Ignited

by Lily Cahill

  The four of them entered, fighting their way forward. The balcony above the courtroom was packed, but it was nothing compared to the room itself. There were wooden seats in two long blocks, with a long aisle between them. Each seat was filled, and the aisle was clogged with people. At the far end, many of the Independents were gathered, talking quietly and urgently among themselves. She spotted both the Briggs brothers, Cora, Meg, Matt Harris, and Teddy Dickinson. And more, standing behind them. Worry was etched on every face.

  Nearby, Galina and Abram Sokolov stood with their oldest son, Kostya. The three of them stood with their backs straight, staring out into the crowd. Ruth had never said a word to them, and now …. Were they to be harmed because of her?

  Henry tugged her close to him, and when she looked up, his mouth was set in a grim line. He started to say something when a large rumble shook the room. Everyone hushed, glancing around as if they could figure out what had just happened. The moment of silence stretched until one person broke it, then another, and another, until the whole place was clamoring once again.

  “This is chaos!” Henry had to shout to be heard over the sound of hundreds of voices talking in unison.

  She nodded. “I’m going to go stand with the Independents.”

  He studied her face for a moment before leaning in so he could press his forehead against hers. “It’s going to be fine, Ruth. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “This is all my fault,” she whispered, not even sure he could hear her above the roar of the crowd. “If Ivan and his family are punished—”

  “They won’t be. You won’t be. You’ll see.”

  Ruth pulled back before he could say anything else, joining the other Independents at the front before her heart beat out of her chest.

  Where they angry at her for causing this?

  “What’s going on?” she asked as she approached.

  Clayton looked up, relief clear on his face. “Ruth, we heard what happened.” His arm was wrapped securely around Cora’s waist. “We’re all so glad you’re okay.”

  Relief broke in her like a dam, and suddenly Ruth’s eyes felt wet. “I’m so sorry—”

  “None of that,” Cora broke in, smiling gently. “We’ll get through this.”

  There was a banging sound, everyone in the crowd hushed. Mayor Watkins-Price stood at the front of the room, hair white and, as always, neatly styled. Instead of her usual smile, though, she was grimacing.

  “It has come to my attention,” she said, starting slowly and building momentum as she spoke. “That things have once again gotten out of hand with those among us who have developed certain ….” He struggled to find the word. “Abilities. Several congregants of the Lamb of God church stormed my office today, demanding action. A town meeting seemed justified.”

  The clamor of hundreds of people talking at once washed over the room in drowning waves, and Mayor Watkins-Price raised her hands. She was a small woman, but her authority silenced the room.

  “I want to make this clear: This is not a witch hunt. We are not here to assign blame—”

  “It was the Soviets!” Someone shouted clearly from the back, and the crowd exploded.

  Ruth shot a look toward Ivan and June, who stood with the Sokolovs. They still hadn’t reacted, though Ruth could see the fear in the way Galina clutched her husband’s arm.

  When the murmurs began to die, another voice rang out: “I saw her use fire. She is a demon!” The shouting and fighting started all over again.

  Nothing productive was happening. Ruth felt anger churning inside of her. How could everyone who had stood by for years as her father abused her now suddenly care about what she could or could not do?

  “I have to say something,” she said to Cora. “I caused this mess when I used my powers like I did, and I need to fix it.”

  Cora shook her head. “That’s a bad idea, Ruth.”

  “No, it’s the only way. I have to—”

  There was a clatter, and a large commotion as someone let out a piercing scream. The room turned in unison to see Gail Goodman, standing in the doorway, covered head to toe in splatters of blood.

  “Someone, come quick!” She screamed the words as loudly as she could. “My husband is trapped on the pass! There’s been a rock slide!”

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she fainted.

  The person beside Gail caught her, a look of alarm on his face. The entire hall burst into frenzy, groups of panicked people stampeding toward the doors. Someone screamed in Ruth’s ear, and she winced as she was pushed straight into Teddy’s side. He slung an arm around her shoulder to keep her upright.

