Flame Caller (13 page)

Xander smiled at the Italian’s obvious
discomfort. Giovanni spoke brashly about his knowledge of women but
blushed like a candle when faced to confront an actual
lady.

“
Thanks for all you’ve
done so far,” Xander offered. “Did she happen to say what happened?
How her room came to be on fire?”

“
I asked. She wouldn’t
say. Maybe she’ll tell you instead.”

Xander nodded. “I’ll talk to her.
Thanks again.”

Giovanni slipped past in the hallway
and walked toward the front of the hospital. Xander turned toward
the closed door that marked the back of the house. He reached for
the door handle but his hands stung as they closed over the cool
metal. He gritted his teeth, wrapped his hand around the rounded
handle, and turned as gently as possible.

A lantern dimly lit the room beyond.
There was a window but the shutters were closed and a sheet was
draped over the opening. Sammy lay on the bed in the room. She was
on her side, with her back toward the door. A sheet was pulled up
to her shoulder, but she had long ago kicked off the blanket that
had been draped over her.

“
Sammy?” he said from the
doorway.

She didn’t move or even seem to
acknowledge he was there. He stepped inside and closed the door
quietly behind him.

“
How are you
feeling?”

“
Better,” she said, though
he could barely hear her low tone.

Xander walked over to the side of the
bed and placed his hand on top of her exposed shoulder. She
withdrew slightly as the smooth gauze rubbed against her skin. He
could feel the heat from her skin but it was bearable; nothing like
the heat she had been radiating when he rescued her. Still, his
hands were abnormally sensitive to heat and he had to withdraw his
hand sooner than he would have liked.

Sammy rolled toward him. Her eyes were
puffy from both crying and lack of sleep. She looked drawn and
exhausted. His heart ached for her.

She looked at his bandaged hands and
bit her bottom lip.

“
Oh God, Xander,” she
moaned. “Look at your hands.”

Xander shook his head. “Don’t worry
about me. I’m way more worried about you right now. How are you
feeling? I mean, really?”

Sammy looked away. “I’m frightened and
a bit embarrassed. How are the others taking what
happened?”

“
I’m not really sure,”
Xander shrugged. “I don’t really care, though, as long as you’re
okay.”

“
I’m so sorry,” she said
as tears spilled from her eyes. “I screwed up pretty bad, didn’t
I?”

“
It wasn’t your fault,”
Xander said. He reached up and wiped away a trail of tears from her
cheek.

“
Of course it was my
fault,” she retorted sharply. Brushing aside his hand, she rolled
away from him, offering her back to him once again. “I screwed up
and it nearly killed you.”

Xander felt frustrated. Every time he
felt like he was getting somewhere in the conversation, Sammy shut
down emotionally. Even though she only rolled away from him, she
might as well have thrown up a wall between them.

Xander took a deep breath. “Why don’t
you tell me what happened?”

“
I had a bad dream,” she
replied softly, the acidity drained from her voice. “Can we please
just leave it at that?”

“
You know I can’t, Sammy.
Your bad dream burned an entire house to the ground. It could have
been much worse, if the others hadn’t managed to get the fire under
control. Please,” he begged. “Please tell me what
happened.”

Sammy threw her legs over the far side
of the bed and sat up. She was naked aside from the underwear she
wore. Xander’s eyes traced the soft ridge of her spine down her
creamy-skinned back. His admiration was short-lived as Sammy threw
a shirt over her head.

“
What are you doing?” he
asked.

Sammy shook her head as she retrieved
her pants and thin-soled shoes. “I need to go.”

“
Tell me why?” Xander
pleaded. “What’s happened?”

Sammy reached up and wiped her eyes.
She stood on the far side of the bed, her smooth legs sticking out
from underneath the long shirt. Despite his concern for her
well-being, his heart still raced in his chest.

“
You’re all in danger and
I think it’s my fault.”

Xander stepped around the bed and put
his hands lovingly on her shoulders. “Take a deep breath and tell
me what happened.”

“
Something happened when
we were apart, after… after…”

“
After you tried to kill
me,” he finished. He gestured for her to continue.

“
When I went back to the
Fire Warriors, I saw something… something I wasn’t supposed to,”
she started, her words tumbling over one another as though her
secret begged to be told. “I followed a hidden tunnel, one I’d
never seen before. It led deeper underground, deeper than I’d ever
been. The tunnel ended in a huge room and when I went
in…”

She swallowed hard before laughing
softly to herself. “This is going to sound insane. There was a
monster trapped inside that room. Its eye was bigger than me and it
breathed fire. I never even got to see what it was. I was so
scared. All I could think to do was run. But when I went in the
room, I think I woke it up. I didn’t mean to, but now it’s going to
come for all of you.”

Xander paused as he tried to digest
everything she had told him. He hadn’t had a lot of time to fully
appreciate his new powers and the responsibilities that came with
them, but he had adapted as quickly as he could. It was easy since
he had grown up reading so many comic books. It wasn’t a far
stretch to believe that normal people like him could have strange
super powers. As far as he had seen, however, there weren’t any
monsters hidden among the Wind Warriors.

He shook his head. “But you said it
was trapped in that room, right? As long as it’s trapped, then we
have nothing to worry about.”

