“Wake up, Jett! We need to go now!”

  I had rarely woken up to jostling. I started to protest and demand a few minutes, when Mom’s haunted look from the previous evening flashed through my mind.

  I sat up. Mom was standing over me, looking worried. Her eyes were red and puffy, like she’d been crying and had just stifled it. I saw two suitcases already zipped and standing up on the desk.

  Mine and hers. No others.

  “What’s happening?” I asked. I tried to sound concerned. Instead it came out irritated, like I was being dragged out of bed for school.

  “Something’s happened to Hawk and your father. We’ve lost contact with them. We need to leave right now, Jett. Hurry and get your shoes on.”

  Dad hadn’t taken the rental car. I sat next to my mom in the front seat, a rare privilege. I still felt strangely numb. Mom chewed on a fingernail. Her other hand gripped the steering wheel, and I saw a red-jeweled bracelet on her wrist I didn’t recognize. I had never seen her wear anything like it before. The sky was still overcast, and I could have sworn I saw the bracelet softly glowing in the dimness.

  “What’s really happening?” I asked. I didn’t know why my own voice sounded so cold. “What happened to Dad? To Hawk?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie. I think his enemies tried something. He has a plan. I’m sure we’ll hear from him later. Right now we need to go somewhere safe.”

  We arrived at the small airport. Mom parked the car at the designated rental drop-off point and left the keys inside. She urged me to walk quickly, and I rolled my suitcase along behind me. The pace she set was hurried but not panicked. As if the only thing she was worried about was missing a flight.

  When we went through security, Mom set her bracelet in a tray, then draped my new locket around it in an oddly deliberate manner. Afterwards, instead of heading toward the terminal we had flown in on, she directed me down a flight of stairs and out a door onto the tarmac. We set off toward a distant building.

  “What is that?” I demanded. “Where are we going?”

  “It’s for private flights,” she said. “We’re taking a special plane out. We’ll have it all to ourselves.”

  I followed dubiously. The rain started again, a cold nagging drizzle. I grumpily pulled my hood up.

  Everything passed me in a blur. I felt so cold, so numb. What had happened to my dad? My brother? What had Dad done? What had Mom taken part in? They knew this might happen. They had planned for this.

  Somehow that made it worse. That we were moving along some meticulous escape plan they’d already set. It would almost be better if we were surprised in our sleep by whatever the hell this was.

  At least then my parents would be innocent.

  “Oh Shones,” Mom hissed. “Move, Jett. Move! Leave the bag!”

  She dropped her own suitcase and broke into a jog, pulling me along. I followed her gaze. Far away I could see a long perimeter fence marking the edge of the airport. Multiple black trucks were barrelling toward it.a

  Toward us.

  “Chris,” I heard my mom whisper, and I realized she had her phone out. “Get the plane ready. They’re following us. They’re going to breach the security fence.”

  Suddenly a massive rock ripped itself from the ground and flew through the air. I had no idea how. It smashed through the fence with a metallic crunch and the twang of snapping barbed wire. The trucks formed a line and passed through the breach, swerving around the boulder and continuing forward.

  Mom steered me to the left of the building entrance as a distant popping started up behind us. My stomach felt like ice. Gunshots? Were those real gunshots?

  A man in a jumpsuit and earmuffs tried to wave us down. Then he must have seen what was approaching. He halfheartedly waved us on then ran without checking to see if we followed. Mom glanced behind us, then pulled us behind a parked luggage truck.

  She pointed at a nearby plane parked in the apron. It was a tiny private jet. She made a series of hand signals, and someone at the top of the cockpit stairs—someone with white hair—signaled something back.

  I stared at her in disbelief. What kind of spy crap was this?

  “Jett, listen to me. We’re going to wait for them to pass, and then we’re going to run for that plane. Or I’m going to tell you to run and you’re going to do it. Either way, don’t look back. Get to the plane, run up those stairs as fast as you can, and get inside. Chris is there. Chris Eisner, you remember him? He’s waiting, and the pilot’s a friend too. They’ll get us out of here, no matter what.”

  She gasped and covered her own mouth as booted feet hit the tarmac. The sound could barely be heard over the whine of the plane’s engines and the increasing rain, but it filled me with dread. I hunched, half sheltered by my mom’s large coat as she tried to cover us both. We listened in agonized silence. The luggage truck had parked in the middle of a turn, its train of suitcase-laden carts forming a semicircle around us.