  “Ruth!” Henry was calling her, but she couldn’t see over the heads of the people rushing by her.

  Teddy’s grip tightened. “I’ve got her! I’ll get her out!”

  The doors out to the lobby were clogged with people fighting to get out, and all around her, people began pushing and shoving, trying to get back to the square. The pass was the only way out of town—if the slide was bad, if the road was destroyed …. How long would they be stuck in town, cut off from the world?

  The press of everyone around her made the large room feel small, and Ruth could hardly breathe. Her lungs couldn’t expand in her chest. Everything was too close, everyone was too scared.

  Teddy pulled her forward, and suddenly they were in the lobby and spilling out onto the front steps. It was pandemonium before them. Those who hadn’t made it into the hall for the meeting had seen Mrs. Goodman run by them, streaked with blood, and had already taken off for the pass on foot. The sky was rapidly darkening. They were on the wrong side of sunset for a rescue mission, but that didn’t stop anyone from going.

  “How far in is the rock slide?” Someone to her right shouted.

  “Near the river, south of the Sokolov farm—about a mile!”

  Behind her, Ruth heard Clayton swear. “We need to go help. Maybe we can do something.”

  Ruth whipped around to look at him, her head fuzzy from the mental whiplash of the past few moments. “But after what I did—”

  He grabbed her shoulders. “We have to, Ruth. We might be able to help better than the average citizen.”

  Clayton straightened. He backed up, reaching out his hand for Cora, who was there without thinking. They turned and started to follow the crowd on the road out of the town, toward the pass. Teddy hesitated by her side, frowning.

  “Do you see Henry?” he asked, turning in circles. “If Bill Goodman is really hurt—”

  At the moment someone lurched into her, and she yelped.

  “It’s me!” Henry said in her ear, urging her toward the mass of moving people. “I checked on Gail before I came outside. She said Bill’s unconscious and his car is trapped under a rock. We need to go!”

  Off to the right, a truck blared its horn. Ivan yelled for them, and Henry and Ruth jumped into the cab with June. Teddy, Clayton, and Cora scrambled into the bed. Leaning on the horn, Ivan picked his way through the crowd and then put his foot down.

  The crowd only thinned a little as they made their way down the road. Headlights caught each twist and curve of the road. Ruth turned in her seat to look behind—a stream of cars and trucks followed them up the pass. Nothing seemed out of place or odd until they cut around the corner, where the pass began to wind through the mountains, the river rushing hundreds of feet below.

  It was as if the mountain had split in half. The rock face near the top of the pass had slid down, down, down into the road, crumbling the asphalt to nothing. Dust was still hazing the air, curls of it gleaming in the last bit of light before true darkness fell over the valley.

  Ivan pumped the brakes, and they skid to a stop before a boulder twice as big as his truck. Other vehicles stopped too—full of a mixture of townspeople and Independents. They walked out into the haze, silent. All around, the mountain still groaned a warning. Somewhere off to their left, rocks shifted with a deep rumble. Boulders were piled high, and the sheer qu
antity of destruction pressed on Ruth’s chest. How could anyone survive this? How could Bill …?

  Shining beneath a boulder was the tail end of a car. Their vantage point didn’t afford them a view of the front or side. It was impossible to tell how much damage had been done, or if Bill Goodman was still inside of it.

  Ruth had never spoken to Bill, but he was Henry’s friend, and Henry had been through enough. Please, God, she prayed as she ran. Watch over him.

  “We need to get to Bill before full dark,” Henry said, his tone quick and clinical. “Everything will be harder once it’s dark out.”

  Henry was at the front of their group, and he took off, pushing people out of the way as he ran to the car. People recognized him and began to clear a path. He didn’t have his medical bag with him, Ruth thought, even as she watched him get to the driver’s side door. He shouted Bill’s name at the window and reached out to touch the door handle.

  “Don’t!” came a voice from the crowd. “Don’t touch the car, you’ll make the slide come down on all of us!”

