Through the Fire (Daughter of Fire, #1)(30)

I doubted Clay had taken my comment that it would have been kinder if he’d just killed me to heart to set it up. If he had, I wouldn’t still be walking. He’d known where I was the whole time.

I’d meant it when I’d said it.

I still meant it. The pain of death would have nothing on the perpetual ache that resided deep within my chest after losing everything important to me. That didn’t mean I wanted death though.

On the contrary, death would have been an easy choice for me but it would add nothing more than insult to my father’s memory. I didn’t know the details of his death. Asking the how’s had seemed so unimportant in the face of everything. My father had tried for so long to keep me safe. His death would’ve somehow ensured my survival. I was certain of it.

Knowing that the piece of paper in my hands with the details of his cemetery plot would always be a draw for me, a piece of bait to lead me to whatever trap the Rain had laid, I forced heat into my fingers and watched as the flames took away the danger.

If only the pain could be burned away as easily.





EACH NEW day on the road became harder rather than easier.

After weeks alone, the minutes and hours melded together in an empty blur. Every night as I tried to sleep, I thought that the pain had to lessen eventually. Each morning when I woke from a fitful rest, the same agony dripped from my broken heart and the same dark circles looped my eyes.

The worst thing was that even though I was so careful about where I stayed and what I bought the money Clay had left for me seemed to disappear all too quickly. I only stayed in the cheapest motels and ate once a day, but it didn’t help.

Within two months, I was homeless, penniless, and utterly alone.

Not long after the money ran out, I was nearly arrested. Two officers spotted me wandering down the side of a state highway. One of them gave me a warning about the dangers of hitchhiking, but the other just stared at me. His withering stare and hawkish eyes sent my heart racing.

His gaze jumped between where my hair was secured in a ponytail and my eyes. I tried to avoid meeting his gaze, but he grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. A slow smile spread across his face. It was the devilish grin of a predator. I was certain he understood more about my nature than any normal person could.

He could only have been a Rain operative, or at least working alongside them.

While he had me pinned in his gaze, the other officer found an open warrant for my arrest over a murder charge. My throat constricted as I learned I’d been framed for my father’s death forced its way into my mind. As if losing him in the first place wasn’t bad enough.

When the officer with the beady eyes and eager stare pulled out his handcuffs, one thing became clear. If I allowed myself to go with them, I would never be coming back. There would be no trial, just a swift execution.

Even as he prepared to clamp the cuffs around my wrists, his partner had thrown open the rear door ready to push me inside. They’d obviously expected a fight, but they hadn’t expected the heat that leaped from my skin to bite at their hands.

Because of my grief and the new agony caused by learning of my wanted status, I didn’t have enough energy to beat back the sunbird when she wanted to take control of the situation. Within seconds, I was so hot it was as if I had been cast into a furnace.

Worse, I was no longer in control of my body.

Instead of trying to endure my flames to get me into the cuffs, two pairs of hands shoved at me roughly, trying to force me into the car. I landed on the seat at an awkward angle but the sunbird wasn’t finished using my body. I screamed out as the flames burst from me, instantly igniting the plastic around me and beating the officers back.

One of them reached for my ankle before realizing his mistake. “You bitch,” he growled as the fire the sunbird had released instantly blistered his hand.

When his partner became distracted trying to help his fallen friend, I leaped from the car and ran. My whole body ached as I came back to myself. My skin burned where the sunbird had been too vigorous with releasing the fire. I didn’t stop to let myself recover though. I just ran as far and fast as I could.

With the terror of being arrested for murder—or murdered myself—an ever-constant threat, I bounced from homeless shelter to homeless shelter. It was hard to get by without any money, but I did what I needed to in order to survive. I didn’t have any other choice. Any time people grew suspicious of my nature, I left. I was at a shelter in Philadelphia, almost seven months after Clay had left me, when I met Brian.

Although it was hard to trust anyone in the shelter—some of the people there would have sold me out in a heartbeat for the reward money on my head—I found myself drawn to Brian. A recovering alcoholic haunted by the memory of his wife, I could see the reflection of my own guilt in his eyes. I’d learned that his wife had died in a car accident almost two years prior. At the time, he’d been driving under the influence and had ploughed into a car stopped at a red light. The guilt of knowing he’d been responsible for her death pecked away at the pieces of his life until it had all crumbled down around him. Within six months, he’d lost his job, his house, and even his family had turned their back on him. In him, I could see myself.

It had been my own addictions and selfishness that had caused my father’s death and then forced Clay to leave me. Through our shared grief, Brian and I had grown closer with each passing day. Or at least, we could stand each other’s company more than anyone else’s. When it came time for me to move on, he asked if he could tag along. I was reluctant at first, knowing that the longer he was near me, the higher the chance of him discovering the extent of my secrets.