Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Izzy
The world around me is on fire. Flames beat against my skin, so painfully hot that my eyeballs feel like they’re blistering. I’d scream from the pain and the panic, but my throat is raw. My eyes are watering from the smoke, turning everything into an orange blur.
“Izzy.” Reid’s voice near my ear grounds me. “You’re okay. You could turn yourself into a dragon and set the world on fire just like this.” He coughs quietly under his breath; it must be hard for him to speak too, because his voice is a rasp. “Or you can douse the flames.”
I nod. But when I feel this much panic, it’s hard for me to think of what I could turn into, let alone transform myself.
Fire is my weakness.
In the flames, I catch glimpses of memories. My mother’s exhaustion as she battled to save us from the flames. The way she’d fallen to her knees outside the house. Thea’s face, so like mine, wide-eyed and innocent and terrified.
And Thea’s face, as an adult, hardened and cold. That’s the memory that really sends me reeling.
But that’s why we’re here, training.
It’s supposed to hurt. I’m supposed to come close to panic--and learn how to fight it.
“What do I do?” I demand of Reid, but I don’t expect him to answer. He bows his head, the two of us encircled by the flames. The dancing, flickering, terrible flames silhouette his tall, powerful figure.
I know he won’t tell me what I should do.
But when he looks up at me with warmth in his eyes even though there are no answers on his lips, I know he trusts me to figure it out myself.
The image of a phoenix comes to my mind suddenly, of a bird with powerful wings and a woman’s face--my face--rising from the flames.
Someone who can’t be destroyed by fire, no matter how dark the memories that come with the flames.
As soon as I think it, I transform into a phoenix. The wings uncurl from my shoulders, and I clasp Reid close. The two of us soar up from the flames together.
When we rise above them, the campus is visible spreading around us.
Mr. Time and Brenda stand to one side, and my men wait on the other side of the flames.
On the hillside, a group of students have gathered to watch.
I never know what to make of them. Do they hate us?
They must want us to win, because the alternative is even worse. But do they hope we die?
What are they saying to each other, those students dotted across the grassy hill?
You know, maybe I don’t even give a fuck. I’ve got superpowers and I’m going to save the world. Does it matter if people gossip about me? Do I care?
Yes, yes I do. I wish I could be a whole new Izzy, but even with god powers, I still feel like an awkward geek half the time.
I soar toward the ground. Reid whoops as soon as his feet touch the ground. “That was amazing, Izzy!”
“I thought you were supposed to find a way to halt the fire,” Brenda says dryly, crossing her tattooed arms over her chest. “Not just escape it yourself.”
Reid rolls his eyes. Brenda’s always such a downer. For a woman who only looks to be five or so years older than us, she acts like she’s been around for hundreds of years. Which, honestly, she might have been. I still have no idea what kind of supernatural she is.
Turning away from her, I feel my body shift again, my wings disappearing.
Mr. Time motions with his hand. The flames die down, then disappear. They felt so real, but the grass is thick and emerald-green where it had been singed down to the dirt and ash.
And as soon as the flames are gone, Aiden storms across the grass toward us.
“Here we go,” Reid mutters, swiping his hand through his thick hair.
“What the hell was that?” Aiden demands. “You said Reid and Izzy had to escape a maze. You didn’t say it was a maze of fire. That was so fucking cruel.”
Brenda laughs, but Mr. Time holds up a hand to tell her to pause. He answers Aiden, “Maybe it was. But the gods you’ll all face are much crueler. They’ll exploit your weaknesses.”
“It’s all right, Aiden,” I tell him, before he can yell at my immortal grandfather some more. “I’m fine with whatever tests and challenges help us grow.”
“Well, in that case,” Brenda begins before Mr. Time shoots her a look. She swallows whatever she was about to suggest, but the smirk on her face suggests she still finds it funny.
“Brenda brought news,” Mr. Time says. “I need to meet with some of the faculty. And then we have much to discuss. I’ll see you all back at the house for dinner in an hour and tell you all about it?”
