darling on fire • the darkest minds

Chapter One

I never quite understood death, not even when over half of my class died from IAAN, and most adults began to hold us at arms length. But when my brother died, death had become a constant companion.

I remember when my parents found him too. I had been woken up first because my room was at the beginning of the hall. I had already gotten out of bed when I heard their loud weeping. My parents said I didn't have to go to school that day, but I wish I had gone, then maybe I wouldn't have been subjected to their grief and anger. That night as my parents tucked me into bed and my mother gave me an extra long hug, my father only had one thing to say, "It should have been you."

It was two weeks later when our class size began to drastically dwindle. Every time a kid didn't show up to school, my homeroom teacher, Mrs. Mallory, would silently sob behind her hand. Her kid had already stopped coming to school.

I remember how blue the sky was this one day when my parents dropped me off to school. I also remember how terribly red my mother's face was from crying. My father showed only anger, and maybe... fear?

I opened the door to our minivan and began the trek up the sidewalk to the elementary school. There was very few kids today. There was also very few teachers.

But Mrs. Mallory was there. As soon as I walked into her room, she started to cry. She never blatantly cried in front of us, but now she didn't hide it. I sat down into my seat in the second row, with my name on the front written in chalk. I was the only other person in the room. I wanted to ask Mrs. Mallory what was wrong, but it was probably just her son who no longer came to school.

"How could they do this?" Mrs. Mallory was looking at me.

"Who do what?"

"Your parents, how could they? You're such a sweet child, I'd give anything for my Sammy to be alive, and they just throw your life away like this."

Her words puzzled me. I didn't see how my parents had thrown my life away, all they did was take me to school.

Mrs. Mallory's phone buzzed on her desk. She put a hand to her mouth when she picked it up.

"You know what? How about we play a game?" She tried to cover up the sadness in her eyes with a smile.

"What kind of game?"

"We're going to play hide-and-seek, okay?" She came from her desk and kneeled in front of me.

"Okay! Who's going to and hide and seek?"

Mrs. Mallory looked at her door and then back to me. "Well, we're both going to hide, from everyone else, okay?"

"Okay!" She reached out her hand towards me and I grabbed it. I bet Mrs. Mallory was a great hider. We went down the first grade hall and then down to the second grade hall. It felt like Mrs. Mallory was purposely avoiding the lunchroom and library. That must be where the seekers were, counting, so that also meant it was base.

Mrs. Mallory' s grip on my hand tightened as footsteps sounded down a hall. Finally we stopped in front of the teacher's lounge, where kids weren't allowed to go.

Mrs. Mallory pulled me into the room and shut the door behind her. She pulled me over to one of the cabinets under the sink and kneeled down so we were eye to eye.

"Okay, you're going to hide inside this cabinet, can you do that?" I nodded my head and she gave me a relieved smile. When I crawled under the cabinet I turned back to Mrs. Mallory. Where was she going to hide?

"Okay, Rowan, I need you to be very quite and don't come out until I come back for you."

She turned away but I grabbed at the hem of her dress. "Wait, where are you going?"