Singe

by Casey Hays

  Inside, Darren is back at his post. He ignores us as we approach, concentrating on searing a wood chip in half with the beam of his surgical laser cutter, his dirty blond hair sticking up all over the top of his head. Oh yeah… he’s a real professional. More like, he was the only person we could find who was halfway decent at this task. I prop my hands on my hips and wait for Rylin to spill this big idea of his.

  He produces a small, unlabeled bottle from a duffle bag and dumps a handful of white pills into his palm.

  “What are those?” I lean in for a closer look.

  “Sleeping pills.”

  I glare at him. “Why do you have them?”

  “To make you sleep.”

  Moving back a step, I stare at him. “Me?”

  “Both of you.” He splits the pills into both hands and holds them out to us simultaneously. “Kane, you’ll want to take a triple dose, I expect. You’ll sleep for a bit, but it’s more to relax you than anything. Might help you hold still anyway.”

  “You said Kane couldn’t be knocked out.”

  “I did. Until I remembered we have you.”

  Kane holds completely still, hands crossed over his chest. But after a few seconds of silent stand-off, his mouth tips up in one corner.

  “I see what you’re doing here.” Kane probes me. “Don’t you see what he’s doing, Jude?”

  Oh, yeah. It doesn’t take rocket science to catch on to why he would want me to sleep.

  Rylin holds his stance, those little white pills glaring up at us and one brow poised.

  “I can’t control my dreams, Rylin. How many times do I have to go over this with you?”

  “And how many times do I have to tell you that you’re wrong?” The pills disappear inside his clenched fist, and he taps at his chin. His aggravation rings loud enough to rattle my core. “What happened last night after I left your house?”

  I study him, not willing to pop out an answer so quickly. Not until I see his edge.

  “Last night, Jude. It wasn’t that long ago.” He waits, then presses on when I don’t make a move to reply. “Kane stormed off in a tantrum. Vowed to never defy the Contingent. I left. And you? You dreamt.” He holds a hand out toward Kane in presentation form as if to prove his point. I frown. “And here we are.”

  “Okay. Yeah. But you’re forgetting that I don’t know how I did that.” I pronounce each word precisely. “Things just happen.”

  To be honest, I was surprised at myself. I fell asleep with Kane on my mind and my brother’s prediction about him heavy in my heart. In the next instant, Kane was there, filling up my dream and in severe danger of having his wings cut off by the Contingent. And there I was, preventing it from happening. I woke to Kane banging on my door, completely convinced that we had to run. But how I did it? As I’ve said every time Rylin brings it up… I’m clueless.

  “Things just happen,” Rylin repeats my words, and I focus on his lips. “That’s how it works?”

  I shrug, not committing. Not wanting to get Kane’s hopes up. But Rylin isn’t letting me off so easily. He presses.

  “Then we’ll do it your way.” The pills sit on his palm. “You reached Kane last night when things just happened. So do it again, and we can get out of here.”

  Beside me, Kane is deep in thought, and I feel super antsy. Rylin is right; we have to get this done. I can’t guarantee it will work, but…

  I give Kane a side glance. “What do you think? Is it worth a shot?”

  He swallows, flashing a glance toward the oblivious Darren and his instrument of torture. Darren has upgraded from woodchips to nails in his laser experimentation.

  “Okay, yeah.” Kane reaches for his portion of the pills. “Put me out.” When I look at him, a hesitant hope stares at me in deep emerald. “Anything has to be better than the last hour I’ve spent in this place.”

  Rylin’s face spreads into a victorious grin. “All right.”

  We swallow the pills with bottles of warm water from my backpack, and Rylin produces a blanket and fans it out for us. Really? You’d think he’d planned this all along as prepared as he is. But one whiff of the minty scent emanating from the blanket assures me this is his, and he uses it—a lot. I laugh to myself as an image of Rylin and his “blankie” floods my head.

  Darren pauses in his experimenting long enough to toss us a befuddled look, but I don’t worry about what he thinks. He won’t remember a thing tomorrow anyway.

