster clutched in my fist.
We crashed into each other as Becca came running out of the kitchen, Becca stumbled backwards and fell hard on the tiled floor. “Maia, what the fuck! What the fuck are you shouting about?”
I waved the poster in her face accusingly, “When did this go up on the board?”
“What?” Becca shouted from the floor. “I thought someone had broken in, I thought something had happened, and you’re shouting about a poster?”
“Yes! Yes, I’m shouting about a poster!” I stabbed my finger into the paper. “Do you even know what this is? Do you even know?” Becca looked at me incredulously and started to pick herself up off the floor.
“Obviously, I don’t.”
She was pissed. I didn’t care.
“Bex. Mutually Assured Destruction.”
She shook her head.
I let out a frustrated groan, “Are you serious? They’re only the greatest New York punk band in the history of ever. They haven’t released an album since 1979!”
I paused, waiting for Becca to catch on to how amazing this was... but she put her elbows on the counter and covered her face with her hands. “What the fuck, Maia. You’re not making any sense.” Her words were muffled behind her hands.
I slapped the poster down on the formica counter.
“This is the hugest deal ever, I can’t believe you have no idea who they are.”
Becca lifted her face out of her hands to stare at me. “Are the original members still with the band? Is this like an Eagles touring forever with the ashes of previous members and set musicians kind of thing? Can they not let go of the past either?”
“Ooo, you’re funny.” But I didn’t actually know. I slapped the poster. “I have to go to New York.”
“Wait, what?” Becca was incredulous.
“I’m going to New York. This release gig is only happening in Brooklyn at this one club. Look, no tour dates, no nothing. One night only.” I’d made up my mind. “I have to go.”
“Maia, you’re being ridiculous! You can’t just go to New York!” Becca was panicking, and her voice shook as she spoke.
“Why not? I don’t have to stay here anymore. I have no home, no one to tell me what to do. Why would I stay here?”
Becca tried to hide her disappointment, but I noticed her flinch as her dreams of sharing an apartment with me, a bunch of cats and matching quilted housecoats began to fade away.
“Seattle’s feeling a little too small anyway. It’s time for a change.”
Chapter 3 ~ Ophelia
Six months after what happened at the warehouse, Lacey was still crashing at my place. I mean, she was unofficially my roommate, but now that she wasn’t... human... it wasn’t like we had the same schedules so it wasn’t all bad.
Moonlight Burns: (Urban Fantasy) (Daughters of Hecate Book 2) Page 2