“Oh my garden,” Ackerly swore as he staggered backward, retreating into the hall.
“This is even worse than I thought,” Tray said, coughing through the smoke that permeated the room.
Eliana instinctively went to cover Hastings’s airways to prevent him from inhaling, but he couldn’t inhale—he never would inhale again—and so she covered her own mouth and nose, cowering against the wall as Adara unleashed the full might of her Affinity.
Scampering out of her range, the Reggs appeared on the verge of fainting, while Olalla had found a spot against the wall near Eliana, her purple eyes alight with frightful wonder. Angor remained behind his desk, petrified by this monstrous display of power, as Adara took a step closer to him, scorching marks in the wood as her now-bare feet touched the floor. Her shoes had smoldered to dust along with her clothes, but her form was distorted by the conflagration, giving her the appearance of an ominous, walking bonfire.
As Angor stumbled back, she placed her hands on his desk, setting fire to the thick wood and melting the nameplate that rested there. With one leg lifted, she was about to crawl over and reach her target, but suddenly, the burnt floor gave way beneath her feet, opening up a hole she plummeted through like a demon falling back into the depths of hell.
Hell, though, was just Fraco Leve’s office, and the oily man squawked as the flaming body hit his desk with a thud. Through the hole, Eliana saw that his papers were consumed in the blaze, and it seemed likely the vice principal’s whole office would succumb to the fire.
With the fall, though, Eliana knew consciousness had left Adara, causing the inferno to recede back into her body with a few dying crackles. As Fraco’s office filled with ascending smoke and descending ashes, Eliana wished that, like Adara’s Affinity, Hastings’s hadn’t had the ability to hurt him.
32
The Guilty Arsonist
Brittle coldness surrounded Adara when her muddled mind regained consciousness. She felt like her brain had been fried, and the cool metal she lay on stung her aching skin. The thin garb that covered her body did nothing to bring her warmth—all heat had drained from her core, but her anger hadn’t subsided with it.
Groggily, she opened her eyes, squinting, and blinked until the whiteness around her formed a coherent image. At first, she assumed she was in the nurse’s office, because she was wedged in the corner of the room with plain walls towering around her. The structure beneath her was barely a bed, though—it was a silver table.
“Where the hell am I?” she groaned, her voice hoarse and her face scrunched in a grimace. She stared up at the ceiling with blurry vision and noticed a small rectangular window far above her bed, the glass blocked by metal bars.
“You’re where you should have been for years now,” a voice scoffed. “Jail.”
Adara slowly propped her head forward to see that, as she suspected, the words had come from Tray Stark’s mouth. He stood beyond her bed among a horde of people her hazy eyes could barely discern as her other primary friends. When she realized there were thick metal bars between her and the rest of them, she scrambled into a sitting position.
Swearing loudly, she took in the scene with soured lips. She was lying in Periculand’s jail cell—the same one Calder Mardurus had been detained in after squirting Emmett Ventura with water. An unadorned, off-white outfit covered her body, but her arms were bare and abnormally dark.
“Why the hell am I covered in soot?” she demanded as she wiped some of the ash from her forearm with her fingers. The metal slab she lay on was dusted with the substance, and when she brought her hand to her head, she realized her hair and face were doused, as well. “And where the hell are my clothes?”
Ackerly, who stood beside Tray, cleared his throat awkwardly. “They, um…burned off when you exploded into a ball of fire…”
“Dammit,” she grumbled, studying her new attire with distaste. “I went through a lot of trouble to steal those jeans from the Lost and Found.”
“Oh good, you’re incriminating yourself even further.” Tray glanced down the jail cell corridor to where Mitt Telum stood near the exit and raised his eyebrows. “Are you taking notes?”
Mitt’s smile didn’t reach his metallic eyes. Since Adara had last seen him, his black hair had faded into shimmering silver, as had his eyes, and with his dark skin and black suit, they were his brightest features. “Stromer won’t be leaving this cell any time soon, Stark,” he assured him as he narrowed his eyes at Adara. “She’s been deemed a threat to this town after yesterday’s arson incident.”