  The townspeople let out a cry. Someone Ruth couldn’t make out in the dim light tried to pull Henry away, and he shook them off. “The nose is crushed, and Bill is trapped inside! I’m afraid his legs are stuck—we need to get him out!”

  Another boulder, small but still lethal, tumbled down the mountain. The crowd gasped, but it rolled off to the other side.

  Beside her, Teddy sucked in a sharp breath. “He’s going to get hurt,” he muttered.

  There was a rumble above them, like thunder but closer, more grounded.

  Teddy didn’t hesitate. He took off running. Clayton gave a shout for him to stop, but he brushed by, barreling through the crowd as another boulder began to fall down, down, down, right toward Henry—

  A cry ripped out of Ruth’s throat just as Teddy dove forward, catching Henry around the shoulders and pinning him back against Bill’s car. The rock fell and bounced off something faintly glowing—a force field.

  Teddy had created a force field around the car.

  There was a chorus of screaming, and people began to back away, giving the car a wide berth. The force field faded.

  “We’re okay!” Henry called out into the near-dark.

  Everyone seemed to breathe in unison.

  Ruth went running toward Henry. June reached out to grab her arm, but Ruth shook her off. She needed to be by his side, to help him. Footsteps sounded behind her, and she skidded to Henry’s side, throwing her arms around his neck.

  “Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” she whispered fiercely.

  He hugged her briefly, then disentangled himself. “Get back away from here. We need to open the car door, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  Teddy sighed. “We don’t have time to argue about this, guys. I can’t create a field that big too many more times before I exhaust myself. Let’s get Bill out of there.”

  The rest of the Independents ran up beside them. It was almost fully dark now, the last tendrils of sunlight creeping over the mountains. Henry shooed everyone back. “I’m going to touch the car, and I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

  “Wait, maybe …,” Ivan walked a few steps away, crouching and putting his palm flat against a patch of bare ground beside the ruined asphalt. Around him, vines sprouted from the earth, creeping their way up the sides of the rock slide quickly. The sound of shifting made everyone around them stiffen, and someone from among the townspeople called out, “What did you do?”

  “I stabilized it,” Ivan called back, nodding when he heard appreciative murmurs from the crowd. He turned back to the Independents and added, “I think. I don’t know how long they’ll hold, but if it works the way I’m thinking—”

  “I’m here if it doesn’t,” Teddy cut in. “But I can’t protect all of you, so you guys need to get back.”

  Ruth stood stubbornly in place. “I’m not leaving Henry.”

  “Fine, stay. But the rest of you ….” Teddy waved them off, and they gave the car a few feet of space.

  With a trembling hand, Henry reached out and touched the car handle. Nothing happened. He opened the door, and the mountain remained silent. From inside the vehicle, there was a groan.

  “Bill?” Henry reached inside the car. “Bill, are you—”

  “My arm,” Bill moaned. “And, oh God, my head.”

  Henry crouched, looking down beneath the steering column into the well there. He motioned Ruth closer. “I need a light.”

  Ruth held out her right hand and let it go up in small, gently burning flames. She held it at a safe distance from Henry’s face, but close enough so he could see that Bill’s legs weren’t trapped. She let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.

  “I’m going to get you out now, okay?” Henry said, his voice calm. He moved in close and got his hands underneath Bill’s arms, pulling him up. Bill yelped with pain. His arm was red and bloody, with a flash of bone. The sight of it made Ruth’s stomach turn abruptly sour, but she held her ground.

  There was another rumble. Teddy danced in his spot. “Henry ….”

  “Bill is concussed and has a compound fracture,” Henry said. “He can only go so fast.”

  The sound grew worse, and Ivan appeared back at Ruth’s side, building more vines, directing them up and up toward the top.

  Henry pulled Bill free, dragging his friend back a good twenty feet before the Independents came running up, each one offering an arm, helping to carry the injured man. The townspeople rushed forward.