  The pills work fast. Kane stretches out, his arms propped behind his head, and soon, his breathing evens out as he slips into sleep. I snuggle up next to him, the crown of my head tucked into the pit of his arm. Drowsiness reaches up like wispy arms to wrap itself around me and pull me under. And just before I go…

  “Jude.”

  My lashes flutter. Rylin squats, his fuzzy face hovering over me. I bring him into focus as he hovers, close.

  “The sleeping pills won’t last in Kane, so remember where you are. Find the laser in your dreams. Let him in quickly.” His warm fingers clench around my wrist. He slides off my ring. “See you tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow? Wait, what?

  I try to lift my head. That’s not going to happen. I’m out.

  ***

  The ground is hard. The smell of mint lingers in the air. And vanilla. That scent is strong. Overwhelmingly strong. I choke on it.

  Suddenly, I’m no longer lying on the hard ground. I stand in the rose garden, and all the shades of pink surround me. I bend to sniff a single rose. It, too, smells of vanilla.

  My rainbow dress flows out around me, and I smile. I hear music in the background. My mantra. I hold still, listening to its sweetness. It comforts me.

  Peace is everywhere. I plop right down in the middle of a thick bed of roses, plucking a couple of petals off a deep pink bloom.

  I’m startled when the flowers to my left are disturbed by movement. A boy emerges right out of the center, petals and stems flying up all around him and surprise defining every inch of his face. Scanning the area, he plucks a leftover petal from his shoulder and plants green eyes on me.

  “Kane?”

  He shows no recognition at first, but slowly, those dimples manifest like twin caverns.

  “Hi, Jude.” He scans the garden. “What is this place?”

  “It’s my happy place.” I smile “Daddy should be along soon.”

  “Oh.” With a nod, he scrambles to his feet, sending more flowers and petals and stems scattering in his wake. I blink, and I’m standing too—right next to him. Face to face.

  “Why are we here?”

  His question opens a door inside my brain. It’s not by accident that we are here. There’s a reason. An important reason. I study his face, struggling to grasp it.

  “You were in pain,” I suddenly say, and it doesn’t sound like me at all. “I brought you here to make the pain go away.” I peer at him closely. “Did it work?”

  He thinks. “I don’t hurt.”

  I sink with relief. “Good. I’m glad.”

  He takes my hand. “Should we fly now?”

  At his words, his wings burst forth, huge and brilliantly black and iridescent all at once. I laugh, then shrug.

  “Sure.”

  With a wink, he preens his feathers. Sparks fly off the ends before they burst into flames. I look up, see a pair of golden wings of my own sprout from my back. Surprised, I face him.

  “I have wings?”

  “You can have whatever you want, Jude. It’s your dream.”

  That’s right. It is.

  This is a dream. That suddenly seems important too. But why?

  Just before we take to the oh-so-blue sky painting the top of my dream, Kane buckles, falling to his knees with a hard thud, his wings sputtering out. His hand flies up to cover a spot just behind his left ear, and he screams. It’s blood-curdling, and it sears me from the inside out. I drop to my knees beside him, pulling his hand away to see a bulging bump behind his ear. It pulses with a blue light just be
neath the skin. Blood streams fast, running over his shoulder and down the side of his arm, splattering the roses with crimson speckles.

  I blink. I remember why we’re here.

  “Kane. Look at me.” I shake him. “Kane.”

  He won’t look. He shuts his eyes tight against me, against the ghastly scene, against the defamation of the beautiful flowers of my dream garden. I cup his face, make him see me.

  “Look at me!”

  I scream the words until his eyes fly open. He glues his gaze to mine, tears flooding up and streaming down his cheeks like double rivers. The emeralds are deeper, dark with his pain.

  “It hurts. Jude, it’s killing me. I’m dying!”

  “No, you’re not. Listen to me.”

  His loses focus. For a split second, his image fades to a ghost of himself. I can see right through him, and a flicker of his pain stabs at me. Excruciating. I wince and tug once on his hand. He solidifies, and I take hold of his chin, jerking his focus into place. He finds me.