“I am not an arsonist,” she whined, throwing her head back onto the hard, stone wall behind her as she pulled her legs up to her chest. Every part of her body was throbbing with rawness or soreness, but she fought to keep the pain out of her expression. “I think I’ve made it fairly clear that I hate fire.”
Ackerly bit his lip as he scratched his green-haired head. Like Mitt and Tray, he wore a black suit, and it was strange for her to see Greenie in such morose apparel. “You, uh, don’t remember yesterday?”
Clenching her jaw, Adara vividly recalled the small flare she’d conjured to combat the Pixie Prince—and then the sensation of rage that had overcome her body and made her see physical redness. The heat, the flames, the fury—it was all blazing through her thoughts like a horribly realistic movie. She remembered Hastings’s veins bloating and then bursting beneath his skin, his body turning purple as he shrank to the floor; Eliana’s sorrow; Angor’s apathy; and her own irrepressible wrath that had sparked a literal fire.
She thought she would regret displaying such strong emotion. Anger had always come naturally to her, but she hated to show feeling or weakness. She thought she would be embarrassed that she had essentially admitted she cared for Hastings so much. He was an intriguing person, but she’d barely known him that well, yet his death had struck a chord within her that rang with grief, guilt, and bloodlust.
Now, all that remained was dread—dread over the fact that fire was actually her Affinity and that her assumption had been correct. For as long as she could remember, fire had been her worst fear. She’d hated when Seth started bonfires in the backyard, when Tray asked her to cook on the open flame of the stove, or when the twins’ mother lit sensual candles throughout the living room. In yesterday’s rages, fear had been so far removed from her awareness that the flames hadn’t miffed her, but now the thought of willingly evoking her Affinity, even just to roast a marshmallow, was undesirable. None of this she would admit aloud, of course.
Her friends all stared at her, waiting for some kind of response. Tray’s poop brown eyes were slivered, Ackerly was perpetually wincing, Hartman’s lips were twitching into a weak smile, Lavisa was all seriousness in her dark gear and tight yellow braid, and then there was Eliana, biting her nails and staring blankly at the wall, lost in thought. The long-sleeved velvet dress she wore was elegant and her hair was braided beautifully, but there was something acutely mournful about the set of her shoulders.
“Why are you all in black?” Adara decided to ask, maintaining a nonchalant inflection.
Ackerly’s green eyebrows creased with worry as he pitied her through his glasses. “Adara—”
“Don’t baby her,” Tray snapped, taking a step closer to the bars. “She’s screwing with us—she remembers exactly what happened. Do you want us to say it out loud, Stromer? Do you want us to rehash the gory details of yesterday? Do you? Hastings is dead. He is dead. We’re going to his funeral today. Does that compute in your head, Stromer?”
Eliana hiccupped and tried to cover it with a few strained coughs. Tray exerted no sign of sympathy; his harsh glare remained focused solely on Adara, who forced her dry throat to swallow.
“I…wouldn’t say yesterday was gory, necessarily,” she said, provoking a noise of agitation to expel from Tray’s mouth. “I would call it tragic, though. If you think I don’t care that Hastings…died, that is plainly disproved by the fact that I erupted in flames after his death.”
“It was sick,” Hartman said before hastily cowering and asserting a less enthused demeanor. “The fire part, I mean… The rest of it sucked. Hastings…well, he didn’t talk much, but he was a hero. He shouldn’t have had to be, but he saved the Reggs.”
Adara shook her head, brooding. “I wish he hadn’t been a hero—heroes always get themselves killed. He should have let them die.”
“He wouldn’t have wanted that,” Eliana said, her voice soft but clear. “He never wanted to be a murderer—he would have rather died a hero…”
“It wasn’t his choice—”
“It was,” Eliana said fiercely, her blue eyes shimmering as she glared at Adara. “By killing himself, he proved it was. You just don’t understand because you don’t care about anyone other than yourself—”
“All right,” Adara interrupted voluminously, “let’s not get catty here, hm? Dr. Pain couldn’t heal Hastings?”
