THE FIRE SAGA

BLAZE 106 - DESOLATION

"Stay with them!" I order Brody.

"You stay with them," he counters. "They'll need me up there."

"I need you down here. I just got her back, Brody. Please. Stay. Keep them safe."

He grunts. "Such a hot head."

"I agree, but I trust you most with their lives."

"Who can I trust with yours?" he murmurs.

"Me. Just me."

I climb the ladder fast, running through the basement and up the stairs, skipping two at a time. I don't expect to be able to offer much assistance, but trying? I'm all over that. I'll try with everything I have. At the very least, I can warn them.

Only, I can't warn them. I hit an emotional wall in the living room, stopping me dead in my tracks. A nauseating scent paralyzes me. It's burning flesh mixed with smoke and ash, yet there's no fire. There's only a sea of endless crimson in the gross visual presentation. Nothing could prepare me for this.

I've thought about death a lot, about what it'll be like for me or the innocent people incinerated in my transition, but what I imagined was nothing like what I see through the picture window. Not even in my most horrible nightmares did I envision true desolation. Carnage. It's total carnage.

Mom was right. They aren't coming. They're here. Our time is up. What started as a party, complete with full catering and a band for entertainment, has morphed into a wasteland of bodies drowning in a red river of pain and death. Bile rises in my throat as I share their agony, fear, and final breaths. I'm helpless to stop it.

Their piercing cries blow through my brain, drilling holes in all my senses. Is it a hundred enemies having so unconscionably massacred this group of innocents? No, it's the Sentry. I recognize Molly and Connor at once, though they aren't among the still-dying crowd. They're off to the side, incapable of standing against their leader. Literally. Phelan is in creature form, tearing the partygoers to shreds. My family is standing with the Sentry. No one's taking action. Is it a can't or won't problem? Moot. They couldn't have done anything to stop it, regardless.

The wolf-bear rears his ugly head and makes eye contact with me, roaring so loudly it rattles my heart. I want to run. I want to hide. I want to crawl inside myself by flipping my emergency shut-off switch, yet I can't move. I can't do anything except stare blanks as he barrels toward me, smashing the window in pursuit of his target. The glass shatters around me. My blood paints the shards on the floor.

Phelan snaps his teeth at me, but I'm not what he's after. He stalks toward the basement door. White heat, blinding and burning, rushes through me, and I know the burning flesh I smell isn't coming from the crowd. It's coming from me. Pain. Flesh fire means pain.

Phelan disappears into the stairwell while the fire thaws my frozen limbs, urging me to follow. It demands release, and he's what it wants. He can't fit down the hatch in behemoth beast mode, so he's shifting back to human skin when I catch sight of him again. I steady my hands, aiming my palms at the murderer planning to finalize his mission by eradicating my bomb shelter residents.

Before I can release the stream, someone shoves me from behind, causing the fire to miss its target and ricochet off the far basement wall. The force of the impact blows a hole in the concrete. Connor. He wasn't trying to stop me so much as shove me out of the way. He's following Phelan through the entrance before I can ready a second blast.

Molly isn't far behind. She has a tagalong. Not that I care to be curious, presently. All I care about are the people I love, who need my help battling the monsters set on slaughtering them.