The Burning

Chapter 2

Chapter 2Following the van’s built-in GPS, Hollis navigated effortlessly through the city to pull into an unmarked basement parking garage. I had caught a quick glimpse of the building before we entered, a nondescript affair of dingy cement and blacked out windows. I’d been to Boston many times before, but I had never been here. Following Storrow Drive to River Street, I’d almost grown excited as I realized we were heading towards Cambridge, one of my favorite places in Boston. But instead, we’d turned onto a small street marked Blackstone and entered an aging industrial park. Idly, I wondered who owned the building we were now under. Fae? Starseeds? I decided I didn’t really care. I would find out soon enough.

Hollis got out of the van without a word, opening the back doors and hefting an unconscious Elaine over his shoulder. I shook David awake, my heart wrenching when a look of terror washed over his face.

“It’s okay,” I said, soothing him. “You’re safe now, remember?”

Slowly, his eyes focused on mine and he nodded, exhaustion replacing the fear.

“Come on, we’re here.” I prayed he wouldn’t ask where here was, since I had no answers. I needn’t have worried. He didn’t say a word as he climbed out of the van, except to mumble thanks when he stumbled and Gawen caught him.

None of us looked happy as we followed Hollis towards the elevator in the corner. Despite having found David, we were a team defeated. Jules and Reenah walked at my side, but I couldn’t meet their eyes.

What had I done?

The question rocked through me again, stealing my breath. I closed my eyes, mentally willing myself to keep it together.

Jules reached down to hold my hand and I smiled weakly at a point somewhere over her right shoulder. Tears gathered in my eyes, and I looked away.

“Whatever happened, we’ll make it right,” she said in a low voice.

I bit my lip, not trusting myself to speak. The elevator dinged and we all got on the elevator. I noticed I wasn’t the only one avoiding people’s eyes. Hollis looked like he might explode at any minute, his finger punching the button for the third floor so fiercely I thought the scuffed plastic might crack.

No one said a word.

Time moved slowly, the ride upstairs lasting an eternity. When the doors opened, I released my breath. I hadn’t even realized I had been holding it. If only I could have exhaled all my feelings, too.

A wide hallway stretched before us, lush red carpets, brocade-covered walls and warm copper lanterns gracing the décor. It wasn’t what I would have expected. On the outside, the building had looked cold. Utilitarian. This felt more like a posh centuries-old hotel or the Harvard Club. The effect was disconcerting, making me feel like I’d teleported to another place in time. Butterflies took wing in my stomach, wings of anxiety flitting through my torso.

The hall split off to the left and right, but a large set of doors stood open across from us. A small plaque by the left door read “Conference Room 3A.” Hollis strode confidently forward into the room, leaving the rest of us little choice but to follow.

Inside, a motley crew greeted us. Three adults I’d never met before. Two I had.

One of the strangers rushed forward towards David, helping Gawen lead him to a seat, while Hollis dropped Elaine onto a chair. My parents sprang forward, enveloping me in one, big, group hug.

After a moment, when it became obvious I wasn’t hugging them back, they released me.

That’s when the shouting began.

“By the Ancients, Ana, what were you thinking?” my dad began. I hadn’t seen him scowl like that in years, not since I had fallen out of a tree when I was ten. He gripped my arms. “You could have been killed!”

“Or worse,” my mom said. Her pale skin flushed, and her eyes had gone cold. “I can’t believe- I never thought-” She was so angry she couldn’t finish her sentences. I’d never seen her at a loss for words, and that should have scared me more than anything. “I always imagined if I had to worry about anyone, it was Hollis. Or even your father. But you. You’ve always been so level-headed.” She slammed a fist on the large wooden table next to us and screamed. “Don’t you ever, ever do anything like that again, do you hear me?” She started shaking, and her eyes became liquid. My father turned and enveloped her in his arms as she started to cry. “She could have been killed, Alec. Dammit, we could have lost her!”

“I know, Siri, I know.” My father soothed her, his own voice breaking as he stroked her hair. “It’s okay now. She’s here, she’s okay.” Our eyes met over her head, and I knew he was still furious with me.

I tried to feel terrible. By the Ancients, I knew I deserved it. But my emotions had already ebbed to their lowest low. Lost in a sea of festering guilt and shock, there was nowhere for them to go. My parents’ tears were mere drops in an ocean of salty regret. Sighing, knowing there was nothing I could do to change what I had done, I walked away.

Gawen was standing near David, arms crossed over his chest while he watched a grey-haired woman take David’s blood pressure.

“He’s fine,” I said, gesturing at the cuff around his arm. “His body is, at least.”

