Singe

by Casey Hays

  “But thank you,” I finally whisper. “It felt good to play tonight.”

  “So don’t ever stop.” He leans in, kisses my temple. “Minus performing for a roomful of Firebloods.”

  “Do you think they’ll come looking for us like Joshua said?”

  “Yes.”

  His answer is ice down my spine. Like someone just dumped a bucket of it over me at a sporting event.

  There’s nothing else that needs to be said. Kane presses his lips into my hairline, his breath warm and vanilla-comforting. I snuggle into his side, safe for the moment, and he turns on a replay of last night’s motocross competition—without the volume.

  “Did you know Joshua was a Fireblood?” I realize he never answered my question.

  “Yeah.”

  “How?”

  “It’s just something we know,” Kane shrugs.

  “I didn’t.”

  “That makes sense. You never figured me out.”

  “Except for vanilla.”

  I feel his grin against the top of my head. “Except for vanilla.”

  “What about me? Can you tell what I am?”

  “Not with that ring on,” he whispers. “Everyone in that lounge tonight saw a human girl. Firebloods included.”

  Wow. My dad gave me such an amazing gift. I really can’t screw up again.

  “Why didn’t Joshua tell us he was a Fireblood?”

  “He seems kind of private.” Kane scoops up a throw pillow and hugs it to his chest. “And like he stays in human form—all the time.”

  “I wonder why.”

  “Who knows?”

  We fall into a comfortable silence. I watch the movement on the television screen for a bit, and soon the blue and white flashing lights begin to lull me to sleep. I fall into Kane, and he loosens his stance to curl an arm around me. When I wake an hour later, it’s dark. Kane has covered me with a hotel blanket and gone to his bed. I stumble to my feet half asleep, tangling myself up and nearly tripping over the end of the blanket. But by the slowly growing light of my own skin, I manage to tumble into my bed eventually.

  The enormous sigh that escapes my lungs feels good as I sink into the pillows. My plan? To get a full night’s sleep and tackle everything fresh tomorrow.

  The dream that enters my head? That is not part of the plan for a full night’s sleep.

  And it is most definitely uninvited.

  At least, I think so.

  Eleven

  The rose garden is in full bloom.

  Under the silver moon, the flowers look shimmery and shadowy all at once. I walk among the rows of bushes, stopping to smell a rose or two along the way. But something is wrong with their scents. They all smell like mint.

  In the very far distance, music begins to play softly. A piano. I know the song. It belongs to Rylin. I don’t see him, but for some reason, I have this dreadful urge to find him. As if my next breath depends on it.

  I run, racing down a row between two lines of bushes.

  “Rylin!”

  A cloud slides across the moon and a cold wind blows up around me.

  “Rylin!”

  The wind is the only answer.

  It’s pitch black now. And silent. Rylin’s mantra is loud, pounding in my ears. I move in its direction; the rose bushes stop me, scratching me with their sharp thorns.

  Suddenly at the very end of the row, a single light disrupts the darkness. Only I’m no longer in a rose garden. It’s a cornfield.

  “Jude.”

  I turn. Out of the shadows steps Jarron, his crippled wings tucked in close to his back. He takes my hand and nods to the end of the row.

  In the tiny spotlight, Rylin squats, weeping. I take a step.

  “Rylin?”

  He looks at me, full of shame, and turns away. And where his wings once perched are two bloody stumps.

  “No,” I whisper.

  Jarron squeezes my hand, a wispy touch, like a vision. “There is still time to save him.”

  He says it inside my mind. I pin him with tear-filled eyes.

  “Save him,” he repeats.

  “How?”

  “You know how.”

  He vanishes.

  “Jarron?” I spin in a circle. “Jarron!”

  Rylin’s scream screeches inside my ears. I slam my hands against them. And then it’s not Rylin’s voice; it’s Kane’s. I pull off my ruby ring and drop it into the dirt at my feet. The screeching halts, and Rylin’s mantra floods into my head. And from my back burst huge, glorious wings. I flap them once. The spotlight flickers. At the end of the row, Rylin vanishes into darkness.

