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“Will it heal?” Emil asks.
“There’s a salve that can assist with the shedding,” Dr. Salinas says. “But it takes a few months to return to its former state.”
“But—” Emil stops himself. We all know I don’t have a few months.
“Maybe it’s time we start placing bets on how I’m going to die,” I say. “We’ve got some solid options. Venom reaching my heart. Blood poisoning. I’m personally putting my money on the Blood Casters coming back to finish the job.”
“Not funny,” Emil says. “We’re going to get you through this.”
Thinking about my future distorts reality. This is all too much for one person, it’s like one shot fired after the other. The poisonings, the death sentences. I feel like I’m blowing through the stages of grief. I’ve been living in denial and anger since the last night of the Crowned Dreamer. Depression is definitely creeping in because I don’t have powers, especially now, when I would love to use them most to track down Ma—and punish everyone who even looked at her wrong. But there’s no bargaining because there’s nothing else I can do to become a specter, and any other trial will only kill me sooner. Sitting around this hospital room and thinking about how I don’t want what little time is left to be spent here, I’ve reached acceptance.
“I don’t want to die here,” I say. “I want to go home or somewhere.”
Dad was never trying to die in the hospital either. He wanted to die peacefully with us at his side. One out of two isn’t the worst, but it’s not how I’m going to go out.
“Bright, we have prime security here,” Emil says.
“Fine, they’re going to protect me so I can die in peace here? The odds are stacked against me.”
“They might save your life! Come on, you always swear that just because something is unlikely doesn’t make it imposs—”
“SHUT UP!”
I tense up, thinking about all the different dreams I’ve had over the years. Graduating college as valedictorian. Becoming a talk show host. Breaking records with the number of followers I have. Getting the timing right with Prudencia. Saving the world with Emil as the Reys of Light.
Unlikely, but not impossible are the best odds for any dreamer. But I’m done dreaming.
Fifteen
Fire and Flight
MARIBELLE
No leads yet.
It’s been one day since that ridiculous meeting with Sunstar. I lost too many hours oversleeping in Atlas’s car, but I’m making up for it now. I’ve been patrolling Greenpoint for hours. It’s a hot spot for every hipster wanting to down Brew, the illusionary potion that gives its drinker a taste of what it’s like to have powers. One of Luna’s greatest mistakes was confessing to Brighton that she’s the creator of Brew. If I can track down a dealer, I can force them to give me information that will lead me to Luna and June.
Perched on top of a seven-story apartment building, I wait for a couple to round the corner before I jump off the ledge. Several feet above the ground I catch myself with a smooth glide like I’m walking down invisible steps. I tighten Atlas’s old baseball cap I found in the trunk and try to not be recognized so I can move discreetly.
I pass a celestial-run gym where I can see a woman through the window using her stretched-out, elastic-like arms as a jump rope. It reminds me of when Iris’s father, Konrad, would act like our coach and make exercising our powers fun. Mama and Papa always hoped I’d be able to fly on my own—and they always knew there was a chance my power of levitation would grow into flight. But they never told me that it might manifest in wings of fire. Not that it’s happened yet.
The Night Elk Bar on the corner has some life to it for a Thursday night. There’s a bouncer checking IDs underneath the tacky sign of an elk with crescent moons for eyes. I peek in and there’s a celestial dancing with his clone to impress a group of women. The music is fast with solid beats that Atlas wouldn’t have known what to do with.
Shortly after Atlas and Wesley began working with us, we hosted a welcome party at our haven. Iris DJ’d, playing all the hits that had us sharing headphones and dancing together. She played one of our favorites, this song in Spanish that begins slow before bursting with this beat that has you sweating by the end if you manage to keep up. I brought Atlas onto the dance floor and he didn’t stand a chance against this song and had to conjure his winds to cool down. That was the first time I was properly charmed by him.
Atlas can’t dance poorly anymore.
“Hey, you’re Maribelle Lucero,” the bouncer says.
I don’t pay him any mind. I cover my face some more with the cap’s brim and I walk away. I don’t stop moving like an emotional zombie until over an hour later when the Brooklyn Bridge comes into view. This is where I met Atlas. I want to feel closer to him, more than just being in his car or hugging his ashes, both of which I left behind in a school parking lot.
The very top of this bridge is where I first told him I was in love with him.
It was in April, three months after the Blackout. Atlas had taken care of me, and that day, it was my turn to take care of him. He’d just found out his parents’ prison sentence for robbing a bank was expanding for another five years.
“I was this close to having them back,” Atlas had said, snapping his fingers. He was pacing from one edge of the bridge’s crown to the other. He loved coming up here to relax with the wind in his ears. His blond hair was blowing in every direction and then he completely lost it. “I bet they didn’t even do anything wrong! They’re punishing them because I’m out here trying to do something right!”
He couldn’t even visit them. Not without walking straight into the Bounds, where all the enforcers wanted him.
