If I Die Young

20. Fire

It was Saturday and I woke up far past breakfast, blinking away the remains of another party that I hadn't gotten quite as drunk at or ended quite as suddenly. My body felt heavy but I was able to at least flop onto my floor and crawl to my wardrobe, pulling it open and grabbing a pair of jeans before slipping them on. I was still wearing the pink crop top but I didn't puke on it, so I didn't see a need to really change it.

I had raccoon eyes when I walked out of the room but I was far too tired to really care. I passed by Ezra on the way down the stairs, listening as he threw a quiet apology behind him while the trampled up the steps and I raised an inquisitive eyebrow, but I didn't question him further as he was already gone. I just shrugged and continued walking, finding the younger kids outside playing while Elyse and Aurelia watched. A small figure darted past me and I laughed as Brandon in his little ferret form turned around and hissed at me. I stomped my foot gently at him and he turned back around to scamper off again. A noise from the parlor caught my attention and I peered inside, finding Iden staring at the computer screen completely slack-jawed.

"Are you okay bud?" I asked, knocking on the wood quietly.

"Come here, you need to see this."

I walked forward quickly, peering behind the computer and finding that he was on a news site for another state. To my complete surprise I was watching an aerial video of a house completely engulfed in flames, the firemen working to put it out to the best of their ability. Four dead and two missing, the two missing being suspect in the arson.

"Fire..." I whispered, realizing exactly why Iden was showing me this. He nodded, his eyes wide in shock and awe.

"The girl, the missing one, she's the one. She's the one who did this and she's in so much pain..." he said in a fervent hush, "she just lost her whole family. Now they have her."

"They?" I asked.

"The people, I-I don't know who they are but I see them. I see them in our future as well as hers." Iden sighed, hiding his face in his hands for a moment before looking back up at the screen. "I think we're in a lot of danger Sable. There's people out there who want people like us dead."

The words sunk in like a sharp blade into my heart while it beat. Of course with people like us in the world there were going to be others looking to fight and capture us, we were weaponized human beings after all. I squeezed my fingers as they rested on the desk and pulled away, turning and taking a seat at the piano and resting my head on the cover for the keys. My eyes were trained on the corner of the room and my mind had wandered far off, leaving me remembering the day they dragged me away from my home. It was painful to think about.

I went kicking and screaming, in all meanings of the phrase. I didn't have any family who could take me in at the time so I ended up being placed into both witness protection and a foster home while they investigated my family's death. I'd stare out my window until four in the morning when I passed out from exhaustion, watching the stars and wondering if my parents were watching me and trying to tell me how much they loved me. I still remembered the fake Christmas tree, decorated with paper ornaments and not a single present under the branches for me. I don't think I'd ever wanted to leave this planet more than I had that night, knowing that the last people who cared about me had been ripped from my grasp. I couldn't imagine having any of these people taken away from me now, I couldn't lose Kitty again or face another move. I just didn't have the strength to do that again.

"Sable?"

I broke my gaze away from the wall, finding instead a small figure standing in the doorway to the room. Noelle's silvery hair caught in the sunlight and her lavender eyes were filled with sadness. She must've been reading my mind, watching the pain I went through before I came here. I gave her a soft smile as an act of comfort and she walked over to me, taking a seat on the bench and leaning into my side. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders gently, grateful for her presence.

"I'm alright," I whispered, "I'm just scared."

"Fear is natural. It's human."

I looked down at her, realizing what she was saying as she stared back up at me with those saucer eyes. I clenched my jaw and nodded, feeling myself perk up, if only slightly. I was still a human being with dreams and feelings, things that wouldn't be quashed so easily. Out of the small burst of energy I got from that I decided to make the air a little less heavy and a little more light; I lifted the lid to the keys and pressed a few, beginning on a song I'd known from the very first day I started practice. Noelle was watching me with envy, her fingers twitching slightly. For being as tiny as she was, she sure did have some spider-legs for fingers. I reached out and took her hands in my own, placing them on the keys and pressing gently to act as if she were playing herself. In her amazement she seemed to remember the pattern she'd seen me make and played on her own, going off on a tangent and making something else that sounded equally beautiful.

There was a sudden shift in Noelle's demeanor and I felt the room grow colder. Her eyes looked as if they'd glossed over and she turned to me just as a voice echoed within the confines of my mind. It wasn't menacing or threatening, or scared even.

Keep...playing...

"Do you hear her?" I asked quietly and Noelle nodded.

"She's saying more," she whispered, "check the photos..."

"What does that mean?"

"What are you two whispering about over there?"

Both of our heads snapped towards Iden and he seemed a little taken aback by the action. I sighed and shook my head, giving Noelle's shoulder a good squeeze before I stood up. She trotted after me and I found myself wandering the house slightly, unsure of where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. Eventually I made my way back upstairs and we went to my room; I took a seat at my makeup table and began to remove the remnants of last night's makeup while Noelle curled up in my blankets and looked through my sketchbook. I could hear the sounds of the page turning, but at one point they stopped and I turned around to see what she was doing.

Noelle was staring at one page in the book, the look on her face solemn and somewhat sad. I got up and took a seat next to her on the bed, looking at the book to see which image she was looking at. Almost unsurprised by the page, I saw her shaded lavender eyes staring back at me from the parchment, her soft lips parted as she gripped her blanket around herself, sitting on the front porch in the snow. I'd had nightmares about that image a few times, imagining what would've happened had we not brought her inside or if her parents had dumped her somewhere else. Her fingers gripped the book a little tightly and I brushed my thumb over her own, watching as she relaxed a little.

"Why did my parents hate me Sable..."

Her voice was coated with venom I hadn't been expecting to sting so much. I pulled the book out of her hands instantly and wrapped my arms around her, cradling her head in the crook of my neck and burying my nose in her hair.

"They didn't hate you," I wheezed, feeling tears prick the edges of my eyes, "they were scared because of how special you are. They didn't deserve to have you as their daughter."

"My dad never treated me like a normal dad does," she shook her head slightly, a shiver running down her spine, "I heard him call me a hell-spawn under his breath sometimes. He wanted to get rid of me the moment he saw me."

"Did you...did you look like your parents at all?" I asked cautiously. After all, she did have darker skin and the curls that come along with that, and I'm sure two white parents having a mixed child might be...alarming.

"I looked like my mom." She nodded. "Her skin was darker than mine but that's normal because my dad was pale like you. I have her face and her lips, but I don't look like my dad much at all. Maybe he thinks I'm not really his."

"I hate talking to you about this, but that might have had something to do with it." I sighed in defeat. "Sometimes people aren't good people and things happen."

"I understand that." Noelle nodded, but she didn't seem ashamed of it. "I'm somewhere better now though, so it was their loss, not mine."

"That's exactly how you should think of it too." I said sternly, catching her attention. "We all love you Noelle, you're our sister and we won't let anything happen to you here."

She perked up even more, looking at me wth shining eyes full of sincerity and joy. Noelle hugged me tightly and I hugged her back, relishing the tiny arms that wrapped around me. I'm glad she was here, away from somewhere I'm not sure was ever supposed to be a home for her.