It was dark when we were driving back to Westingbrook, returning to normalcy even though I would never be the same as when I had left. I was beyond the galaxy of happiness, beyond all the diamond stars winking down from their celestial homes, beyond simply joy—bliss—beatitude—ebullience—elation—euphoria—ecstasy—a rhapsody from King Jupiter, capturing me in a rapture on Earth. I was beyond all of this because I had finally figured out a problem that wasn't really a problem at all, but a monumental painting hanging on the wall that I could've seen at any time if I had only turned and looked.
I had only caught the briefest glimpse, but the fleeting vision was enough to last me for a lifetime. My whole body ached and longed for rest after a day of trekking through the mountains, but my spirit felt so full, like it could go on forever.
A yawn and a smile fought for control of my face, and I ended up laughing at my own bone-wearied giddiness. Leaning back against the headrest of a dark gray EV, I tilted my head to the window and observed the neighborhood streets we passed. My house was on the next street, just one block away.
I rolled down the windows, and a gush of chilly, crisp night air whooshed in——
——along with the acrid tang of smoke.
I sat up. Something was burning.
I peered in front, and clammy horror gripped my chest when I saw a plume of coal dust, darker than the midnight and blotting out the moon and stars, spouting up to the sky in the direction of my house.
"Ari..." Xanexa sounded unsteady. "Is that..."
We drew closer, my heart plummeting further with every foot of distance gained. I might have pretended before that one of the neighbors had carelessly left the stove on or a candle burning after they had gone to sleep, but now, from one hundred yards away at the street corner, the truth was unmistakable.
My house was engulfed in fire. Blinding white heat danced inside flickering scarlet tongues. Shapeless forms licked the eaves. The faceless beast roared and crackled as it consumed the siding, roof, doors, and everything in it. Heavy smoke, sulfurous and choking, enveloped the space around the house and assaulted my nose.
Xe cut the engine. I gaped in stupefied dread.
How? How?
Why was my house burning?
The sting from the smoke pricked my eyes as I continued looking at the red, orange, and white conflagration bellowing and burping with gluttonous hunger, sparks and shards of fire flying erratically.
I unbuckled my seatbelt and moved to push open the door.
"Where are you going?" xe asked me.
"Grandma's inside," I croaked, keeping back tears. "She's probably asleep."
I stepped outside and held onto the hood for support. I couldn't move. Chill wrapped around the cold sweat breaking out on the back of my neck, and furnace-like heat fanned my face from the front, where the inexorable fire burned with malicious glee.
How could this happen? Was she okay? Where would we live? What would happen to me?
The roar of the fire drowned out any other voices I had inside. I watched everything burn while I tried not to cry.
"Stay here," xe ordered me in a low and serious tone. "Call 911, but I don't think they'll get here in time."
A cooling heat squeezed my forearm. I looked into xyr usually clear blue eyes, now spiked with icy spires of worry. Xe dropped xyr hand from my arm and began to jog away.
"What are you doing?" I yelled after xyr, panicked.
Xe turned for a split second and repeated, "Stay there."
I watched with mounting hideous misery as xe ran up to the burning house, knocked out a window, and leapt into the flames.
Hands shaking and breaths coming in ragged snatches, I dug out my phone and dialed the three worst digits in the world. While I waited for the call to connect, something fanned the air above me, and I looked up. A drone buzzed away.
The call connected with a click.
"Hello?"
~ ~ ~
Inside a spacious room, door locked, and curtains drawn, a 32" flatscreen T.V. hung on the wall across from a leather sofa and a large, four-poster bed. Next to the T.V. was an executive desk and leather swivel chair, the material matching that of the plump sofa.
One young man sat in the executive chair. He took a sip of water. By his elbow, his girlfriend stood in black knee-high boots, fitted white pants, and a black riding suit with white kid skin gloves. He fiddled with some controls to zoom in the view that was currently displayed on the monitor. They watched a girl punch numbers into an old phone.
"I can't believe she got away again!" Zirconia wailed.
"This was your plan," Killian grumbled, holding down an arrow key to direct the drone away from the disappointing scene.
"Who knew she was going to run off with that freak?" she huffed. "We almost got her."
"Did we end up getting anyone?" he asked her angrily. "Anyone?"
"Are you blaming me for all this?" she raised her voice. "I was only helping both of us the whole time!"
"Helping?" He stood up, shoving the swivel chair back roughly. "Do you call this helping?" He flung a hand at the computer screen.
"You know this is for the best. And you were the one who messed up first, in my house, of all places."
"Do you know what'll happen if anyone finds out about all of this? This is an even bigger mess."
"No one's going to find out...unless someone tells. Is that what you're going to do, Killian? Is that what you're going to do after all we've been through?"