“He healed the others, but Hastings was already gone by the time we got him there,” Ackerly explained with a regretful sigh. “Tray carried him.”
“Are you all going to call me a selfish bitch if I ask what happened to me?” she questioned, her sass aimed mostly at Eliana.
“All your clothes burned off,” Hartman relayed with suppressed excitement, “and you turned into this charred fire monster, which was awesome. You tried to kill Angor, but then you fell through the floor and landed on Fraco’s desk. He was so scared that he cried—like, actual fat tears of oil streaming from his eyes.”
Adara snorted, wishing she could summon the cynically amused part of her that was currently dormant. “Too bad I didn’t get to see that—might have brightened the otherwise awful day…”
“Seth carried you here on the Reggs’ request,” Lavisa said. “He protested, of course, but they demanded you be indefinitely imprisoned.”
“Mm, yes. I’m a threat to this town.” She shot Mitt a snide look he shrugged at.
“I don’t make the law; I just enforce it.”
“Well, is anyone going to explain to me why I’m still covered in a layer of smoky grime?” Adara prompted, meeting the eyes of each of her friends.
“Because no one wanted to wash off your naked body,” Tray sneered before anyone else could muster a response.
She rolled her eyes, completely unashamed. “Oh, don’t pretend, Nerdworm—you know you liked it. Better burn the image into your mind. I’m probably the only girl you’ll ever see naked.” Redness rose in Tray’s cheeks as she winked mockingly at him. “You can’t deny that I’m hot now, Tray.”
“These jokes are gonna get old real fast,” Lavisa intoned as she picked at a scab on her hand.
“I offered to wash you, actually,” Hartman piped up, “but Tray punched me in the face.” He pointed to a bruise on his cheek, and Adara’s lips quirked upward.
“Thank you, Nerdworm. No offense, Ginger, but the thought of you washing me while I’m unconscious is unsettling.”
Hartman’s skin grew pink under his vibrating freckles. “I was just trying to be nice…”
“Mm. What a convenient way to be nice,” Lavisa mused.
“Where’s Seth?” Adara finally asked, directing her attention back to the ever-grumpy Tray.
“He didn’t want to wash your naked body, Stromer. Don’t get your hopes up.”
Although she rolled her eyes again, she didn’t refute his insinuation.
“He’s, er, being questioned…since he was Hastings’s roommate,” Ackerly informed her. “They’ll probably want to interrogate all of us…”
Adara’s eyebrows knitted, sprinkling ash into her eyes. “Who are they?”
“The Regg ambassadors,” Tray answered. “While you were sleeping, they took control of the town.”
To everyone’s surprise, she began to snicker. “The Reggs took over? Good God. They are a pair of robots that fuel themselves by sucking on the government’s dick.” Tray choked while Ackerly wrinkled his nose. “How freaking furious is Fraco? Of course, as soon as something interesting happens, I’m thrown in here. When is my trial, Weaponizer?”
Mitt frowned at his nickname. “Not sure yet. The Reggs were busy planning Hastings’s funeral, since they’re apparently indebted to him. They’ve also got bigger things to worry about than you, believe it or not.”
“What could possibly be more important than my freedom?”
“She is so oblivious,” Tray fumed, mostly to himself. “Do you not notice something missing in this prison?”
Adara shrugged without looking around. “I would prefer if there was a donut bar or something—”
“The Wacko is gone,” Tray said impatiently as he motioned to the cell across the hall from hers, which was empty.
“Oh.” She peeked over her friends into the other cell and then scowled at Mitt. “Why didn’t you give me that cell? There’s an actual bed in there and you’re making me sleep on this metal table—”
“Most of these cells aren’t meant to hold people long-term,” Mitt sighed as he rubbed his forehead, “and the one the Wacko broke out of is currently off limits because it’s under investigation. You can thank your brother for that.”
