by Gabby Fawkes
Kian flung some energy, which got him unconscious.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
Pathetic, PV groaned.
-I’m trying my best here.
Pfft.
As much as I hated to admit it, my PV was right. The guards had already disappeared with several students strong-armed. How many of my classmates was I going to let get kidnapped because I was afraid of using my powers?
My attention was drawn to the sound of a crash. Up above, three figures on broomsticks appeared. They leapt down into the center of the screaming mass of students with red hair streaming out and wands drawn.
My heart leapt – the witch sisters!
Part of me wanted to rub my eyes and wonder if I’d just seen what I thought I had. Surely witches didn’t actually ride broomsticks, did they? It seemed too on the nose, straight out of the pages of a kids’ book. But then again, who was I to say what was normal? After all, I could turn into a raging, covetous dragon on a whim.
The three witches fired spells above the heads of the students. Their spells throttled into the guards, sending whole masses of them collapsing and driving many back in panic.
My PV whooped, and I grinned. Was this going to turn the tide for us? I had to hand it to Kian. Apparently she was more convincing than anyone – even she – had thought.
The Olympians had run over to join us. They’d dealt with the guards on the other side, now we just had one side to go.
As we all raced to further drive back the guards, something else joined the fray mere feet away from us. I gaped up at the red horses, carrying red-cloaked riders. No, not just riders – vampires. Btsan.
I groaned. “Crap.”
I skidded to a halt as they reared up their horses, slashing at the Olympians. I twisted left and right frantically, looking for an edge in this fight, but found nothing. Now even the witches were being pushed back by the merciless creatures.
Kian aimed a spell at them, while Demi chucked some kind of hard round vegetable at them. I made a mental note to work on her combat skills with her. Surely there was something a little more effective she could grow. Giant Venus fly traps, for example. Sharp bamboo spears. Anything was better than tossing turnips.
I ran around, pulling kids out of the line of the fire. I kept looking for Sammy’s distinctive red curls, but I couldn’t place her in the shrieking fray.
Even if I’d found her, though, how could I protect her, as helpless as I was? How could I help any of them?
As a btsan crashed into Artemis’ chest, knocking her to the ground, I knew.
This ends now, PV said.
It was right – I had to shift.
The question was: Did I dare?
Something slammed into the back of my head. Ringing sliced into my eardrums.
My eyes snapped open, my consciousness bubbled blur.
They had.
The liars had.
Done this.
All of this. The suffering, the pain… the children screaming…
Heat flushed through me like an old friend. Yes. The liars were running around trying to take back what had never been theirs, what they’d never had any right to control.
The liars had to be taught a lesson.
My body buckled and swelled, my breath heated up and burned. And when I got into the air, I knew it was over for them.
Burn them. Burn them all.
The btsan were easy, positioned in a long eminently-burnable line as they readied themselves to charge. I took full advantage, loosing a jet of fire. Their twisted, demonic red horses collapsed to the ground, claimed by my orange flames, screaming, as I laughed.
Next were the guards, their white coats ablaze, the fools who had thought themselves unbeatable with their numbers.
Numbers were nothing against sheer might. Against fire-delivered rightness.
They were other specks toiling about, but I wasn’t finished yet, not by a long shot.
Higher up, I bathed the higher floors in fire, then went back down. More of the masses of white-coated ant guards were swarming in, which meant more fire. More cleansing.
The smell of smoke was delicious.
I was nearly at the ceiling now, burning a path for me through, out to the sky. If I only summited the building, this castle of lies, then I could burn it down to the ash it deserved to be.
Only – what was that on my back? I’d been so busy wracking my vengeance, that I hadn’t noticed. The two little things clinging to it. Not things, people. Creatures I recognized.
“Tala,” they yelled. “You can’t burn it down, the kids… more btsan are coming, we have to get out of here.”
A look below found many of the harmless humans rushing out. Although some more guards were trying to stop them. That could be solved easily.
With one efficient swoop downwards, I exhaled fire.
There. Mass of guards = mass of ash.
Dum spiro spero kept twining in my mind like a puzzle. One that was infuriating. Necessary. I wanted to raze this place to the ground, and yet…
My friends. I had to help my friends escape, and…
I wheeled out of the school to see all the students and Olympians running for their lives. Behind them, the slow ones at the end were being picked off by the few remaining guards. I roasted them.
The sound of stampeding caught my attention, as an entire brigade of btsan thundered from the east. They were too far away to catch the fleeing humans, but close enough for me to make a nice roast out of.
I wheeled up high, let out a mighty bellow – Death for you now.
But then something smacked me.
“Tala, there’s too many!” an urgent voice said. “More keep coming!”
I roared. Damn the impertinence! Daring to sit upon my back, like I was some common steed…
Dum spiro spero. Dum spiro spero.