"Who said I was going to say anything?" he snarled. "You're the one who's always pointing fingers!"
"At least I'm not the one who's always seeing ghosts," she threw the words at him. "If you see them so often, maybe you should go join them!"
"Nothing has gone right," he paced the room with his hands clasped behind his head and blew out a stream of hot air. "Nothing—all year. This was supposed to be the time of our lives, the last hurrah. And what have we been doing? Running after a bunch of freshmen."
"Freshmen scum," she scoffed.
"For what? Zirconia, for what?" he asked with extreme fatigue.
"For our way of life," she replied, walking up to him, and pulling him to a stop.
"We'll both leave soon for college. None of this will matter."
"No, this does matter. This does matter because the mess you leave behind follows you like a shadow—follows you until the statute of limitations is up at least. That's why this is necessary—to protect ourselves from that shadow."
"How can you think about the statute of limitations at a time like this? Is there even a statute of limitations for us? For murder? For arson?"
"That isn't a problem we'll need to worry about," she said with thin, drawn lips. "This will never go to court. This ends here."
"This ends here?" He staggered forward and clutched the back edge of the sofa for balance. The room whirled. He felt cold. The colors were unreal, too bright, but it was night. Why was everything so bright all of a sudden? Why was it tough to breathe? It was impossible that guilt alone felt like this. Impossible. Wait, where was she going?
Zirconia sauntered to the window and cracked open the curtains. She fumbled with the lock and pushed open the windowsill.
"Two can keep a secret," she laughed quietly, "if one of them is dead."
He gasped for air. "If one——"
He saw stars. His knees buckled. His arms lost all strength and folded. Without the support, his body could no longer hold itself up, and he crumpled to the floor. He clawed at his throat. Something was blocking his windpipes.
No air.
No air——
"This will never go to court because the perpetrator will be found to have unfortunately died of an overdose, and no one else knew about our secret meeting," Zirconia sneered.
"Sayonara, Killian," she said, one leg extended out of the open window. "Rest in peace knowing that I did truly love you these past four years. I'll see you in hell after I've lived a long, full, and blessed life."
He writhed on the floor. Convulsions overtook him. He couldn't see. He couldn't breathe. The poison spread through his veins, the poison that brought a last, single flush of ecstasy.
When he was still, the window was empty. The curtains fluttered in the cold breeze, and the stars blinked, but they did not weep.
~ ~ ~
Lights and monitors flashed in the tightly packed control room. Dots showing the real-time locations of many aircraft crisscrossed the numerous screens in neon arcs. Other screens played footage from around the region. A young soldier sat back in his chair and stretched. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Then, one of the monitors beeped. The AI had picked up some unusual activity. He wheeled his chair over, too lazy to get up at this time of night.
Have to check it out whenever the computer flags something. Ninety-nine percent of the time, though, it was a false alarm because—despite all the boasts the software company had delivered with their glossy pitch deck, and despite the billions of dollars the old top-dog geezers with heavily decorated uniforms and fringed epaulettes had shelled out—the computer had the intelligence of a worm. Even his one-year-old kid at home was smarter than this block of gibberish code built on some fancy-schmancy innovative algorithm. It wasn't that innovative at all—the MBA consultants had been pitching the same idea for decades—the idea of replacing people with machines because they never got tired, never complained.
That's why now, he was all alone in this boring little room, and his mates had been packed off to somewhere else. Maybe to——
Good Lord, that was a hornet's nest he didn't want to touch. Anyway, he had to check what the computer was beeping about this time.
He rolled up to the monitor and gawked in astonishment. This was what they were looking for. The computer was right. Amazingly, this was part of the one percent of the time it was right. They had found it.
He hurried out of the room to alert his superior. After a crackle, the sleepy voice of the commander came through the secure landline.
"Yes?" the commander asked.
"Sir, we have detected it. Wireless intercept footage from a commercial-grade drone," he replied.
"Hmm... Detected it?" the commander drawled.
"Yes, sir. An entity jumping into a burning house, sir," he clarified.
There was silence on the other end. Then, he heard clothes rustling and feet shuffling.
"Good work, colonel," the commander congratulated him. "Mobilize a small force there—discreet, do you understand? We'll be operating in a city."
"Yes, sir."
"Use the new ammo. Maim, but do not kill. We need it alive, and we cannot risk another runaway like last time," the commander said, pulling open a Velcro bag.
"Yes, sir."
"This is our chance, colonel," the commander said impressively. "I'll be there soon to help arrange things."
"Yes, sir." Then, after a pause, he added, "Sir, there is a civilian."
"A civilian? What the h—— is a civilian doing with the subject?"
