Singe

by Casey Hays

  Joshua basically said the same thing, and I understand, but it seems cold, and I feel my brows narrowing in on her. I thought she and Rylin were friends. I thought she’d care about his welfare.

  “It’s our concern,” Kane quips.

  “Not while you’re here. You will not expose yourselves again.” She slants her own dark glare at us, and I sink a little into my guilty conscience. “You had a close call that we managed to assuage, but we may not be so lucky next time. You leave Rylin to his father.”

  Kane heaves an irritated breath, and I’m right there with him. Neither one of us likes this answer. It gets us no closer to finding out what happened at that hearing.

  “It’s just hard waiting for news.” My disappointment crawls through my words.

  “Well, if you need something to keep your mind off of things,” Petra adds. “Visit the private theater at the end of your hall.”

  “Seriously?” Kane huffs. “There’s a theater you forgot to tell us about?”

  “I presumed Rylin gave you a tour.”

  “Nope. He didn’t.”

  “Sorry. Now you know.” She’s comes to her feet, addressing me. “There is one thing you need to work on.”

  “Okay.”

  “Your brain thinks it’s awake during your dreaming stage. I believe you have the ability to bypass this. The sole solution to controlling your dream is knowing that you’re in one.”

  “You’re saying I can’t tell the difference?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay. So what do I need to do?”

  She pauses, clasping her hands together in front of her as if she’s about to make the biggest announcement of her life. And maybe she is.

  “You need to learn to control your Fireblood nature while you’re awake.”

  Oh. That’s all.

  “How? I have no inner-compelling ability; I can’t compel anybody.”

  “I’ve seen the activity inside your head. You’re underestimating yourself.”

  I peer at her, unconvinced.

  “You have a mantra, don’t you?” She gives her dark head a small tilt, a wisdom I can’t define settling over her features.

  “Yes.”

  “Use it. With focus, practice, being cognizant of how it feels, smells, how the world looks to you when you’re dressed in flames. The longer you remain decamouflaged the easier it will be.”

  Dressed in flames. I like that.

  “I feel great when I’m ‘dressed in flames’.” My wide smile catches Kane’s attention. He winks, and my heart flutters. He likes when I dressed in flames too.

  “That is all for now.” Petra pats my leg. “Dara is one of our techs. She will fit you for your monitor in room two before bed.”

  “Thanks.” I start to hop down; she stops me with a hand on my knee.

  “One other thing.” She turns her attention to Kane. “Two detectors were spotted at a Craps table this morning on our security cameras. They blended in well, but it was clear they were on the lookout for something.”

  The catch in my chest matches the sudden shift of Kane’s expression as all the blood seems to drain out of his face.

  “Once again, I cannot stress enough how important it is for both of you to stay out of the casino.”

  “Okay.”

  I don’t have to think twice before I answer. I hardly recognize my own voice, it’s so full of fear. Kane rubs a nervous hand up his face. He totally blames himself for this. He nods at Petra, and without a word, bounces to his feet, and slips out. I face her with a defensive shrug.

  “He’s feeling guilty about the whole thing. But he shouldn’t. I’m the one who sat down at that piano.”

  “True.” She doesn’t even try to disagree. “Not to mention, Kane is feeling cooped up.”

  “You can tell too, huh?”

  “It’s written all over him, and it’s not in the nature of a Fireblood to keep to the ground for as long as he has.”

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned, that’s it. Wings are meant to be flown. An image of my brother’s tiny cell flashes through my mind. If Kane is feeling cramped, I only can imagine what Jarron must be feeling. All the more reason to get him the heck out of there.

  And I may not have wings, but I can relate. When I first learned what I was, I felt a restlessness. It turned into a manic urge to get out of my own suffocating skin once I knew the truth. I suppose that’s how Kane is feeling now on top of everything else. I study my own buzzing flesh for a few minutes before I stand to leave. Petra holds the door for me.

  “Tell Kane there’s a reinforced aviary on the roof if he needs to spread his wings.”

  An aviary?