The woman ignored me, finishing the procedure and checking her results. Only then did she look up and acknowledge my presence.

“You’re Ana, I take it?”

“Yes, I-”

“I understand you have healing abilities? What is your assessment?”

Her cool manner took me off guard. “He’s weak, but I did all I can. They were messing with his DNA, to do what, I don’t know, but I think I reversed the effects of whatever they had him on.”

“I took pictures of all the medications we found,” Gawen volunteered.

“Good. You can forward them to me later.” She returned her attention to me. “If you’ve healed him, why is he still like this?”

“The damage they did to him, it’s more than just physical… I don’t know how to heal it. I don’t even know if it even can be healed.” The last part came out as a whisper. I didn’t like discussing David like he wasn’t there, but he didn’t seem to notice. He just sat there, staring down at his hands. Annoyed, I looked back at the woman. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Sharon Schramm. I’m a doctor.”

“And a starseed?” I asked.

“Yes, that too.” She eyed my leg. “That looks like a gunshot on your leg, are you-”

“I’m fine,” I cut her off.

“A gunshot!” I hadn’t realized my mother was standing right behind us. “Let me see.”

Instead of kneeling, she put a hand on my shoulder. Like me, my mother could heal most wounds. I could feel her scanning my body, a prickling sensation I’d never noticed in my youth. I could only assume my increased sensitivity had to do with my new water abilities. The sensation of being scanned was like being tickled lightly with a thousand tiny eyelashes. Not unpleasant, but not comfortable, either. I felt her probing the place on my thigh where Cougan’s bullet had split the skin. I’d already set the wound to healing on the ride here. The bleeding had stopped long before, the sting of the seared edges gone. Satisfied that the wound needed no further attention, my mom squeezed my shoulder and dropped her hand.

“She’s okay,” she affirmed.

“I told you I was.”

“Not a word out of you.” She spun to point a finger ferociously at me. “You don’t get to do that. Not here. Not today.”

“Do what?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“Have attitude. Act like you know best. Like you know anything. Because you don’t.” Her eyes lasered through me as only a mom’s could.

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” I said without real feeling.

I sighed and took the seat next to David. I reached out and took his hands in mine, but he still didn’t look up. I was tempted to probe his aura, but I didn’t have the courage. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what he was feeling. Already, in the van, I had felt how terribly empty and broken he was inside. I knew that wouldn’t go away anytime soon. All I could do was be here for him. “Whatever you need,” I whispered. “I’m here for you.”

Dr. Schramm said something to my mother and then placed a hand on David’s arm. When she spoke to him, her voice was different, softer. “David, I’d like you to come with me.”

“Why?” he said, looking up for the first time. “Are you going to run tests on me?”

I could tell he was trying to be strong, and failing miserably.

“Not today, no. More than anything, I think you need rest.”

“I don’t know.” His voice was thin. Weak.

“I think it’s a good idea,” I said, encouraging him. “Get settled in, sleep a bit more. I’ll come see you in a little while.”

I looked up at the doctor, daring her to challenge me, but she didn’t. “Yes, that’s a grand idea,” she said, helping him stand. “He’ll be on the fifth floor, room 522.”

“Okay, thank you.”

She nodded and led David from the room. As soon as she left, one of the other strangers clapped his hands, making me jump.

He was tall, dark-skinned, grey-haired with a military bearing. “Alright, I think it’s past time that we get this party started. Could everyone take a seat?”

He waited for everybody to sit and then introduced himself. “My name is Doug Rice. Before you ask, I’m not a starseed, and I’m not fae. But I do have an interest in this situation, and as some as you already know, Director Carmichael has been kind enough to lend me control of her resources here.” He gestured at the woman to his left and she nodded with a smile that didn’t relieve the tension around her eyes. “My husband, like your friend David, was also taken in Montreal. I can only hope and assume that you might have seen him in Salem. What can you tell us?”

He looked at Hollis expectantly but my brother shook his head. “I didn’t see much of anything. By the time we got there, Ana and her friends were already coming out. Khai and I just lent a hand.”

“The young man who was taken?”

“Yes,” Hollis said, glaring at me.

“Maybe we should start at the beginning,” Doug said. He sounded serene, matter-of-fact. He would have made a great lawyer. “Ana, can you walk us through the events of the last twenty-four hours?”

I swallowed. “Sure. I guess the best place to start is in Montreal. Gawen and I were able to combine our water abilities tap into the memories of the building, see what had happened when the warpers attacked.”

“Your family, did they work with the Guard?” My father interrupted, looking at Gawen.