  “Stay with me,” I whisper. “In here, you’re safe. Tell me what you need, and I’ll make it happen.”

  “I need—” He breaks off, hesitating. The pain stabs him again; he tries to fade out; I drag him back into the dream.

  “Let’s fly, Kane.”

  I yank on him; he won’t budge.

  “I can’t,” he whispers. “It hurts too much.”

  Another slice of pain takes my breath away. I cling tight. I have to think. Something is all wrong about this dream.

  It hits me fast, and I blink. None of this is real. I know that I’m dreaming.

  Have I always known? I don’t think so.

  I drop to my knees, fully realizing where we are. My mantra swells.

  “You can’t hurt in here if I say you can’t.”

  Kane merely stares at me. I take his face in both of my hands.

  “You can’t hurt in here.”

  I hear his mantra then. It’s far, far away, buried deep under the pain he experiences. I pull up my own song, sending it into a whirlwind of dancing until it captures his and pulls them together. I don’t simply hear the combination—I see it. It swirls around us, a fiery orange-streaked motion in the air. Kane watches it too.

  “It’s beautiful,” he whispers.

  “Yes.”

  A blue laser beam suddenly slices through the scene. Kane catches it in his bare palm and bends the light in half. The pain vanishes.

  I smile. “You can’t hurt in here.”

  He smiles. “I know.”

  Two

  Music.

  It’s the first thing I hear when I come to. Then… movement. The gentle, familiar bumping sensation of a car ride. The radio quietly plays a pop ballad—Five Seconds of Summer’s latest hit. The smell of minty roses doused with rainwater is everywhere in the confined area. I hold still, keeping my lids closed. They’re so heavy. I wonder if I can even open them.

  One eye, then the other. There we go.

  I see the shadowy ceiling of the car first, a black night sky shading the glass sunroof. The bottoms of my feet press against one of the back doors, the top of my head the other. A seat belt cuts into my hip, thanks to the awkward angle of my body. In the light gleaming from the console, I make out the back of Rylin’s auburn head and the right side of his profile. I prop on an elbow and touch his shoulder. My ruby glints in the light of a passing car. Rylin half turns.

  “Welcome back.” He refocuses on the dimly lit highway.

  “Where are we?” I sound croaky. I clear my throat and sit up, bare feet planted on the floorboard.

  “We just passed through Indian Springs. Forty-five minutes to Vegas.”

  I check the clock on the console. Two a.m.

  “Where’s Kane?” I yawn.

  Through the front windshield, he indicates the single, red taillight of the Kawasaki, a tiny dot yards ahead of us. I stifle a yawn and lean forward, arms resting on the backseat.

  “How long was he out?”

  “Twenty minutes, maybe.” Rylin’s voice sounds too casual.

  I gawk at him. “That’s it?”

  “Yeah. He was wide awake in no time.”

  I ease back. “But it worked, I guess. The tracker’s out?”

  “It worked.” He turns his head enough to smile at me. “You did well.”

  My tensed-up body relaxes, and I clamber over into the front passenger seat, clicking my seatbelt into place, and popping open the glove box. No trackers.

  “You got rid of them already?”

  “About ten minutes ago. Somewhere around mile marker 119.”

  “Nice.” I slouch low, relieved.

  Rylin elected to take his aunt’s Ford over the Corvette, so here we are again, traipsing across the state in the Explorer. Only this time, he didn’t have permission to take it. I can’t help but wonder how long it will be until Aunt Megan notices the absent vehicle. Not long, I’d imagine. I push the thought out of my mind and study the dim highway and the taillight of Kane’s bike. Our own headlight beams cast two rounded orbs into the night. I lower the volume on the radio and settle in my seat.

  “Why did you have those sleeping pills?”

  He checks the rearview mirror, stalling. But we have at least forty minutes of road left in front of us and nowhere for him to go, so I’ll just let that question linger.

  “I had trouble sleeping after Clara died.”

  “Oh.”

  “That’s strange, isn’t it?” He casts a glance at me. “Firebloods can go quite a long time without sleep, but eventually, we need it. I haven’t had to take any in a while, but I always have them on hand now. In case.”