  “Rylin!”

  My scream is long and agonizing.

  ***

  The whole world quakes, and I’m in the very center.

  “Jude.”

  Shaking.

  “Jude, wake up.”

  My heart pounds out of my chest, panic mode defining every beat. I waver between the smells of corn in one world and vanilla in the other. My brain tells me I shouldn’t leave the cornfield; Reason tells me I have to. I’m torn in two.

  The room is dim when it hits my vision. Moonlight tries to fight its way through the glossy curtain, and I don’t know where I am for a minute. The panic follows me out of sleep, upping the beat of my heart. But Kane’s face slowly morphs into view. His eyes. His skin. His wings.

  He hovers over me, concern etched into his shadowy features. I focus on him, making him real. The image of Rylin penetrates.

  “Oh, my gosh,” I whisper.

  I jolt up and spring into Kane’s arms, tears flooding up. His wings flutter and fold in around me.

  “It’s okay,” he whispers. His embrace is tight and secure, safe and familiar. “You were just dreaming.”

  “No.” I pull back. “It wasn’t just a dream. I think… I think it was a message.”

  “A message?”

  “Yes.” I break away from him and bound off the bed. I can’t stay still. Everything in me screams urgency. “I think Rylin is in danger. Or… something bad has already happened to him.” I pace, wringing my hands. “I don’t know. It was… something is wrong.”

  “You were screaming his name,” Kane says. He crosses his arms, and I brace myself for the moment his concern shifts into disdain, but it doesn’t. Not this time.

  “I think they took his wings.” I stop pacing, fear consuming me. “Or… or… they’re going to.” A sob overtakes me. “Like they were going to take yours.”

  “Calm down.” Kane grips my shoulders just as I’m about to resume my pacing. “Tell me what you dreamed.”

  I tell him, erratically describing some of the scenes, the music, his own screams. He rubs at this chin.

  “There’s a lot going on there,” he says.

  “My brother said I’d know what to do, but I don’t.” I move toward the bathroom. “I need to talk to Petra.”

  “It’s three in the morning.” Kane’s words pull me to a halt. “Look, you heard me scream, but I wasn’t there, Jude. It might have just been a dream. I mean, you still have regular dreams too, right?”

  Do I? I mull over the suggestion. I just don’t know anymore.

  “I want to talk to Petra.”

  I slip into the bathroom and shut the door. It may be three in the morning, but Petra’s a night owl. She’ll be in the lab.

  ***

  “So you dreamt that Rylin was in a cornfield?”

  “Yes.”

  It’s the fifth time Petra’s asked the question in a half hour timeframe, and I’m irritated. How many ways can I say I dreamt about Rylin in a cornfield? She sits behind her desk, her fingers tented, her head bent over the list of notes she’s compiled during our conversation.

  “Why a cornfield, do you think?” She looks at me.

  “I… I don’t really think that matters.” Seriously?

  “Every detail matters, Jude.” She stands, studies her notes again, swipes up a pen and adds something else. “And you believe your b
rother may have sent this dream to you?”

  “I’m not sure. I just know I’ve dreamt of him in a cornfield. I couldn’t get to him before, but this time, he was right next to me. Like he’d been sent. And it was Rylin I couldn’t get to.” I rub at my temples, trying to remember every detail. “Parts of the dream didn’t feel like my own. They felt… implanted. Like maybe Jarron was inserting things.”

  “Did you invite him in? The way you say you’ve invited Rylin or Kane?”

  “No, but…” I think on that. “He’s my brother. It’s probably an open invitation.”

  “That’s what you’ve decided.”

  “I don’t know.” Frustration implants itself right in the middle of my mood. Come on. She’s the expert already. “I’m new to this hybrid sibling stuff, you know.”

  “Okay.” She taps the pen against her palm a few beats, becoming aware of my agitation. When she stands, the motion sends her wheeled desk chair rolling straight into the wall behind her. “Come with me.”