  “What happened?” Peter Powell’s voice sounded above the others.

  “Bill’s okay,” Henry started, but the man himself interrupted.

  “The other side ….” Bill’s voice sounded weak and hoarse. He coughed and flinched when the movement jolted his arm. “There were headlights coming toward me, I swear I saw them. I swear ….”

  Everyone froze as Bill slumped, only barely conscious. Headlights—that meant there was someone on the other side, someone still trapped.

  Matt Harris recovered first. He may have had his badge taken from him, but he was still comfortable taking charge. He helped Clayton to lay Bill out flat on the road and took of his jacket to shove underneath Bill’s head.

  “Does anyone near the back have a truck with a flat bed?” He shouted the words into the night. “We need to get this man back into town so Dr. Porter can look at him! And we need to see if anyone on the other side is hurt!”

  “I have a truck!” Someone called back.

  Another voice called out, “Me, too!”

  “Only one go,” Matt yelled. “We don’t need any more accidents tonight.”

  Someone ran off into the night.

  “We need to check to see if there’s someone hurt on the other side of the slide,” Clayton said, keeping his voice calm. He turned to June. “Can you …?”

  She grimaced, but her jaw was set and determined. “I can try.”

  “What’s she doing?” A man came closer, watching as she turned to stare at the slide. Ruth didn’t know his name, but she recognized him from town. He owned the jewelry store, she thought.

  “Where’s she going?” the man asked when no one answered him.

  June took off at a run, arms pumping. A woman shrieked. “She’s going to hit it, she’s going to set it off!”

  June hit the rock, then disappeared. The crowd gasped.

  When she appeared a moment later, she was fighting back a sob, her arms wrapped around her stomach. She limped back to group, rubbing at her eyes. “It’s so much. I tried, I swear I did, but—”

  “You did what you could,” Ivan reassured her, kissing her forehead. He brought his arms around her as she collapsed against his chest.

  Henry was on his knees beside Bill, checking his friend’s pulse. His face was pinched with worry, and Ruth touched his shoulder, just to remind him she was there. The tension in his back decreased ever so slightly, and he
looked up at her. “He’s going to slip into shock if we don’t get him back to town fast. I’m going to ride back with him in the truck and then come right back here, in case you find another person on the other side.”

  “Henry ….” Bill’s weak voice broke up the conversation. Ruth stooped to hear him better. “You saved me.”

  “No,” Henry corrected. He thumbed at the Independents. “They saved you.”

  Bill turned to look at them, and nodded. “Thank you.”

  Teddy shrugged. “Of course.”

  “We still need a way over. Bill, you’re sure you saw lights?” Clayton asked, but Bill was already well on his way to passing out once again. Clayton stared up at the slide, frowning. The walls at this section of the pass were sheer. “We can’t go around, we can’t go through.”

  The thought came to Ruth suddenly, and she sucked in a quick breath. Her powers had caused so much trouble today—now it was time for them to do some good.

  “What about over?” she asked.

  Even in the dark, she could feel Henry’s sharp look. “Ruth, no.”

  “I’m with Henry,” Cora interjected. “That’s too dangerous.”

  “It’s the only way. I’ll climb up to the top and look over, and if there’s anyone there, I’ll—” She lifted both hands up, sending a spray of sparks into the air. It shone bright in the night.

  Around her, the other townspeople gasped. Ruth glanced in their direction, but no one was calling her a demon. No one was stopping her.

  “And if no one is there?” Matt asked.

  She lowered one hand.

  “It’s too risky,” Henry insisted. His voice was shaking. “I won’t lose you too.”

  Her heart hurt for him, but she couldn’t walk away from this. The Independents needed her. Independence Falls needed her. She leaned forward, so just he could hear her.

  “Do you trust me?”

  This close, she could see the complicated series of emotion pass across his face. He nodded once, decisively. “Go, quickly. But you better come back.”

  She put her forehead against his, just for a moment, just to ground herself. She needed his strength now.