  “They work for you?”

  “Only if I haven’t slept for a few days. And even then, I have to take about eight at once to get a few hours of sleep.”

  Eight? Wow.

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t give Kane that many.”

  “Good to know.” I lean my head against the headrest. “Are you going to tell me where this safe house is now?”

  My question cuts through the soft tones of a Shawn Mendez love song. I can’t remember the name of it. Rylin doesn’t flinch, one elbow propped on the armrest between us, his other hand concentrated on the steering wheel.

  “It’s a casino.”

  I expect to see a tease twisted in there somewhere, but no, he looks pretty darn serious.

  “How is that a safe house?” I quip. “It’s about as public as you can get.”

  “Which is why it works,” Rylin says with a tilt of his head my way. There’s a sparkle of mischief in his eye that I don’t miss—not even in the dark. “Let’s not spoil it. You’ll see.”

  With a wink, he raises the volume on the stereo, flooding the cabin with sound. I feel a little dissed. But a satisfied smile slowly creeps into place on my lips anyway. If nothing else, this is going to be quite an adventure.

  Clearly, I’m getting too comfortable with Fireblood shenanigans.

  “I’m glad you did this.” Rylin doesn’t look at me when he says it. “It was a smart decision.”

  “I hope you’re right.” I brace my feet against the glovebox, my toes curling over the dash. “Because I have no idea what my life is going to look like after this.”

  “That’s the fun part.” And he really means it. “The beauty of the unknown.”

  “Yeah, well, keep saying that, and I might eventually buy it.”

  He laughs softly. We go silent for a few minutes. An ad on the radio works to convince us that we need to find the nearest Quickstop before the sale on toilet paper ends. And then…

  “I know what happened to your dad.”

  Rylin’s voice is so quiet. So unfamiliar. For a moment, I’m not even sure he said anything over the noise of the radio. But he looks at me, a low fire simmering in the dark outline of his face, and I take a quick breath. Okay, we’ll need radio silence for this conversation. I reach for the knob and shut it off.

  “So, are you going to add
a little bit more detail to that comment?” I ask.

  “I’ve known for a while.” He watches the road. “Da filled me in.”

  “He was killed by an animal.” I study the lights of another passing car. “Right?”

  “Not the kind you think.”

  My stomach drops, and I sense my own hesitancy to trust his words. As if my head wants to keep the status quo intact where my heart fights it. But it’s learned to accept, to believe the story, even it if knows there must be a different truth.

  “You’re talking about the Contingent, aren’t you.”

  He purses his lips like he’s said too much. Like he’s trying to prevent anymore words from escaping through his lips. Too late.

  “And you knew?” I ask.

  “Not at first.”

  “So when? Did you know when we went to Portland?”

  He hesitates. I release a puff of air as a hurt anger nudges me. He knew.

  “You had all that time to say something, and you said nothing.”

  “What would have been the point?”

  “Then why tell me now?”

  “Look, I know I’ve tried to prepare you, but I’m not sure you realize what you’ll be facing at this lab.”

  “How hard can it be?” I drop my feet to the floor, annoyed, and straighten up in my seat. “A doctor is going to help me understand and control my dreams. It’s pretty simple in my mind.”

  “It won’t be simple.” He slows as the speed limit changes, and I hate how his tone changes right along with it. So condescending. “Not at all. You’re going to be subjected to intense dream therapy, mind-probed, and prodded. You understand this, right? You’re going to get frustrated and you’re going to want to quit, at least once along the way.”

  Okay… he’s officially lit my nerves on fire; I don’t let it show.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No you don’t.” On impulse, I raise my voice. “You don’t know as much about me as you think, Rylin. And what does any of this have to do with my dad?”

  This brings the conversation to an abrupt halt. Rylin tosses one fierce glance at me, which I return in full force. His chest rises and falls with his easy breathing, and I can’t read his face, which means I can’t know what he’s thinking, so I can’t predict what he might say next. Not that I’ve ever been able to.