I nod. Mr. Time glances at the guys, then jerks his head. I walk with him a few steps toward the academic building.
“This is about my sister?” I demand.
“In part,” he admits. “But let’s talk about her latest…mischief...over dinner. I wanted to tell you, Izzy, how proud I am of you.”
“If this is about what Aiden said, he’s just protective.” I don’t want Mr. Time to see me as weak. I can’t afford to be weak, not if I’m going to find a way for my men and I to live in this world freely. “I’m fine.”
“I’m glad he’s so protective,” Mr. Time says. “I happen to like him.”
“You might want to tell him that, then.” It would probably mean a lot to Aiden to have an authority figure respect him for once, not that Aiden would ever admit that.
He nods, and I know Mr. Time will take what I say seriously. I love that about him.
“I wanted to ask you, while it’s just the two of us, how you’re doing,” he says. “I know you’d hoped for a very different reunion with your sister. I hope…”
He trails off, not daring to speak his own hopes for her. I feel the same way.
I want to believe there’s a way for Thea to be redeemed. I want her by my side.
“I want to have my sister again,” I admit. “I still can’t make sense of what happened that night…or maybe I don’t want to.”
He nods, his face solemn.
“But I’ll be ready for her if we can’t find a way to make peace,” I say. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect the world from the gods--both the ones within us, and the others who have been reborn.
“I know you will,” he says. He squeezes my shoulder gently. “I believe in you, Izzy.”
And then I ask the words I was scared to say before. “What about that box?”
He stiffens. “It’s called a Taka cage.”
I frown. “But how did they get it? I know you said that we would be trapped again if our gods got out of control, but I kind of thought that was only something you and the godslayers could do.”
He sighs. “The box was supposed to remain carefully hidden. The godslayers were partially here to watch all of you and partially here to protect the box. I think when they betrayed the other godslayers, the traitor godslayers gave your sister and her gods the box to use against you.”
“But if they have it…won’t it be easy for them to get rid of us?”
“Only if we’re not careful.” He gives me a pointed look. “Which means, we can’t go rushing in, powers blazing, nor can we trust the wrong person. We have to be smart about it, and we have to get the box away from them.”
“So that we can use it against them?”
He nods.
I imagine my sister trapped for an eternity with the gods, and a shiver rolls down my spine. No one deserved that, did they? Even if that person had tried to kill me.
“Don’t worry too much about it,” he says, giving me a reassuring smile. “I have a plan.”
When he heads toward the academic buildings spreading below us, Brenda gives me a mocking smile as she passes and strides to catch up with him. I watch him go for a second, then turn to find my men waiting for me.
Aiden, Reid, Wilder, and Van. Their tall, muscular bodies are silhouetted against the setting sun.
Wilder tilts his head to one side. “Everything okay?”
Fine, is on the tip of my tongue. But I don’t have to pretend with them. I don’t want to.
“We were talking about Thea,” I say. “Whatever else she’s done…I think Mr. Time is worried about me being able to do what we might…have to do.”
I don’t want to speak the words out loud. I might have to kill Thea to save the world.
I can feel their protectiveness radiating around me; sometimes it feels smothering, but there’s also something comforting in it. None of them voice a platitude about how we’ll figure something out.
The truth is, the future looks dark.
Then Van says, “Whatever we have to do, Izzy, we’ll face it together.”
That promise, and his warm gaze on my face, lights a glow of warmth in my chest.
Then Aiden gives him a skeptical look. “Who are you and what have you done with our resident cynical asshole?”
“I’m a cynical asshole who’s on Izzy’s side,” Van grumbles, before slinging his arm across my shoulders. I breathe in the warm, spicy scent of his expensive cologne; Van always smells delicious. “You, on the other hand, can go trip over a knife, dickhead.”
“You love me,” Aiden says, before throwing his arm over my shoulders, his arm overlapping Van’s. Van scoffs at that, but he doesn’t pull away.
The five of us make our way down the hill toward our little home, our refuge in a world that despises us...but also needs us.