  This place just keeps getting bigger.

  Thirteen

  In his suite, Kane slumps on the couch, a throw pillow hugged to his chest, the curtains drawn. Remote in hand, he clicks through channels, pausing only long enough to decide that yet another show is not worth watching. I sink down next to him and wait for him to look at me. It takes a few minutes, but when his emerald eyes land, they say it all. He’s been putting on a good front, but honestly, everything is getting to him.

  “You all right?”

  He shrugs, and I have nothing to say. We’ve already exhausted every conversation we could have about the hearing, his parents, the fact that Rylin has yet to return… and our little escapade that put the Contingent on our scent. What more could we possibly add?

  “Petra says there’s an aviary on the roof. We could check it out.”

  “While that sounds intriguing,” he admits. “I’m not in the mood.”

  “Well, we could sit on the balcony,” I suggest, and it sounds so stupid. “Get some fresh air?”

  He merely looks at me sidelong, not smiling.

  “Or… we could sit here, miserable,” I add. “And worry about things we have no control over.”

  “Or we could break into Rylin’s room.” Kane lifts a brow as he says it. My smile consumes every muscle in my face.

  “It’s about time you got on board.”

  We make our way to the hallway and across to the room Rylin shares with his father. My heart beats double-time with an anxious excitement. Half of my brain screams at me about how wrong it is to do something like this; the other half—which I decide to designate as the more reasonable of the two—can’t wait to get inside that suite and see if Rylin had the sense to leave behind some sort of clue. It’s a stretch. But honestly, he had to have been thinking what we all were: that things might go terribly wrong at that hearing when Kane didn’t show. When I didn’t. Rylin would have prepared for it.

  Standing in front of the locked door, the lighting in the hallway feels too bright, too revealing, and I find myself holding my breath and expecting the elevator to ring or someone to step out of another room, which only serves to magnify the sound of my beating heart. Kane’s clenched fists don’t ease the tension at all. He hesitates, working to slow his own breathing, but when I lay a hand on his forearm, he seems to take some courage from it.

  “It’s just a door,” I say inside his head, and then, I slip into Jezik. “Don’t overthink it. Just open the door.”

  Kane still doesn’t move, and it seems so ridiculous to be afraid of an empty room until I remember what he told me about Mr. McDowell. The man is a bully. A brute. A criminal, if we want to get technical. I feel a little angry when I think about what he put Connor through, and I believe Kane is right: he likely didn’t lift one finger to help the O’Reillys at the hearing. But Rylin might have. Because Rylin is not his father. He’s nothing like him, and I believe this with everything in me.

  But… could this be why he hasn’t returned?

  “Open the door, Kane,” I whisper, panic beginning to play with my head a little.

  Kane waits two more heartbeats, and then the buzzing of the digital lock sounds in my ears. The light on the lock goes green, and Kane turns the door handle. We look at each other; he eases it open.

  Kane flick
s on the main light switch. The suite is empty all right. Very empty. I step around him, taking in the silence.

  “Are you sure this is his room?” Kane asks.

  “Yes,” I insist. “12C. It’s always 12C. He said so.”

  It’s clear the maid has already come and gone. The throw pillows are neatly placed. The drapes are pulled back, a towering casino across the way in full view over the balcony railing. The kitchen rings with spotless cleanliness as if ready for a new guest. I take a step, run a hand over the smooth marble of the kitchen’s bar before I make a beeline for the first bedroom.

  The bed is made up crisp and clean, not a wrinkle to be seen. In the bathroom, clean towels hang side by side in perfect uniform. And I know what you’re thinking. You say to yourself, so what? The McDowells might be a clean bunch, that’s all. Maids come in all the time and clean while the guests are out. No news there. But this is different. This room has been prepared for a new check in.

  From the bedroom doorway, Kane watches me as I pull open drawer after drawer. All are empty. There is no luggage anywhere. No shaving kits in the bathroom. No fancy slippers by the side of the bed. No half-empty coffee cups or half eaten candy bars left on the nightstand that the maid is not allowed to touch because they aren’t in the trashcan. No clothes hanging in the closet. Nothing.

