Sherry Ficklin: Extracted

“Nice costume,” she mutters, not looking at me.

So much for being stealthy.

“Thanks,” I say.

“I hope it’s not a rental.”

Before I can react, she’s spinning. The heel of her boot connects with my lower back and sends me sprawling to the earth. She’s on top of me in a heartbeat, pressing my face to the ground.

She leans forward and whispers, “Tesla is here, did you know that? Not your Tesla, of course, but the Tesla from this time. He’s fifty yards away, giving a demonstration of his brilliant little coils. It would be so easy for me. The flip of a switch, a misplaced bucket of water. I could end this whole thing right now.”

I can hear the smile in her voice as she grinds my face in the dirt. “Oh. But don’t worry. I won’t. Not this time. That’s not what we’re here for.”

She is quick to her feet. Lifting me up by my hair, she hurls me forward, into the theater. We surge through the doors to a chorus of shushing. But as soon as the people turn to see the commotion, they are fixated on her. It’s not just the strange wardrobe that has people spellbound. She is radiating power and deadly beauty. It’s almost hypnotic. Even I can feel it.

I am so out of my league.

Standing in the aisle, I spit out the blood pooling in my mouth. I look at our audience and wipe my mouth on my sleeve, earning me a look of disgust from the people who are staring.

The crowd lets out a gasp.

“You mean you can’t kill Tesla,” I counter, my voice barely more than a whisper. “You can’t because you’d risk unraveling your own timeline.” I crouch down. She kicks me and I manage to block the blow, but the momentum sends me back to the ground with a sharp pain in my forearm.

“Sometimes, I think it might be worth it,” she says, her voice dripping with bitterness as she makes her way over to me. People are standing now, demanding she stop. The women are ushering the children to the opposite exit. One man puts a hand on her shoulder, but she grabs his arm, twisting it behind his back with a loud snap before tossing him aside. “So, are we going to do this the hard way or—who am I kidding? There’s really just the hard way.”

I leap forward, catching her off guard with a punch to the face. A satisfying crunch tells me I’ve broken her nose. She stumbles backward but doesn’t fall. The back few rows of people are abandoning their seats and running for the exits.

She smiles, and the blood runs down her lip into her mouth, turning her teeth pink. Then she lunges. This time I’m better prepared for it and manage to duck the blow while coming up and landing a blow of my own to her ribs. She gasps but spins again and kicks out at me. I roll backward and spring to my feet.

“You’ve got some moves, I’ll give you that, Tesla Girl,” she says, readjusting her hat.

“How is that thing still on your head?” I blurt out, gasping for breath.

She lifts the hat off her head and brings it to her chest with a sarcastic bow before stuffing it back on.

Okay. That’s kind of impressive, I admit to myself.

Nearly everyone is staring at us now. Some are wondering aloud if it’s part of the show, while others are threatening to get the police.

She grabs an oil lamp from the wall and hurls it at me. I duck, and it hits the wall behind me in an explosion of light that catches the rug and the bottom of the white screen. The crowd that had been watching us runs wildly out of the theater.

Turning to look at the flames is my mistake, but I can’t help it—the urge to look is impossible to resist. As soon as the flames register in my brain, my legs turn to mush. The Hollows girl is on me again before I can move, her fist meeting my jaw with the force of a freight train.

I fall to my hands and knees. I grasp her ankle and pull. She falls onto her backside. I roll on top of her and draw back to punch, but before I can, she wraps her leg around my neck and pulls me off her. She twists, and lightning pain shoots up my neck.

For a few breaths, I can’t move. Slowly, the feeling returns to my fingertips. When I can sit up, she’s gone, and the room around me is full of rolling smoke. I cough and my chest constricts, refusing to take in air.

I can see the door and the daylight beyond even through the dense, black clouds. I want to run. Every nerve in my body is an electric current, driving me out of the path of the flames. My insides are screaming. Behind me, the screen falls in ragged sheets, sending embers and smoke into the air.

Then, I hear the scream.

I follow the sound, pressing myself as close to the ground as I can manage. In the far corner, a boy is curled into a ball with tears rolling down his cheeks.

Beside me, a piece of ceiling falls, fraying my nerves. I can’t breathe. Can’t move. The fear is paralyzing, spreading, and it clogs my veins like concrete. My body and mind are at war. Suddenly, I’m back in my nightmare. I’m in a bedroom, but not mine. There’s someone there with me—a boy whose face I can’t quite see. He’s yelling something. I’m trying to run to him, but my legs are weak. It feels like running through quicksand. I scream and cry and pound the ground with my fists, but it’s no use.

“Help, please!”

I open my eyes, and I’m back in the theater. The little boy is right in front of me. I can hear and see him. I scream against the fear, and it shatters like glass. I can move again. Relief floods me, driving me forward. I’m not going to die here, my mind tells me. As I crawl toward the boy, another voice echoes in my head.

“Ember. Leave the boy,” Tesla demands.

I shake my head and cough. “I can’t.”

“Ember. Leave the boy. That’s an order.”

I’m still coughing, my body doubled over in convulsions. I don’t have much time before the smoke and flames eat me alive, but I know I can’t leave him. My body is moving on its own now.

“I can save him! I can save him this time!” This time. I’ve had this dream before with another boy. In my dreams he dies—or maybe we both die in the end—but they never seem to get that far. I know the outcome, though, even if I’ve never made it that far in the dream. This isn’t a dream—this is real. And today, here, now, I can save us both.

Tesla’s voice echoes again, louder now. “That is an order. Leave the boy, and get to your team now. They are engaged at the wharf.”

The order makes me pause. I’m so used to following every order Tesla gives me that it’s as natural as breathing. But this feels wrong. “I can’t,” I whisper hoarsely.

“It’s not your job to interfere with this. Get to your team now. Leave the boy.”

I can’t pry my eyes off the boy. He can’t be a day over eight years old, I decide as he reaches up, clutching the collar of his shirt, and begins to chew on the lapel.

The gesture is familiar. Not the same exactly, but something in the back of my mind makes enough of a connection that my hesitation snaps like an overstretched rubber band.

“I’m going to be in so much trouble for this,” I say to myself as I lunge for the boy, wrap my arms around him, and press his face into my neck.

“Can you climb onto my back?” I ask. He nods limply. I wrap his arms around my neck and crawl for the door.

It feels like hours before a dozen pairs of hands grab us, some pulling the boy away from me, some dragging me forward. The hem of my dress is on fire. Someone stomps on it. I hear a loud, piercing whistle. The fire department.

Looking over, I see the boy clinging to his mother’s skirt as she holds him, tears of relief running down both their faces. My eyes lock onto his. The look he gives me isn’t one of relief or thanks. It’s fear. As if, somewhere in his small mind, he knows I’m different. Not right. I look away because it’s true. Even among freaks, I’m a freak.