Girl on Fire

Chapter 3

The bullet never hit me.

I slowly prised one eye open, then the other and I gasped in shock. The bullet was right in front of me, except still, not moving at a speed fast enough to blow my brains out. It was clear that it would have hit me right between the eyes. I crossed my eyes. The bullet was close enough that I could see the tiny writing on it saying where it was made. Of course, in China.

The whole room was silent and everyone was staring at me in amazement.

"Oh, heck." Caroline said quietly. "There's another one."

Bricks suddenly started pushing their way through the wallpaper in the same manner that a Jenga brick that has just been pushed from the other side would. Outside was quickly visible and the people in the room just stood rooted to the spot staring at it. When the wall threatened to fall down, though, they scrambled to the other side of the room in order to not get squashed. River and I were not able to move so we were showered with falling debris.

"NO-ONE IS MEAN TO MY ASH!" A voice yelled from behind the crumbled wall. I recognise the voice immediately.

"Ali." I whispered, My strength suddenly failing me even more. I glanced over at my captors and squinted my eyes so that it was less blurry. A strange thing was, none of them were moving. Not dead-not-moving, more like frozen-in-mid-fall not moving.

Ali walked through the remains of the wall, holding her hand up towards the mess of people at the other side of the room. She pointed at us and I could feel my handcuffs unlocking themselves.

"Ali?" I repeated. "How?" When my handcuffs fell to the ground, I fell forward with nothing to hold me up. I looked over at River and saw that the same thing had happened to him.

"Come ON!" Ali said, stamping her foot.

I scraped myself up from the floor with wobbily feet and stumbled over to her.

"Who's this?" River asked.

"A... friend."

He nodded.

"Why you so sleepy?" she asked. I shrugged - I had no strength to explain. The playground was empty but for a couple of guards staring over at us, trying to figure out if we are the people who had the powers. We ran over to the fence and Ali put her hand down, panting heavily. Immediately, a chorus of loud yelling sounded from the building and the guards hurried towards us, realising that there is a major problem.

Ali closed her her eyes in concentration and did something that I probably should have expected but didn't.

She flew.

"Ali, howd'ya do that?" I asked, slurring my words again.

"I fink fly and fly"

I looked at River for support and he shrugged. "She must be one of us." he said slightly dreamily, and turned to Ali.

"Look 'ere, Ali is it? Yeah. Look 'ere Ali... we needa get outa 'ere, like... soon" He slurred with a cautious glance towards the guards that were almost on top of us, "Do you recon you would be able da fly us too?"

Ali giggled, "You speak funny!" She said and then we felt ourselves being lifted off the ground.

The guards that were just reaching out to grab us stopped and stared in shock, faces of grim anger changing to faces of amazement.

As we drifted over the fence, a voice yelled from inside the building,

"Don't just stand there, GET THEM!"

I turned back and saw that it was Megan. The guards, now recovered from their shock, yanked their guns out of their hoilsters and aimed them at us.

Ali, looking down and sensing danger, immediately shot up into the air until we were out of reach of the bullets. I felt my ears pop as we went up and I patted her gently,

"Far enough Ali."

The air was already getting hard to breath in. We floated across to the other side of the city, and somehow no-one noticed our travel. We must have looked like a bunch of balloons from up there.

I felt my ears pop again as Ali slowly conducted our decent. I look down and gasped with amazement. The whole city was spread out below us... everything and everyone seemed insignificant from this high up.

The people were just mere ants.

I felt like a god.

I liked it.

-----

We landed in an alleyway. All three of us collapsed to the ground, Ali panting heavily. I felt a lot stronger and the gas seemed to be starting to wear off. I have more control over my body. Ali suddenly burst into heavy sobs, her shoulders heaving with sadness.

"I am BAD!" She said, "I am a FREAK!"

"Oh, Ali." I said. I pulled myself up and put my arm around her. "No you're not... you're just different. What makes you think that you are bad... and a freak?"

Ali sniffed and cuddled into me. "I accidentally ran into Tasha and broke the vase that she was holding. She started yelling at me and telling me that I was stupid and idiotic and that I was a failure already. I got really angry and pushed her over... except I didn't touch her. Then I started flying and the others came in. They all started yelling and screaming and people only scream when someone is bad! Then Tasha shouted 'you're a FREAK! Get out of here!'" She burst into tears again. "And, and then I came to your school because you always know what to do and I flyed and now I'm tired." with that, she fell asleep in my arms.

River dragged himself up and came to sit leaning on the wall next to me.

"A friend? It seems like she is too close to you to be a friend." he said, his tiredness apparently worn off as well.

I closed my eyes, silently debating with myself about whether to tell him. Finally:

"I am an orphan and so is Ali. We come from the same orphanage, the downtown one. I've known her since she was born... pretty much. We were both abandoned on the doorstep of the place as newborns and I was the one who found her. We are like sisters." I opened one eye and looked at him. I knew that he was going to be discusted with me. But when I saw him, he only had the slightest hint of a grin on his mouth.

"THAT is what has been bothering you? Do you really think that I would care whether you were an orphan or not? Do you want to know something? I am an orphan too."

I gasped "Really? Wait... you said something about convincing your mum about the water? How is that so if you are an orphan?"

"Because she is my foster mum. I hate her. And my foster dad. They are both always out drinking. To be honest, I think I was better off in the orphanage."

"But... why didn't you say anything to anyone? I thought you were popular! Surely no-one would mind if you were one of the popular kids?"

"Same reason as you. I thought people would be disgusted. Even if I was popular... ish. But I realise now that it is a silly thing to think. You can't help it if your parents die... in fact," He leaned forward, his unruly blonde hair flopping across his face, "I don't think my parents are really dead!"

"What do you mean? How did your parents 'die' then?" I said, making quote signs above my head.

"My mum and dad were killed when I was a new-born. We were in a boat and it capsized. They both drowned and I was washed up to shore."

I glaceed at him sharply. "Pardon me for saying, but do you mean that they died in your element?"

He nodded. "That's why I don't think they are dead. I recon we got our powers from them. Whoa, Ash why do you look so shocked?"

I indeed was gaping at him. "It's just that... my mum died in a fire... does that mean that she might be alive?"

River shrugged. "Maybe... I figured that was why you looked like that. Maybe we will be able to quest to find them?"

I didn't say anything, just thinking about the fact that my mum... and dad... might be alive silenced me.

Then the gentle snore of River floated into my ears.

I heard the faraway wail of fire engines, but it barely registered. I fell asleep in seconds.