“Yes, sir. My grandparents, Griffin and Mary Black. They were Light Guard consultants.”

“Thought so. Fine people. You look just like Griffin. So, you were able to teach Ana how to see as a team? I’m impressed. That’s very advanced stuff.”

“Thank you, sir,” Gawen blushed.

My father grunted and waved a hand towards me. “Go on, Ana. What did you see?”

“Everything,” I said dully. “We saw them taking the people outside, loading them into a box truck. That woman there, Elaine, she mind-warped everyone into obeying her. Well, almost everyone. There were some people who were able to resist her. But they couldn’t fight the rest of the thugs she had with her. The director, he tried to fool them but-”

“The Director? Do you mean Cliff?” Doug broke in.

“Yeah, that was his name. You know him?”

“I’m his husband.”

“He said you wouldn’t rest until you found him,” Gawen said.

“What happened to him?”

“They took him.” I shrugged. “Like everyone else. But the guy who took him, Phineas, he mentioned they were going to Salem. So we went there, too. The whole time, David kept sending me dreams, except I didn’t know if they were him or just me, getting my hopes up. Luckily, the dreams were real. We were able to piece together the clues from my dreams with our research at the library to find the warper’s lair.”

“That’s pretty impressive,” Doug mused. “Thirty years ago, I would have said you should consider joining the Navy to work with my JAG team. Not much need for that kind of thing anymore, though.”

“JAG?” I asked, confused.

“Judge Advocate General Corps, the military’s legal division. Time was, we could have used more people with your detective skills.”

I smiled. So he had been a lawyer, after all. “Thanks.” My smile faded remembering fighting the warpers, watching them swarm Khai, running from Cougan and his gun. “But I think I’m made for more peaceful pursuits.”

Hollis snorted in disbelief, but Doug nodded. “I understand completely. So tell me. Did you see him? Cliff, was he there in Salem?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I think everyone was there, but I couldn’t say for sure. We only saw one small room, like a hospital ward, where they had everyone hooked up to IVs. Cliff wasn’t there, but from the way Phineas talked, I think the place was much bigger than what we saw.” I looked at my mom. “Mom, they said they had fae there. They’ve found a way to block our powers from working, block the light. They say the fae there are aging like normal people.”

My mom’s face grew stormy. “Over my dead body. I didn’t go through everything I went through at your age just so a group of power-hungry bas-”

My dad placed a hand over hers and the effect was instantaneous. Her face cleared, and she swallowed whatever she’d been about to say.

“I think what Siri means to say is that we are going to get everyone back. Every last person.”

“There were kids there, too,” Gawen said. “Little kids. What kind of monster experiments on kids?”

“The worst kind,” my dad muttered. I knew he was probably remembering his own little sister, murdered so many years ago by the Dark Fae.

“There’s just one thing I’d like to know,” Hollis said, clearing his throat. “Ana, what happened to Khai?”

The whole room looked at me at once. Eight pairs of eyes waiting for a good explanation.

If only I’d had one.

“It was after you and Gawen took David upstairs. All those people – I couldn’t just leave them. Khai convinced me we had to go, and I knew he was right. We had no weapons, and my powers had already faded in the short time we’d been there. We were about to go, when these soldiers, they came out of the elevator and started attacking us. They all ganged up on Khai.” The memory left a foul taste in my mouth. “Like I wasn’t worth worrying about. I took out the one guy who’d tried to restrain me, but Khai was trying to fight off six or seven of them. He told me to go, and I wasn’t going to. I was going to help him. I could see his powers weren’t working, either. Then Cougan – do you remember that warper whose leg I broke on the Long Trail?”

Hollis nodded, swallowing.

“He had a gun. He came at me, running, and Khai screamed at me to run. Gods help me, I did. I should have stayed, but I ran.”

“If you’d stayed, you’d have been captured, too. Maybe we all would. We would’ve come back to see what was taking you so long.” It wasn’t quite forgiveness, but Hollis didn’t sound so angry at me anymore. I wondered how he could get there so quickly. I knew I was still a long way away.

“I guess. I don’t know anything anymore. Anyways, that’s what happened.”

I looked around the room. Jules was holding a fist to her mouth, something she’d always done when she was too scared or angry to speak. My dad looked grim, and Gawen was holding Reenah’s hand. My mom wiped a tear from her cheek. “Ana, you know we-”

“It’s been a really, really long day. I’d like to check on David now. Can I go?”

I directed the question at Doug and he nodded.

“Thanks.” I pushed away from the table, unable to be in the presence of my family or friends any longer.