“
I don’t know if it
is
trapped,” she corrected. “For the past couple days, I’ve
been seeing it around the island.”

“
What? You’ve been seeing
it here?”

He turned sharply, half expecting to
see a monster pushing its way through the narrow
doorway.

“
Not… it’s hard to
explain. When I was face to face with the monster, all I saw was
its eye. It was taller than I am. I feel like I’m losing my mind
but it’s the eye I’ve been seeing. Always floating overhead,
watching me everywhere I went.”

“
Was this what happened
last night?”

Sammy blushed. “I dreamt about it and
it made me lose control of my power.” She turned and paced the
square room. “I haven’t lost control of my powers since they first
manifested. We’re trained day in and day out until we can control
them perfectly. But last night, I actually lost control. That and…”
she began, before quickly closing her mouth and shaking her head.
After a deep breath, she continued. “It’s yet another reason that I
should leave.”

Xander could tell how painful the
conversation was for Sammy but he couldn’t shake the feeling that
she was holding something back. She still seemed far too stiff,
despite sharing what he considered a dark secret.

“
Sammy,” he said, stepping
into her path. She turned on her heel and walked around him.
Smiling, he raced around the bed until he could block her path
again. “Sammy, stop walking, please. Listen to me. You’re not going
to leave.”

She sighed as she stopped in front of
him. “But what if I lose control again? You burned your hands last
time. Who knows what’ll happen next time.”

“
Let me put it this way—if
you leave, I’m leaving too.”

Sammy smiled despite her exasperation.
“Why are you so eager to put yourself in harm’s way? You have a
death wish?”

“
Apparently I do,” he
replied. “Otherwise, I never would have become a Wind Warrior in
the first place.”

“
I don’t think you
actually had an option on that.”

“
Semantics,” he
laughed.

“
So you want me to
stay?”

Xander reached up and wiped away the
drying streaks of tears on her cheeks.

“
You’re stuck with me, for
good or bad. We’re in this for the long haul.”

Sammy chuckled to herself. Standing on
her tiptoes, she leaned in and placed a kiss on his
lips.

“
I don’t understand the
connection between us,” she said, “but I’m really glad it’s there.
I’m glad you’re here.”

“
Until death do us part,
right? We’re not married, but somehow I feel like it’s a lot more
fitting for us.”

She laid her head against his chest
and listened to his heartbeat. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to
that.”

“
You want to get a bite to
eat?” he asked suddenly. “I think we both could use a break and we
both need to get out of this room.”

“
I’d like
that.”

She stepped away and led the way out
of the room. Xander watched her for a second before following. No
matter what she told him, he still couldn’t shake the feeling that
there was something she
wasn’t
telling him.

They walked hand in hand to the
cafeteria. The island was empty, with only the gentle breeze that
poured between the walls of the waterspout keeping them company.
Xander assumed his aunts and uncles were eating lunch already since
it was already past noon.

The cafeteria had a door on the front
of the building, unlike many of the other buildings that dotted the
island. Most just had curtains or tarps drawn across their
openings, offering privacy without a real concern for safety or
theft. Only the Wind Warriors lived on the island, so they had
little reason to fear for their safety.

The door was a two-way bump through
door without a lock or handle. Xander stepped to the side and
pushed it inward, allowing Sammy to enter before him.

Despite thinking that he was being
chivalrous, Sammy seemed hesitant as she stepped to the doorway.
She looked nervously at Xander before stepping into the cool
interior.

Xander followed into the well-lit
room. The cafeteria was circular, following the gentle curve of the
building’s architecture. A single wall bisected the far end of the
room, granting a bit of privacy for the kitchen area beyond. Open
windows allowed bright sunlight to fill the room. The light
reflected off the sparsely decorated, white marble walls, giving
the entire room a soft, warm glow.

There were still nearly a dozen round
tables spread throughout the main room in the cafeteria, despite
there being so few Wind Warriors remaining. It seemed like an
unnecessary effort to remove the tables and store them elsewhere,
so most just remained unused.

The four uninjured and ambulatory Wind
Warriors—Giovanni, Alicia, Thea, and Patrick—sat in the room,
enjoying their lunch. They could have all easily fit around a
single round table but they were separated over two. Giovanni and
Alicia talked in loud tones, laughing at one another’s jokes. In
contrast, Thea and Patrick sat beside one another at a second
table, their heads close and talking in low tones. Their
conversation died away as they looked up and noticed Xander and
Sammy entering the cafeteria.

Xander saw Patrick’s withering glare
but chose to ignore him. He slipped an arm around Sammy’s waist and
led her toward the silver containers spread across a long table
against the bisecting far wall. Most of their meals were a buffet
style, with the cooked food being kept in heated, steel
containers.

He handed a plate to Sammy before
retrieving one for himself. They walked down the line in silence,
picking through the different containers as they filled their
plates.

Xander winced as his plate got fuller.
It seemed hard to hold his heavy plate on his injured hands. The
heat from the food seemed to seep through the ceramic plate, only
adding further discomfort to his burned hands. Sammy glanced over
and noticed his grimace.

“
Want me to carry that for
you?”