Adara blinked as her lips parted. “A-Avner? Avner broke the Wacko out? Perfect Avner? Why the hell—Why would he break her out and not me?”
“It happened before the…Hastings incident,” Mitt explained judiciously. “That kid, Jamad, froze me, and your brother used his Affinity to open the cell—it was a whole thing I’m pretty pissed about.”
“Used his Affinity… Are these bars electrified?” she asked with abrupt alarm. “Damn it. Mitt, come on. You can’t lock me in here without at least a chance of breaking out.”
“That is the idea of jail, actually.”
Groaning, Adara banged the back of her head on the wall. “I blame all of you assholes for this, you know. If any one of you joined my quest to avenge Hastings and annihilate Angor, I wouldn’t have had to explode like a bomb.”
Lavisa grunted quietly. “That’s debatable…”
“You would have exploded no matter what,” Tray insisted. “It’s what you do, Stromer: destroy. Accidentally or purposely, it’s part of your Affinity—your DNA. It’s your natural reaction.”
“Yeah, like when Aethelred touched you and you almost burned his hand off,” Hartman chimed in. “You were unconscious and you still managed to hurt him.”
Adara’s eyes bulged as she sprang upward. “Repeat that, please.”
Everyone glared venomously at Hartman as he stuttered. “I, um, well—”
“I burned Devil-Red?”
“By accident,” Ackerly amended. “When he, uh, caught you in the cafeteria, he touched your skin, and you were so…angry at Nero that you unintentionally burned Aethelred.”
Deflated, Adara slumped back against the wall. “I am a shitty person, huh?”
“Took you long enough to figure it out,” Tray muttered.
“Well, maybe it’s for the best that I’m here, then,” she drawled dramatically. Tray’s face twisted with revulsion at her attempt to coax sympathy. “Maybe I should turn myself around—you know, stop hating this wretched world and become an optimist.”
Tray visibly cringed. “Is that a possibility for you?”
“I’ll start now,” she announced, straightening her posture, “if only to prove you wrong. Hm. What’s good about this hellish situation? Ah—I know: I have my own room now—how glorious! No offense, Mind Reader. You were a decent roommate, but this is good for you, too. Now I have the ability to freak out and yell and throw things without bothering you—or anyone, really, except Mitt. I don’t really count him as a person, though, since he willfully imprisoned me.”
She expected the officer to banter back at her, and she was almost hoping for it, but no one looked very entertained with her whimsical rant. They were all exchanging nervous looks that resulted in all six pairs of eyes staring at the other side of her cell—the left side—which she had neglected to p
eer at throughout this entire conversation.
Stomach churning, she pivoted to the side, following their gazes, to see another prisoner in her cell, lounging silently on a metal table in the other corner. When their eyes met, his eyebrows arched, amused, as hers narrowed nefariously.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Acknowledgements
Well, I don’t want to become a disgusting ball of sap, but there are definitely a few people I need to thank for making this book possible:
My mom, for igniting my love for reading
My dad, for gifting me with a sense of humor
My sisters, for promising you’ll read my writing and then sometimes following through with that promise (love you guys)
My husband, Phil, for all of the reasons above and more. Adara would probably be a decent human being if I didn’t have you to reinforce my cynical side.
My pups, Mocha and Scrappy, for never failing to distract me with your cuteness (and craziness)
The rest of my family, for grimacing when I told you I was writing a book titled Blood
Daniëlle, for being a lovely beta reader, writing pal, and friend
Jasmine, for leaving comments on my stories that make me choke with laughter (and for telling me your own stories that make me choke with laughter)
Mikaela, my editor, for weeding through my terrible grammar with the same precision that Ackerly weeds his garden (seriously, thank you so much!)
Damonza.com, for the stunning cover and internal formatting
Momo, from Quotev, for drawing the original covers for this series, which I still dearly adore
Of course, all of my friends from Quotev, for reading my work over the years and inspiring me to pursue my dreams
My wonderful Patrons on Patreon (Alyssa, Isabella, Lauren, and Tawnie), for your comments and encouragement over the past few months
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