Peppermint

Chapter 6 - Too Much Time On My Hands

***ALEX***

It's nearly impossible to get too close to the Scoville truck's wreckage, because the smoke rises thick and fast and radiates waves of heat. Not too much trouble for AK, who can manipulate the flames away from the building and the cars even at a bit of a distance, but being a more ice-oriented water elemental, I'm struggling.

So is AK too, though. Only a couple of times pulling away flames and he's already having trouble breathing, so he grabs an inhaler from his pocket and takes a puff. I guess being a fire elemental doesn't prevent him from being asthmatic - how's that for ironic?

When he's done filling his lungs with misty meds, he turns to me and points to the column of concrete around which the truck's wrapped itself. "Think you can reinforce that with ice, maybe?" he asks. "It's gonna go down soon!"

I take a cursory look. "I'm not that good at ice...and how'd you know that's my elemental?"

He taps his forehead with his index finger. "I heard it. And I also heard you talking about ice being more your thing than plain old water." He tries pulling more fire away from the wreckage, and almost gets rid of it all, only for another car's engine to explode. "Dude, I'm no structural engineer, but even I can see if this column goes, the whole building's in danger. All those morning moviegoers..."

I shake my head, not at him, but at whoever designed this building with the parking garage covering the first three floors. Bad enough that they had to do it that way in earthquake country, but now there's a whole new danger threatening a building with some of the most ridiculously top-heavy construction I've ever seen.

While AK goes in closer so he can access the latest fire that needs to be removed, I fly back just enough to start lining the damaged column with ice. Heavy layers of the stuff, too. It's not really cold enough for it to last, I don't think, but if I layer it with enough below-zero ice (below-zero Fahrenheit, I mean), it should hold for a while. At least, until the professional firefighters come in. I don't know how long they'll take to arrive, but the police are first on scene - which is no surprise because the San Castiel PD is literally around the corner from this place.

And of course one of the very first things the cops do when the first cruisers squeal up behind me and AK is to yell at us, "Get out of here, kids!"

"Technically, I'm not a kid," says AK as he redirects more flames out of the parking garage. That's that exploding engine put out.

"What the...no, no, you shouldn't be here!" The nearest cop spreads his ebony-colored wings and actually grabs me to pull me away, while his partner flies in and takes AK away himself. "You all right, son?" he asks me.

I wince hard at the sound of him calling me "son." Sure, he looks nothing like Elijah - he's black, for one thing - but I can't help but associate that word with him.

I get control of myself very quickly, though. "I'm fine. I'm fine." I look up at the concern in his eyes, then down at the nametag on his chest - "Sanchez," it says.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Sanchez asks me.

"I...I wasn't." I lower my head so he can't see me blushing. "I just got here, and then all this happened..." I gesture vaguely at the wrecked truck, then look up to see AK taking another hit off his inhaler. I hope he's not using it up too quickly - and I wouldn't be surprised if he were, because while he got rid of the fire for the most part, the smoke still lingers heavily.

"Ugh, speaking of smoke..." AK reaches up to his eye, but his hand stops just short of touching it. "Is it possible to get smoke damage to contacts?"

I blink in surprise - and a bit of pain from imagining what he must be experiencing at the moment. "You wear contacts?"

"Yeah. It's always been one of the quickest ways to tell me and TJ apart - he never wanted contacts himself. He has sensitive eyes."