  She takes me to the same room where I had my first set of tests. Same monitors standing silent at the moment, same industrial tiles, same thermometer on the wall next to the door.

  “Is the temperature comfortable?” Petra gestures as she pushes the door closed.

  “Yeah.” It’s a little hot, but it seems trivial to focus on it. She pats the examination table.

  “Hop up here.”

  “What are we doing?” I settle onto the table.

  “You passed your psyche eval.” She slides an IV rack close to the bed and pulls a small bag of liquid from a steel box on the rolling tray. “If you’re ready, we’ll begin a preliminary assessment of your sleep activity right now.”

  “Okay.” I eye the bag. “What’s that for?”

  “We’re going to map one of your dreams.” She eases me backwards until I’m lying down. “I’ll need to start an IV.”

  “Why?” My voice sounds just as wary inside my head.

  “Because I’m going to give you something pretty heavy straight into your bloodstream to put you to sleep quickly and jumpstart the REM sleep stage.”

  Great. I really don’t like needles. I take a deep breath and stare up at the bright lighted panel in the ceiling. This is why I came here, right? For answers. For an education into my dreams. For the why behind all of the weirdness that enters my head while I’m sleeping. A tapping in the crook of my elbow brings my eyes into focus with Petra’s face. She reads my apprehension, which pretty much defines every inch of me at the moment.

  “You have nothing to fear, Jude. I promise.”

  She wraps some stretchy material around my bicep and taps the bend in my elbow again. I feel the tiniest prick of the IV needle. Moments later, she secures the injected area with tape and lays my arm across my stomach. She wraps a blood pressure cuff around my other arm, and proceeds to dress me all over in wires with tiny suction cups on the ends. My chest. My forehead. My temples. The monitor whirs to life with all its bells and whistles.

  I grow drowsy, but I work to keep Petra’s serious face in my sight. Her forehead is so smooth below her dark hairline and her red lips are full, like a blooming rose from my dream. I giggle. But then, I think about what’s happening here, and my heart pounds loud in my ears.

  Maybe it’s the anesthesia kicking in, but it suddenly hits me that Mom doesn’t know where I am. She has no clue what I’m allowing Petra to do. I mean, I’m a minor, and a doctor I met yesterday just gives me something through an IV line to knock me out without my guardian’s permission. No paperwork. No waivers. Nothing.

  My tired brain tries to clumsily decide if this crosses moral and ethical lines of some kind. And what if something goes wrong? Not to mention, Petra and Joshua harbor two runaways, if you want to get technical.

  Then again nothing in my life is exactly standard these days.

  In a haze, I watch Petra hang the bag on the IV hook above my head. The liquid continues to feed itself into my arm. I swallow. She runs a comforting hand over my forehead, brushing my hair away from my face. Motherly. It feels nice. It takes away all of my doubts.

  “Stay calm, Jude. You should be feeling tired now.”

  “Yes.”

  The word sounds slurred as the medicine takes over. And… I’m out.

  ***

  I hover on the air, giggle once—a tiny, gurgling baby sound without words. My parents watch me. A smile plays near the corner of my father’s lips, but Mom seems uncertain. She reaches up, her fingers grasping my ankle, and she tugs me into her arms. I laugh snuggling close. She smells so good. Like the fresh powder she uses on her face. I know this. How do I know this? I’ve had my lifetime to learn her scent, but how do I know? I’m only a baby.

  And then, I know. I stand in a corner of the room, watching my parents and my baby self. Mom shifts me in her arms. I’m tiny—a month old, maybe—but I’m so alert. From my mother’s hold, I lock eyes with myself in the corner. In unison we smile. The baby me flaps tiny wings, shaking the air. I feel it all the way to my corner.

  “Jude,” Dad whispers.

  He runs a hand over my soft downy head. I feel his touch from my corner. Mom begins to cry. She hugs me closer. I feel her hug.