  “They left.”

  My shoulders sink. I search Kane’s eyes for some sort of answer. As if in the depths of the flickering fire, he might know why Rylin didn’t tell us that he wasn’t coming back. But he knows as much as I do. Rylin promised he’d be back; this empty suite is proof that he lied.

  “I told you we couldn’t trust him, Jude,” Kane says. “He’s loyal to his dad. He’s not going to defy him when push comes to shove.”

  I hear him, but I don’t want to believe it. It can’t be true. The Rylin that I’ve come to know would never do something like this without a good reason.

  “Something happened,” I insist.

  “Yeah, something happened. He’s ditched us. And he can only blame his dad for so long before he has to own his part in it.”

  “Why?” I slam Kane with a half-glare. “Why would he have been so adamant for us to skip the hearing? Why would he go to all of this trouble to bring us here—to save us and help to keep us hidden—if he were going to desert us?”

  “He’s Rylin.”

  As usual, Kane is not a bit surprised. But I want to be surprised because I don’t want this to be the true definition of who Rylin is.

  “You keep saying that,” I snap. “You want to believe it because then you win. But Kane, there are no winners if Rylin does something like this. If he doesn’t keep his word, or—or if he betrays us to the Contingent—”

  “He wins,” Kane cuts in. “Like always.”

  “What?” I don’t really know what to do with that, and I toss my confusion into the mix. “When has Rylin won?”

  Kane moves into the room, closing the drawers I’ve left open. He runs a finger across the top of the mirrored dresser and takes a seat on the end of the bed.

  “When I was nine, Mom invited Rylin over for a ‘play day’ on a Saturday.” He quotes with his fingers, then lets them drop between his knees. “He was new, and I didn’t know him well. Only from school, but she thought it was right to reach out to a fellow Fireblood family. Let them know we were in this thing together.”

  My lips tighten. I wonder where he’s going with this. It can’t be any place that puts Rylin in a good light, and I’m torn about whether I should stop him from finishing the story or let him keep going. Because I trust Kane’s judgment like no one else in this world. But when it comes to the subject of Rylin, I’m hesitant. Kane is pretty biased, and that colors his opinion at every turn. Eventually, I sink into the chair across from the bed to hear him out.

  “One Saturday turned into two, then three, and I liked him.” He looks at me. “He was fun. Clever. He taught me a couple of dice games native to Ireland. He taught me Ireland’s national anthem, and I helped him learn ours. I took him to a fort Jonas and I built. You know, the one that washed away when we had that bad rain in fourth grade because it was made out of tree branches?”

  I remember. They were sure proud of that skimpy thing. It lasted about three months before the river rose and tore it apart limb by limb. Literally.

  “One of those Saturdays, we ended up at this abandoned house at the end of our street. It was in probate, tied up in some sort of family feud about the will. No one had lived there since the owner died when I was about three years old. So you know, it was fair game.”

  “Fair game?” I question.

  “For busting out the windows with rocks.” He fights a reluctant smile. “And we killed it too.”

  Okay, I’m definitely not following now. This seems like a good story. Bad judgment on the part of two ornery little Firebloods, but a good story.

  “The neighbor lady saw us just as we were smashing up the final window. She called the cops on us, which was the right thing to do.” A laugh hides in the back of his throat. “Funny thing is, I didn’t want to do it. It was all Rylin’s idea. I ended up being blamed for the whole thing.”

  “Why?”

  “Rylin compelled everyone.” Angry hurt fills every crevice of his voice. “The neighbor lady, the cops. They didn’t even see him. Only me.”

  I stare at him stunned. It’s so wrong on so many levels that I’m kind of speechless for a few seconds, trying to picture nine-year-old Kane with a handful of rocks taking all the blame for something that wasn’t his idea in the first place. But what’s more intriguing is the fact that nine-year-old Rylin was able to pull it off.