  “I’m sorry, Jett,” Mom whispered with a shuddering breath, stroking my hair. “I’m so sorry.” Her bracelet glowed red.

  A soldier stopped just past the cab of the luggage truck. I held my breath. If he so much as turned his head he’d see us. We shrank into the gap between two of the cars, stacked suitcases rising like walls. I caught a faint smell of leather in the cold wet air.

  “Any sign of them?”

  The calm smooth voice didn’t match the horror that casually stepped into view. He was a heavily scarred man in some kind of military uniform. His sickly green hair grew in patches. One of his eyes glowed red like it had been replaced with a burning coal. One of his arms wasn’t flesh at all. It was stone.

  “No, sir,” said the soldier. “We’re sweeping the building, but we don’t think they went inside. Airport’s already on lockdown. We’ve engaged with security, but it’s nothing we can’t handle. Some of the planes in the aprons still have engines running. Shall we shut them down?”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “Not yet,” the scarred man said pleasantly. “Let’s see if it draws them out.”

  They both stepped out of sight.

  “Get ready, Jett,” Mom whispered.

  Get ready? To run past that thing?

  Dad was gone. Hawk was gone. And unless I missed my guess, Mom was getting ready to sacrifice herself.

  They’d done this to us. My parents. All because my dad wanted to chase a stupid magic tornado.

  My hand brushed the stupid heart locket around my neck. I hated it. I hated that we were cowering at this airport. I hated that half my family was already gone. I hated that my parents had done this on purpose. I hated that they’d done this to me. I hated the way my mom stroked my hair as she trembled.

  “Okay, Jett,” she whispered. “I want you to run on the count of three. One…”

  Fear had been an oddly distant thing from me all morning, even though I understood in my mind that we were in grave danger. And in that moment anger took over, shoving down what little fear was left. What little sense was left. Tears welled up in my eyes as I whirled on my mother.

  The words came out before I knew I was saying them.

  “I hate you!” I screamed, my voice ugly and cracking. “I HATE YOU!”

  There was a moment of terrible silence. Even the whine of the plane’s engines seemed to cease. Then shouts rang out all around us, far more than I thought possible.

  “Hear that?”

  “It’s them!”

  Then the melodious voice of the scarred man. “Excellent. Move in.”

  I looked up at my mother’s horrified expression and realized what I’d done.

  “No,” I mouthed. I tried to apologize but my lips wouldn’t move. My tongue felt like lead.

  “Go!” she yelled, and as if she’d commanded reality itself. Suddenly, without any effort on my part, I was flying through the air, away from her and toward the waiting plane. Something orange snaked around me in a helix.

  Fire.

  It swirled around me without burning. Instead it enveloped me like a cocoon and propelled me forward. When it dispersed I found myself laying at the foot of the air stairs.

  I got to my feet. My body climbed the stairs, almost of its own accord. My mind still reeled. Despite Mom’s instructions, I looked back.

  My mother was like an enraged demon. Fire shot from her hands in long tendrils. It lashed out at the charging soldiers like a mass of prehensile whips, and it hissed like angry snakes in the rain. It wrapped around one soldier’s chest; he screamed as his steam and smoke hid his body from view. It lashed another soldier’s leg and hurled him through the air. She almost casually redirected her attention toward the green-haired monster with the stone arm. As the fire tentacles lashed out at him he blasted them with water, vaporizing them.

  “Come on!” A strong hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me into the plane.

  “No!” I shrieked. “I killed her! I have to go back! I killed her!”

  Chris Eisner sat on the floor of the plane and wrapped his arms carefully but firmly around my midsection. Otherwise I absolutely would have shot back out of the plane and to my certain death.

  I heard and felt tapping against the plane. Gunfire?

  “We’ve gotta go!” someone yelled from the cockpit.

  “Do it!” Chris yelled back, still holding me in place. I flailed and kicked and even bit, but he held me tight.

  I heard a click. “This is flight 294! We’re taking fire from the incursion! I’m taking off! We can’t wait for clearance!”