And then, another quiet familiar voice: “We have to go with the others. We can’t face all of them.”
I hissed, glaring at this new foe. They were different than the others in one important detail: they carried crossbows. Crossbows tore flesh. Crossbows could rip through the air, through fire….
-I am no coward, I shrink from no fight! I argued.
“We have to go,” the quiet voice said again.
With a final blast of fire at the btsan, I descended with the humans. As soon as my feet hit the grass, weariness overtook me. My knees gave way and I gave in to the arms supporting me.
36
I awoke in my timple after the best dream imaginable. We’d saved all the School for the Different kids – most of them, at least. I’d only burned the bad guys. We’d made it back okay. And I was in the same bed as my friends, exhausted but okay.
“You awake?” Kian whispered.
“Yeah, you?”
“Demi is asleep,” Demi said firmly.
I punched her lightly. “Liar.” She was the morning person, after all.
Kian punched her other arm. “Major liar.”
We were quiet for a minute, then Demi sighed, then said brightly, “Soo, big day, yesterday.”
I sat up ramrod-straight, gaping at her. “You mean we actually…”
“Did it, yeah.” Kian nodded like she couldn’t quite believe it. “You were amazing, Tal, you turned those guys into burned toast. Hey, where are you going?”
I’d tottered upright and out of the timple. The sight of the kids outside stopped me in my tracks. Most of them were curled up, still asleep, others were whispering anxiously to themselves. But wow. We really had done it.
Everything came flooding back to me. The sneaking in, the fighting… how some kids were taken. How we were too late for others.
We’d done it – saved some. But not all. There was still more to do.
But, looking at the mostly-asleep mass of students, my heart swelled so much I felt like I might topple over. Them being safe, my friends being safe, me having shifted… this was all more than I’d even hoped for.
�
�They can’t stay here long, you know,” a familiar voice said.
It was Hermes, looking much affronted as he flew up to regard me with a scandalized look. “Hera is due back any day now. And when she finds out-”
“Screw off, Hermes,” Axel said, striding up. “We know she’ll be back soon.”
Hermes’ keen eyes blinked rapidly. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
And with that, he was off.
“Hate that guy,” Axel muttered.
His gaze softened as it stopped on me. “How… are you?”
When I didn’t say anything, he shook his head. “Sorry, dumb question. Way overused too.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I do pass out a lot.”
Axel quirked a smile at that. “Yeah, you are a fainter, aren’t you?”
“In case you forgot, I did just change into a fire-breathing dragon,” I said, glaring at him. “So forgive me for feeling like I just fell down ten flights of stairs after winning the Tour de France on a unicycle.”
Axel’s grin only broadened the more I said. He drew me into his arms. “Come on, you know I’m just messing with you. Important thing is that we did it. We made it out, saved the kids. Or most of them anyway.”
“Shit” – I broke away, scanning the crowd anxiously –“My friend Sammy?”
“Fine,” Axel said, drawing me back into his arms. “Lost a chunk of hair during one of your overzealous burnings, but completely fine.”
“But I didn’t… no one else?”
Axel patted me. “You really have to learn to trust yourself and give yourself some credit, Tala. You didn't hurt anyone.” He paused, clearing his throat slightly. “Well, nobody who didn’t deserve it, anyway.”
See? PV was saying. Finally, someone talking some sense.
“We did it though.”
I smiled at him. It felt dumb repeating it, but I couldn’t get enough of the words, of saying it. “We really did it.”
And here I thought I’d known how good-looking he was when he was happy… Then again, how much did I know about him really?
“Who are you, even?” I asked him, only half- joking.
He flashed his brows. “Look who’s talking. That bad-ass dragon was a sight to see.”
“Seriously though,” I said, not smiling anymore. For some reason, now that we’d done what we’d set out to do, it seemed the right time for me to ask him all the questions I’d been meaning to. “There’s so much I still don’t know about you. Like about what Hephaestus said… you and Aphie. And Zeus’ punishment.”
Axel’s smile fell. “There’s a lot I did before, Tala, that I’m not proud of. I want to tell you about it, all of it. But for today, can we just celebrate? I want to just enjoy today without worrying about tomorrow or yesterday.”
From anyone else that would’ve been a cop-out, but I could see in the unwavering gaze that Axel was giving me that he meant it.
I nodded, and his fingers meshed through mine. “Yeah, we can do that.”
He angled his head toward an olive tree. “Come with me?”
It didn’t escape me that every one of my classmates who wasn’t asleep was staring at me – though they had just seen me turn into a giant murderous dragon, then barbecue most of the school’s staff, so I couldn’t really blame them.
I nodded, and he walked me behind it, and we sat down. The tree’s leafy branches gave us some nice privacy.