  I want to go to them, to tell them everything is fine. That I understand. But I don’t understand. Not at all.

  A sharp pain pricks my left shoulder blade. It’s tolerable, then excruciating. My baby self giggles. She points at me in the corner. I can’t take the pain. I sink to my knees.

  The scene explodes into my scream.

  ***

  “Make it stop. Make it stop!”

  “Jude, listen to my voice. Find my voice and follow it.”

  The pain slowly subsides, vanishes. Petra fuzzes into view, her face pinched with concern. It’s difficult, but slowly, I find her.

  “There you go,” she whispers, her warm hand shielding my forehead. “Naptime is over.”

  I slowly ease up. The tape on my arm is stiff and scratchy.

  “How long was I sleeping?”

  “An hour.”

  I blink. It felt so much shorter. Like I’d only just fallen asleep.

  “Did you get anything?” I ask.

  “Well, let’s see.” Petra points at the monitor screen. “This indicates your brain activity while in REM. It’s very similar to ‘awake’ brainwaves, but…”

  She taps a few keys and pulls up another reading of my brainwaves.

  “Well.” She taps a few more keys. “That is interesting.”

  “What?” I peer at the screen, looking for what she sees, but all I can make out are scratches wavering up and down like colorful mountain ranges.

  She leans back, letting her hands drop into her lap, an astounded expression on her face. “These patterns don’t follow the brain of someone who is sleeping.”

  “But I was sleeping.” I straighten. “I had a dream.”

  “Yes.” She points. “But you see these ribbons of readings right here in green?”

  I lean in. “Okay?”

  “These only record when a subject is fully awake.” She looks at me, clearly stumped.

  “How is that even possible?” I ask.

  Not answering, she intently studies the readings again. She pulls up another view of my brain waves and skims over the results.

  “This is… I’ve never seen anything like it. There has to be some mistake.”

  She slides her rolling chair across the floor to an intercom on the wall and presses a button.

  “Joshua? Could you come to exam room two for a minute?”

  She skids back to the computer to pull up the previous readings again.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  Joshua glides in, his dark hair slicked back wet, like he just jumped out of the shower and into this room.

  “What have we got?” he asks.

  He leans over the back of her chair, and together they stare at my rainbow-colored brainwaves, while I sit uncomfortably on the end of the
examination table, my socked feet crossed at the ankles and the IV tape on my arm starting to itch like crazy. After a minute, Joshua pulls upright, a stunned look on his face.

  “That… it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I know,” Petra breathes. “It’s… quite… spectacular.”

  They stare at each other, something passing between them. This excited, unified moment that would make an outsider looking in think they had just discovered the Fountain of Youth or something. I swivel my head from her to him. Seriously, it’s like I’m not even in the room.

  “Could one of you please tell me what’s going on here?”

  “I’m sorry, Jude.” Petra rolls away from the computer. “As you can see, we are shocked, and frankly, very excited about what we are seeing. You are one special hybrid.”

  “Why? Because it looks like I’m awake on a stupid machine when I’m not?” I can’t believe two educated people wouldn’t consider this. “Maybe your machine is broken.”

  “Hardly.” A huge smile transforms her entire face, the lines along her cheeks stretching wide. She scoops up my hands. “Jude… you’re dreaming… while awake.”

  I stare at her. Joshua sinks onto the stool she vacated, and shoving the IV stand out of the way, pulls the computer table close enough for me to see it better.

  “Essentially, you brain is performing two activities at once here.” He runs his pointer finger across the screen, outlining the green wave. “This tells us that you are awake, fully alert, and conscious of your thought processes. You are in control of everything. But this,” He indicates another scratchy yellow wave of readings. “This is the line that tracks your dreaming state. Where it’s flat, here, you are not dreaming. But you can see very quickly that you begin to dream almost immediately the moment you hit REM. And yet…” He pauses, running his fingers across the screen again. He looks at Petra. “Did you notice this?”

  She’s beside him in a heartbeat, and in the next, her eyes widen.