  The door shut, and the plane immediately shifted. I heard a loud thud as the plane’s wing punted the stairs aside, and I caught a distorted view through a water-streaked window of the battle below as we turned toward one of the runways. My mom was still holding her own against the monstrous man, but the remaining soldiers were moving to surround her.

  “No! I killed her!”

  It wasn’t until we were in the air that I gave up my weak struggles and slumped in Chris’s arms, sobbing.

  “Jett,” he said awkwardly. “I’m so sorry. Serafina’s strong. She could still be okay. We haven’t heard from your father or brother yet. We’ll tell you as soon as we do. There’s still hope.”

  I sobbed. “I… I told her I hated her. Those were my last words to her. The last words I’ll ever get to say!”

  Chris patted my shoulder, awkwardly, helplessly. “She knew you didn’t mean it, Jett.”

  “I did, though! I meant it! I don’t hate her, but when I said it, I meant it! I wish… I wish I could…”

  I slumped back in my chair. Catalina’s eyes were shining, but she waited for me to continue.

  “Jett,” Wally whispered. “Shones. I had no idea.”

  I shrugged, sniffed, and cleared my throat excessively. “That’s about it, I guess. As much as I know. They caught the group that did it. Supposedly. The man from the airport was a sorcerer named Elias Gales, but he called himself Tetrarch. He’s still on death row back in the West District. They found her body. My mother’s. That bracelet was still on her wrist. She got everyone except that… that man. No trace of my dad or my brother. They’re both presumed dead now.”

  I took a deep breath. The room was quiet for a moment.

  Then what little control I had cracked.

  “I hate myself!” I grabbed fistfuls of my hair. “I did that to my own mother! That’s not normal! It’s sick, it’s evil! I shouldn’t be here! I don’t deserve to be a hero! I don’t even deserve to live!”

  [Jett…]

  “Mr. Fulgen,” Catalina said gently. “Your mother gave all she had to protect you, even after you said that. She still loved you, and she sacrificed herself for you. What you need to ask is, what are you going to do with her sacrifice? Are you going to wallow in self pity, like you’ve been doing? Or are you going to honor her sacrifice?”

  I leaned my head back. “You know what? I know. And people have made speeches like that before. But it just sends my mind in circles. I did something bad, but she made a sacrifice, but I don’t deserve her sacrifice, and I’m not honoring her sacrifice so then I really don’t deserve it. I don’t know how to escape from those thoughts. The only way to change it would be to undo it! And I Shones-damned can’t!”

  [Jett.]

  I felt something. It was like a warm pulse, radiating from my heart. Well, not exactly my heart. From the tattoo. The Habby tattoo on my chest. I pressed my hand to it and felt the slick reinforced fabric of the G-Tech uniform.

  Habby appeared in front of my face. [Jett. Listen to me. You are the Fire Guardian. I once thought that was a mistake. I was wrong.]

  “Mr. Fulgen?” Catalina asked gently. “What are you thinking?”

  “Chris… Chris was there on that day. It’s such a weird coincidence. But he didn’t have his powers yet. All he could do was whisk me away. It occurs to me… if he’d somehow already been the Ice Guardian it would have helped. It might have made all the difference.”

  I squeezed my hand into a fist and gently immolated it, watching flames dance harmlessly across my skin.

  “I would’ve had another chance. I could’ve said I was sorry. I could still have my mother now. That can’t happen. I can’t go back. Chris wasn’t the Guardian yet on that day, and that’s that.

  “But… I am a Guardian now. Someday there will be another kid like me. In danger, scared and angry, full of regret. And I could be there. I could give them the chance I didn’t get.”

  I looked at Catalina. At Wally. At Habby. He gave me a nod with his cartoony pepper head, and it somehow wasn’t comical at all.

  “That’s what I want to do,” I said. “That’s why I’m here, right now. Not for myself, but for the next kid. That’s my purpose. To be there for the next kid.”

  “Oh,” Catalina gasped softly. “?Eso es! That’s perfect! The people need to hear that!”

  Then she paused ands took a breath. “Sorry. I get ahead of myself. That is a tomorrow discussion. People do need to hear it. But more importantly, Mr. Fulgen… I think you needed to say it.”

  And she was right, I realized. Some words can’t be taken back. But sometimes—you find the words that propel you forward.

  Optional mood music for this chapter:

  Cold Rain [Alternative Rock]