“So I’m guessing no one went back to the lab…” I said, ideas forming already.
Obviously, I was psyched about having saved who we did, but until we had everyone… my skin crawled with the thought of Cody, Aerwyna and the others, locked up… suffering. Maybe even dead.
Axel’s brows rose. “Yeah, you won’t be good for another trip for a week at least. Anyway, Apollo said the DSA has already surrounded the school zone, said they’ve set up an investigation.”
“Meaning… we’ll probably never see the inside of that lab.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Axel’s hand was stroking circles down my arm. “Maybe we don’t need to.”
His hand squeezed mine at the same time I asked, “What do you mean?”
“What I mean is, we’ll find another way, just how we have been this whole time. We’re going to get to the bottom of this. We have to. We have two hundred and twelve orphans to deal with. Artemis is already running the kids’ names online and in police databases, says there’s something weird about all this.”
“You mean other than the fact that a bunch of kids who are supposed to be crazy orphans actually have magical powers?”
“Other than that, yeah,” Axel said.
“So, what now then? What do we do now?”
“We cool it.’ Axel ruffled my hair. “We take it easy and figure out what to do with these kids.” His gaze dipped to my mouth. “But now now? You kiss me.”
“Is that right?” I said, suddenly unable to look anywhere but his lips.
His answer was a kiss.
Wow… those lips. That musk. This feeling.
Who knows how long we sat kissing at that tree, all of me lost in the perfection of his lips, his face, his hair… Long enough that when Kian said, “Hate to interrupt, but…”
“We have to talk to Tala,” Demi said, a lilt of excitement in her voice.
“All right,” Axel said, releasing me reluctantly. “But later…”
“I’ll come find you,” I promised, turning to my friends as Axel ambled off, looking adorably like he had a little skip in his step. “What’s up?”
“Kian and Dion totally have a thing,” Demi said. “I saw.”
Kian turned to her, her smeared-pick lips in an outraged ‘o.’ “That’s not why we’re here!”
“Jeremy’s okay too,” Demi added as though she hadn’t heard Kian. “He’s psyched and wants to see you later today.”
“Definitely,” I said. “But…”
“Oh yeah, and guess who else escaped?” Kian said, grinning now. “Cog.”
“And Maurice,” Demi added. “Jeremy can’t believe it.”
“Awesome,” I said. “But guys…”
“I also sent money to Red Ranch Convenience,” Demi said. “Remember the place we stole all those chocolate bars from?”
“You sure you’re not Mother Teresa reincarnated instead of Demeter?” Kian asked.
I laughed, not asking how Demi had somehow gotten money and sent it. They could’ve told me anything, anything at all, and it would’ve seemed possible, the feather-light way I was feeling right now.
“Okay, look at this,” Kian finally said, lifting her wrist.
“So?” I said.
She opened her palm, showing the plain white wristband. “It came off.”
I stared at little thing, the significance of it swelling in my chest.
Demi held hers up too. There was a tense silence when I took mine off, then let it drop to the ground.
“We’re really free then,” I said.
I looked at it, tears prickling in the back of my eyes.
Somehow, this was different from just escaping the school, even the second time. This was it. Definitive, final proof. That we were free for good from the School for the Different. Free forever.
Kian and Demi exchanged another look. “You totally don’t have to, but Demi and I were thinking…”
“You should burn them,” Demi said, her eyes fierce. “Burn them until there’s nothing left but ash.”
I didn’t bother arguing, or even worrying whether I could channel just the burning part of my powers without going full-fledged dragon on them.
Yesterday had proved it. That I could do this. I could control my powers.
Dum spiro spero.
I lifted my hands, my birthmarks burned, and fire jetted out of my palms to envelop the three wristbands.
My friends and I watched the flames lick them without a word until they were nothing but smoking dust.
My PV let out a little wry chuckle. Now do you get it?
-Hold up, you’re not saying that, all this time, when you were saying ‘burn them’ you meant…
‘Course I did. What else did you think I meant?
-Oh, I don’t know. Maybe all the teachers you wanted to roast?
Those too, but still. Practicalities first, I always say.
-Details, details.
Did I mention that you aren’t as much of an idiot lately?
-Oh my John, was that a compliment?
Don’t let it go to your head. You still have a long way to go, fool.
-Apparently. I’m supposed to trust you.
Burning has never done me wrong yet.
-We’re going to have an interesting next few months, aren’t we?
I like the way you’re talking.
My attention returned to my friends, who were still quietly staring at the remains of the wristbands, their faces overcome.
“I love you guys,” I said softly.
“Right back at you.”
They didn’t need to say the next part. That we’d done it. Beat the odds – hell, we’d made the odds. We were free now and anything was possible.
Oh hell yes.