"Unclear, sir."
"We might have to neutralize the civilian, too. Godd—— it, nothing in this world is easy. Anyone of importance?"
"No, sir. Checked by facial recognition software against our database."
"Shoot to kill, but conserve ammunition. We don't have many."
"Yes, sir. I will notify the forces."
"Good. See you soon, colonel."
The line clicked off, and he hung up the phone.
~ ~ ~
A lone figure dashed through the rapacious flames. Rafters cracked. Beams fell. Smoke filled the house. Wallpaper curled. Curtains turned to ashes. Fire licked xyr skin, but it didn't burn; it didn't hurt. It was a dry kiss, and it didn't bother xyr. A haze of red and orange blocked off every entrance and exit.
Where was she?
The dining table creaked. The T.V. set groaned. Metal glowed in the intense heat. Scorch marks carpeted the floor.
Xe smelled gasoline. This wasn't a natural fire. This had been created on purpose.
But there was no time to worry about the past. Xe had to find her and get her out before the house collapsed or she asphyxiated. If either of those two things happened, xe wouldn't be able to do much.
Xe tried one door, flinging it open by its red-hot metal knob. The metal hissed when it met dry ice and dulled to sooty brown. Xe pulled xyr hand way, palm reddened but unburned. The room was empty. Fire had started spreading along the walls and at the foot of the guest bed.
Xe hurried down the short hallway. Dark smoke clogged the air overhead. It roiled and writhed as the fire in the front rooms grew larger and more violent. Xe looked at the door to xyr right. It was closed, but xe didn't try to open it. Ari should be outside, staying put by the car, and not in there. Xe turned to the last door on the left and pushed it open.
Smoke had filtered into the room, and it was stifling hot. Fire pawed at the doorway and the near walls. A body lay unmoving in bed.
Xe ran over and scooped up the aged lady in her printed nightgown. She lay limp in xyr arms, eyes shut and mouth lolling open. She wheezed without knowing it. Soot and dust covered her skin.
Without looking back, xe pulled open the window and jumped outside with the alive but unconscious woman. Behind xyr, wood creaked and collapsed onto the fire-infested floor.
~ ~ ~
I was standing in the driveway of the house that steadily crumbled away, shivering with frozen horror despite the raw heat emanating from the furious flames. Xe burst out of the far window, carrying a body, both covered with a layer of soot but otherwise unburned.
"I thought I told you to stay back," xe said with a growl. "It isn't safe for you here."
I saw Grandma, flopping like a rag doll as xe gently deposited her onto the hard concrete. Her small body seemed so fragile—and so weak.
"Grandma!" I yelled, shaking her arms, but she didn't wake. "Grandma!" I tried again, the tears that I had kept behind an ironclad dam finally breaking through.
"She'll be okay," xe told me. Then, voice stiffening with hate, xe said, "It was arson."
Salty water flooded by eyes, my face, my mouth. I cried and screamed at the injustice of it all. Why? Why would someone want to burn down my house and take her with it? What had she ever done to anybody? Taken me in when I no longer had a place to call home. So why? Why would someone want to send the place down in flames? Or had they been after me this entire time?
A rain of tears splattered the ashes from her face. I rubbed the streaked rivulets away, sobbing. It rained and rained at the foot of the flames. All the strength had left my body. I was bent over, face in my hands and knees pressing into concrete. I ignored the pressure coming from the ground and let go of a single heaven-splitting shriek of grief. I wished that the sky could've fallen down with all its darkness and burning stars to torch the whole Earth and then cover it under a velvet blanket of eternal sleep.
A hand rocked my shoulder. "Ari," xe said, "she'll be okay. I can wait with you until help arrives."
I was shaking uncontrollably, pain continuing to pour out of me. I don't know how many minutes passed that way, until——
——suddenly, I felt xyr hand on my shoulder tense. "S——" xe muttered under xyr breath.
I turned with hiccups and watery eyes.
Xe started pulling me up to my feet with urgency. "Ari, we need to leave," xe said quickly.
I wobbled upon standing, head pounding with dizziness and lungs gasping for fresh air. I hadn't collected myself before xe began to drag me away from the house and back towards the street corner where the car was parked.
"Can you run?" xe asked. "We need to run."
I tried to process what was happening, but the roar of the fire in my mind deafened my ears. Xe tugged imperiously on my wrist. My feet tripped after xyr without my comprehending how or what I was doing. I had separated from my body. My mind was still hovering over the flames.
Then, a bullet struck the pavement inches from my heels, sending up a shower of sparks. My heart dropped.
"Run!" xe hissed.
And I gunned my legs, tired as they were, and tired as my heart was, to fly away beneath me.