Flames At Midnight

07 | quentin miller

"I'm afraid of how he'll take it. You've seen him freak out over things that don't even compare to this," I admitted.

"You're his best friend." She didn't sound concerned. "You don't need to worry about how he'll take it. He might not know how to handle it at first, but come on, it's Porter for crying out loud. He's going to be behind you one hundred percent."

"You took to it pretty well."

"I'm a girl of endless talents," she said simply. She poked at something dark and lumpy on her lunch tray. "What the hell is this?"

"I think it's mystery meat," I said. "The real mystery is whether or not you'll die from eating it."

She snorted and then picked up some of the brown slop on her fork. "Well, here goes nothing."

It had been a little over a week since the day Kya and Dillon appeared.

We've been continuing our search for Ava Sutherland, hoping that Fiona will call back, and trying to better understand our abilities. My visions were a little longer, a little clearer. They were no longer spurts of images, glimpses of this and that. I could see short scenes now, but they still weren't very specific.

Sometimes, I could even smell and hear things, like the fire earlier.

The progress wasn't anything significant, but hey, it's only been a week. And when you're just sitting there, waiting to be hit with a vision, there's really only so much you can do. Meditation didn't help. I ended up falling asleep, and seeing images, but I'm sure those were just regular dreams.

The bell signaled the end of lunch.

We dropped our trays into a nearby trash can and split up since our next classes were in different directions. Grace whirled around, walking backwards while flashing me two encouraging thumbs up. I had gym with Porter at the end of the day.

Only two more classes until then.

* * *

The sky overhead was grey, but it didn't look like it would rain.

I hated PE during the cold months of the year. There was nothing worse than to change out of my warm clothes and into a cold, stiff gym uniform.

The class filed towards the track, a matching herd of maroon athletic shorts and grey shirts. The shorts flapped around my thighs every time a gust of wind blew past. Following the teacher's whistle, we all started with a warm up jog.

The athletes naturally shot to the front of the group. They ran quickly and effortlessly.

Max Olson was easy to spot, even from where I was in the back. He was running next to Noah and Harvey, who were on the basketball team. He looked really short next to the two of them.

Porter was huffing violently beside me. His curly hair bounced up and down as he jogged.

"We can slow down," I said, feeling a stitch already forming in my side.

"Any slower," he said, between breaths, "and we'd be walking."

We had fallen behind the entire class. There was no one around to overhear us. That was, until we got lapped by the faster kids in the class.

"I have something to tell you."

His breathing was labored. "Does it require me responding?"

"You don't have to respond, but I think you probably will."

He looked over at me, waiting. His face was red and beads of sweat dotted his forehead.

I was surprised I felt so anxious. It was just Porter, who I've been friends with for as long as I could remember. How had Grace been so calm breaking it to Fiona Hartley? That girl wasn't entirely human.