Софи Джордан - Firelight

Tamra is waiting at the car. Red splotches mottle her creamy complexion, and I know it’s not because we’ve left her waiting in the sun. She’s been crying. Her red shorts and white T-shirt explain everything. Tryouts were this afternoon. In all the excitement, I almost forgot that today was her big day.

She wastes no time. “How could you?” Her face burns bright. “It didn’t matter what I did. I could have been a gold medalist gymnast and they wouldn’t have voted me in! Not after you attacked them!”

Air hisses from my lips in a pained breath. Little does she know I was trying to defend her. Nor does she realize just how evil those girls are. One look at her face though and I know she’s not in the mood to listen to any of that. “I’m sorry, Tamra, but—”

“Sorry?” She shakes her head, the motion bleak. “No matter where we go, it will always be this way.” She waves her arms, groping for words. “Why does everything have to be about you?”

I stare at her. Into eyes like mine, and wish I could answer. Wish I could deny the accusation, but I can’t.

Mom’s voice lashes us both. “This isn’t the place. Get in the car. Now.” She darts a nervous look around. We’re not unnoticed. A few people linger in the parking lot.

I slide into the back. I’m already buckled in when Mom slams her door.

“We don’t need you two going at it in public.” She looks over her shoulder, keys in hand.

“I already talked with the principal. Now do you want to explain what really happened?”

I bite my lip, release it with a gust of breath. There’s no good way to say it. “I got jumped in the bathroom.” I shrug like that’s an everyday occurrence. “So I manifested.”

My sister groans.

Mom’s shoulders slump. Turning, she starts the car. Warm air pants from the vents.

“How bad?”

Because manifesting can only ever be bad. And I guess, this time, it was.

“I hid in the bathroom stall. They didn’t see. Or didn’t know what they saw. But I burned one of them. To get free.” I wince. “Maybe more than one of them.”

My sister is furious, shaking in her seat. “This is terrific.”

“Tamra,” Mom says, sighing deeply. Her nostrils flare in and out. “None of this has been easy for Jacinda. She’s held up better than we could have hoped.”

I start a little, wondering if she means that. I haven’t felt like I’m “holding up.” I feel like I’m barely hanging on.

Mom puts the car in drive and rolls out of the parking lot. “A week at home might be just what you need.”

“A week at home?” Tamra twists around to glare at me. “You were suspended?”

Mom continues, “Maybe I rushed you, Jacinda. Shouldn’t have stuck you in school right away. All of this…has been a lot.”

“I wanted to go to school,” Tamra’s voice rings out.

“I shouldn’t have expected you to change overnight. We’re almost through May. If you can just make it until summer, I’m sure by the time school starts again in the fall—”

“Can anyone hear me?” Tamra exclaims. “I lost something I really wanted today!” She beats a fist against her thigh.

Mom looks at her, startled.

Tamra shakes her head side to side, as if she just can’t understand. “Why is it always about Jacinda?”

Mom’s voice soothes. “Give it time, Tamra. Soon all this will be over—”

“You mean I’ll be dead,” I insert accusingly. “Why don’t you say what you mean? You mean that my draki will soon be dead. Can’t you ever stop? Quit acting like killing a part of me…killing me is this inevitable thing that you’re happy about. Why can’t you just accept me for me?”

Mom’s lips press into a thin line. She stares at the road.

Tamra drops her head against the back of her seat with a disgusted grunt.

And I realize both of them will never do that. They’re the only family I have left, but they may as well be strangers for how disconnected I feel from them.

I’ve lost Will. Exposed my draki. Alienated my family. Even my pride wants to break me.

I have nowhere to go, no escape.

But I can’t stay here.

My sister has a date that night. The same night Will was supposed to take me out for our official first date. The irony isn’t lost on me. Dinner. Movies. Popcorn. She’ll have that.

Not me. I don’t expect Will to come now. Not after today. And yet when I hear the knock at the front door my heart skips and butterflies dance with hope in my belly.

I recognize her date from school as he stands nervously in our small living room, rubbing sweaty palms on his jeans. His name is Ben. Cute with nice eyes. Blond. Not quite as tall as Tamra and I are.

I try not to think about Will and what I’m going to do now that he knows. I can’t expect him to pretend he didn’t see me the way he did. Any moment he and his family could storm through the door and snatch me up. It’s the memory of the first time we met that keeps me going, that gives me hope. He let me go then. Certainly knowing me as he does now, he couldn’t bear to see me hurt, couldn’t turn me over to his family. Right? A family he wants no part of. That he hates.

Still, it’s a huge leap of faith. I should come clean with Mom so we can leave Chaparral, but I just can’t make myself say the words. Words that will take me forever away from him. Not that I have any hold on him. Especially now. Stupid, Jacinda. I can’t just do nothing. Can’t risk my family this way…can’t count on the fact that Will won’t become the hunter he was bred to be and expose me to his family.

As I watch Tamra and Ben from the window, I sit in silence, saying nothing.

I feel terrible. Not because Tamra’s on a date and I’m not, but because I didn’t know she’d even been asked out. I didn’t know she liked anyone. I can’t say anything to ruin this for her. At least not tonight. Maybe tomorrow…

She’s right. It’s always about me. That realization leads to another. One that makes tears spring to my eyes.

Soon it will only ever be about me.

When I leave this place, I have to go alone. Be alone. Maybe forever.

I’m awake when Tamra leaves for school on Monday morning, but I don’t get up. I pretend to be asleep as she dresses. When she and Mom are gone, I rise and make a cheese omelet like Dad used to make and eat it in front of a morning talk show with dull awareness.

In the afternoon, I’ve had enough of the tomblike stillness of the house. Enough worrying over what Will will or won’t do. I take a walk. Within five minutes, I’m plucking at my tank clinging to my sweating body. When I reach the golf course, I pause to feast my eyes on the verdant expanse so out of place in the midst of dry, cracked earth. I park myself on the edge of the green and run my fingers through the grass until I earn curious stares from silver-haired retirees in bad pants. Vowing to try another flight this week, I head for home, plotting my next move—breaking into Will’s house and getting another look at that map.

When I arrive, Mrs. Hennessey is outside watering her plants. “So you’re the one.”

I stop. “Excuse me?”

“Your mother told me one of you got suspended from school.”

Great. I’ve fulfilled her every suspicion that she let a family of miscreants rent her pool house.

“I guessed it was you,” she adds with a certain amount of relish.

Nice, I think, slinking toward the pool house.

“I made goulash,” she calls out.

I pause. “What’s that?”

“Beef, onions, paprika. Little sour cream on top.” She shrugs. “In case you’re hungry. I made plenty. Never did get used to cooking for one.”

I stare at her for a moment, reevaluating my opinion of her. Maybe she’s not nosy so much as lonely. Especially stuck all day and night alone in a quiet house. Lonely, I get.