  “He could compel like that? At nine?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Kane leans forward, his big hands hanging limp between his knees. His feathers ruffle up as if they’re remembering the whole incident on their own apart from Kane. “Turns out his dad had him training at some private Vatra u Krvi school in New York before they moved to Carson City—since kindergarten. And in New York, no one takes a second glance. As much as my parents were training me to be human, Mr. McDowell was working on honing Rylin’s Fireblood skills.”

  Hmm. I remember Rylin mentioning something about living in New York, but he never went into detail. He has most definitely never mentioned a prep school for Firebloods. In fact, he doesn’t really talk about himself much. I hate to admit it, but this is the first time I’ve let myself really think about what kind of life Rylin has lived. I peer at Kane. Maybe I should be more mindful of the red flags he’s always waving.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “I was shoved into a police car and taken home to face the wrath of my parents. They spent a hefty amount replacing all of those windows.”

  “Well, did you tell them Rylin was with you?”

  “Yes. It didn’t matter. He was Sean McDowell’s son. And no one outs Sean McDowell’s son.” Kane sighs heavy, and his wings sag with the motion. “Needless to say, that ended my trust in Rylin pretty quickly. And our friendship.”

  It was a crappy thing to do; I’d never deny it. But still, that was a long time ago. They were kids, and kids do stupid things. Kane can’t be so angry over rocks.

  “He was so smug,” Kane continues. His voice changes, full of bitterness. And… it’s not about the rocks, obviously. “Prancing around the school like he’d won the Nobel Peace Prize or something. And that whole thing with you—” He breaks off, piercing me before looking away. “Sorry. I know we’ve already hashed that out. I’ll shut up now.”

  “It’s okay.” I clasp my hands. “I get it. And I didn’t realize how deep this grudge went. You should have told me.”

  “It wasn’t for you to know.” He pulls back his shoulders and stands, spreading his wings enough to hide the bed behind their massive span. “It’s my past and my resentment, and I know what you’d say. We were just kids. He didn’t know better. His father made him do it. And all of that could be true. It doesn’t change the fac
t that I took the full brunt of the punishment, including eighty hours of community service. At age nine. Like some criminal.” He digs a toe into the golden carpet. “He got off scot-free. And he’s never apologized.”

  I start to reach for him but pull back, regretting that I blamed him for the present tension. I was wrong, and it must have stung pretty deeply when I said it to him. But in Kane-fashion, he didn’t try to defend. He just let it roll off.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”

  “You don’t need to be sorry.” His fingers find my hand. “You see him from a different perspective. Rylin wishes I would fall off the face of the earth, but he cares about you. He always has. He won’t do anything to put you in harm’s way. Not intentionally. I can recognize this. I’m not going to hold you to my feelings anymore. It’s not fair.”

  I absorb his warmth, study how our illuminated fingers mesh. A reminder that we’re in this together.

  “So… you really think he’s betrayed us?”

  He has to think about that one a second, and I’m glad. It means he hasn’t fully given up on Rylin yet.

  “When I said that,” Kane explains. “I meant the McDowells, collectively. As a whole. You know?”

  “Mm-huh,” I smile. “That’s what I thought.”

  “It’s hard not to see it that way.”

  “Here’s the thing.” I stand, threading my arms around his waist. “I saw Rylin before he left, and he promised he’d be back. It looks like Mr. McDowell made darn sure that wasn’t going to happen, and I don’t think Rylin knew this. If he did, he wouldn’t have said anything at all about coming back. Not to me.”

  “Still, he’s gone. So I guess we’re on our own.”

  I heave a sigh. “I guess so.”

  My heart kind of hurts at the finality of the statement. And I get what Kane meant. It doesn’t matter if Mr. McDowell is behind Rylin’s failure to return; it feels like a betrayal all the same. Because I want Rylin to do the right thing, and in my mind that means getting his butt back here. That means telling us what in the hell happened at the hearing. It means helping us decide the next move. And if he knew his dad’s plan and didn’t tell me? I scan the room, irritated that he didn’t have the decency to leave behind some sort of clue.