The Becoming of Noah Shaw (The Shaw Confessions #1)(67)

Please I don’t want to die please I don’t want to.



I fall through a hole in the floor of my mind, landing hard in my own reality; back in the flat, back in the office. But my body still feels what hers does—my lungs shudder, trying to expel smoke that isn’t there. I stumble to the door to get everyone up, but it opens before I make it there. Mara and Jamie are in the doorway, together.

“Something’s happening to one of us,” I tell them, thirsting for oxygen. “It’s happening again. I don’t know if it’s Stella but —”

“It’s not Stella,” Jamie says.

“I need to stop talking,” I say, trying to catch my breath. “Search her mind—but I wanted you to know—” A coughing fit grips my body. “It’s happening,” Mara says, and takes my hand, tugs me down the hall. It takes every cell, every neuron firing to make sure I don’t fall down the stairs. I’ve got my back up against the wall when I reach the bottom, and when I catch my breath, I manage to ask, “How do you know it isn’t Stella?”

“Because she’s on the news.”



In the living room Goose is hunched forward, elbows on knees, watching a video of her on CNN, the massive screen split with an anchor speaking over Stella’s voice. I can’t hear what either of them is saying because the noises in my skull are too loud.

The girl in my mind is stepping on broken glass in her boots.

The girl on the television is in a dark room, her face glowing in the light her mobile gives off.

The girl next to me, my girl, has her hands in my hair and is whispering my name as I try to hold on to it, hold on to Mara’s voice. Get control, enough so I can look for a sign, something to tell me where the burning girl is and who she is, though I think I already know.

On the underside of her wrist is a small heart tattoo, the letter F inside of it. She turns it up as she reaches for something, I can’t see what—the flames are too bright, searing her retinas. It’s like she’s standing in an oven; I watch as her hand reaches out for something, and hot metal brands her skin instead. The fire roars, the smell of burning plastic, fabric, and paper, so much paper, and something under it, something dizzying, chemical—

Glass explodes; the shards fall like glitter, showering her body, a thousand stinging pieces piercing skin that is already blistering. Felicity stares up at the ceiling, and I know—

“She’s in the archives,” I say out loud, and I know Mara and Jamie and Goose hear me, though I can’t hear them, not anymore.

The explosion rings in my ears, swallowing my consciousness, but I know one thing: She is alive when she begins to burn.





37


AN INTERNAL INDUSTRY

I DREAM OF FIRE, BUT when I awaken my clothes are soaked through.

“She’s dead,” I say to no one. The white ceiling towers above me, hundreds of kilometres away. I’m not even entirely sure I’m on Earth until I hear Daniel’s voice.

“We know,” he says, and any horror I felt is drowned by the relief I experience knowing that he’s here, alive.

I sit up anxiously, remembering what Mara and Jamie said before Felicity burned. “Stella—”

I get a brief glimpse of Daniel’s face, deeply uncomfortable, looking away.

“Where’s Mara?” I ask, trying to sit up, but Daniel stops me.

“She was just here,” Daniel says. “Bathroom, maybe?”

“What happened to Stella?” I ask.

He exhales slowly. “She made, is making, a video. Right now. Nobody knows where she is, but she’s—she’s talking,” he says, his voice lowered. “She hasn’t outed you guys . . . yet . . . but she’s talking about the fire, and Felicity, and whatever’s happening to her right now.”

“And what is that?”

“What’s been happening to the other Carriers, the ones who’ve gone missing. Or that’s what she’s been saying.”

“She’s been at it for a bit.” Goose’s voice, from somewhere beyond my field of vision. When I twist my head, everything blurs.

“Since when?” I ask, trying to collect myself, or at least hide that I’m so wrecked. I hate the thought of them seeing me like this. Even Mara. It’s unbearable.

“Since you started having your fit, mate,” Goose finishes, then claps me on my shoulder as he sits beside me. My teeth rattle in my skull. “Glad to have you back.”

“Show me,” I say immediately, first to Daniel, then to Goose. He points at the telly, but the anchors are dissecting what Stella’s saying, playing parts of it over again. “I need to watch it straight through.”

“I’ve been recording it,” Jamie says. “Sophie and Leo are on their way over.”

Daniel’s expression changes, perhaps at the mention of Sophie. But he’s given over to it, I suppose, given the circumstances.

“Should I play it?” Jamie asks from the kitchen. I turn carefully around. This time is better. I’m getting better.

Goose mutes the news, and Jamie lopes over with his laptop, swinging his long legs over the sofa. He sets the screen on the side table nearest to me. Stella’s video’s got more than fifty thousand hits already.