Angel Fire (12 page)

“I didn’t kill them!” I screamed, and lunged at her.

She swung her fist. It connected with my jaw and stars exploded in my head. I fell back to the bed, reeling, and the woman—I didn’t even know her name—jumped on me and cocked her fist for another blow.

I had a sudden flashback of my last night with Barry.

The force inside, for the second time, took control of me. Before I knew it, the mattress was on fire. My cellmate jumped off with a cry of alarm.

“Fire! Help! The little psychopathic bitch tried to set me on fire!”

I
was
a psychopath. Instead of jumping off the bed, I threw myself in the flames and rolled around. I think for a short time, I was insane. I wanted to die. I wanted the fire to consume me as it had consumed my parents, my past and my future.

The fire grew higher, the flames licking the ceiling. My cellmate’s shouts for help turned to panicked screams.

I did not black out that night, as I had the first time the power took me. In the end the guards had to pull me from the flames, kicking and screaming, and the prison medic shot me up with some kind of hypodermic that put me out.

* * *

The next day at the infirmary, when the doctor examined me, he was alarmed to see that my skin was completely unharmed by the fire.

“It’s a miracle you weren’t burned,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

What miracle? I survived. That wasn’t a miracle; that was a life sentence.

Maybe some higher power took pity on me: I was transferred to a different cell block where I met Kyra Michelson: drug dealer. At least, that’s how she introduced herself to me when the guard escorted me to my new cell.

Kyra was an extremely large woman with tattoos covering nearly every inch of her massive arms. I suspected there were many more under her ill-fitting prison jumpsuit. She wore black-rimmed glasses that were as thick as cola bottles, and I think she was the only woman I had ever seen under the age of fifty that was balding. The hair she did have was jet black and cropped short on the top and sides in a mullet.

Lying in the bottom bunk, she was propped up in the corner, and flipping through a fashion magazine. She looked up with a genuine smile when I stepped inside. The guard closed the door behind me without a word, leaving me to fend for myself. I felt like they had just thrown me to the wolves.

“I’d stand up,” Kyra said, “but I’m just too damned lazy. Hope you don’t mind the top bunk. It’s not that I’m afraid of heights, you know. I just don’t like taking chances. Come over here and sit down. What’s your name? I’m Kyra Michelson, drug dealer. What are you in for?”

Stunned, I could barely form a thought or a sound, and stood in the center of the room like a dunce.

“What? Are you shy or something? I don’t bite. I mean, I might if you ask nice. That was a joke, honey. Can you speak?”

“Hi,” I managed to say.

“Ah! There you go. That wasn’t so hard, now was it? Come in, make yourself comfortable. This is your new home, after all. I don’t deal drugs anymore, so don’t ask. I don’t even take drugs anymore, not since they put me in here. My boyfriend keeps offering to smuggle in a care package, if you know what I mean, but I’ve been clean for three years now. Seriously, you’re making me nervous. Sit down, honey.”

I was so taken aback by her non-stop chattering, I momentarily forgot about my initial fear; and when I realized this, I smiled and stepped forward to shake her hand.

Kyra smiled back, and from that point on we became fast friends.

She was on a first name basis with nearly every other inmate on the block, and as far as I could tell, she had no enemies. Through her, I met dozens of other girls, and learned the ins and outs of prison life. What to do, what not to do; how to scam extra helpings at the lunch counter; which guards would turn a blind eye to light contraband, which ones were tough bulls.

She had a story for everyone she met, and knew intimate details about their lives: whose kid was having a birthday, who was a shoe-in for parole; which girls were sneaking around with what guard; and what hobbies they liked to pursue in their free hours.

Whenever someone was having a rough go of it, Kyra was the one they came to for emotional support.

Though I was reluctant to socialize at first, Kyra dragged me with her wherever she went. She got me out of the janitorial duties I was originally assigned, and managed to convince the social counselor to give me a job as her administrative assistant, which was a cushy position. The only downside was that I had to attend every group session and take notes.

Every night before lights out—and sometimes well past—Kyra would talk continuously about her life before prison; her boyfriend, John; the daughter she had to give up for adoption; her life on drugs; and a hundred other topics. I didn’t mind. Listening to her go on was therapeutic, and helped to take my mind off my own troubles. Usually, the sound of her voice relaxed me to the point where I would fall asleep without hearing the end of her stories.

It was during one of her life narratives that Kyra mentioned the mantra of control that a rehabilitation coach had taught her when she was first trying to break her addiction.

In the six months I had been her cellmate, I never interrupted her when she was in the middle of a story, but this time I prompted her to give me more detail. “A mantra? Did that work?”

“Well,” she said, thinking about it for a moment. “Sort of. There were a lot of other exercises he got me to do. I mean, there’s no magic cure for addiction. Like they say, you take it one day at a time. Once an addict, always an addict. You can only do as good as you can. But, yeah. There have been moments where the need grabbed me, and I couldn’t for the life of me think of a reason not to snort a line. Maybe it’s kind of like when they tell you to count from ten backward when you’re angry. It distracts you long enough for some part of your brain to take back control.”

I asked, “Can you teach it to me?”

Unusual for her, Kyra was silent for a long time. “Of course, honey. And I won’t even ask you why you would want to learn it.”

She was as good as her word, and she never asked me why. Though Kyra knew the most intimate details of practically everyone’s lives, she rarely got that information by sticking her nose in their business; people just felt comfortable enough around her to open up naturally.

Many nights I had lain awake, wondering about the blaze that took my parents’ lives and puzzling about the cause of the fire that consumed the bunks that first night in prison. Had I started it? The memories were clouded. Though I had been in both fires, I remained untouched—unscarred physically.

In a rare moment, about a month after moving in with Kyra, I had stolen a lighter from one of the other girls in the exercise yard and played the flame against the skin of my forearm. The pain was unimaginable, and the area where I applied the fire turned an ugly black color.

Tossing the lighter away from me and trying bravely to suppress the cry that welled in my throat—lest a guard or other inmate came to investigate—I clamped my hand around my forearm and bit back the tears.

When the agony lessened to a dull throbbing ache, I pulled my hand away. At first, I wondered how I would explain the burn to the nurse in the infirmary; but when I tentatively brushed my fingers against the blackened area, the dark patch flaked off. After a bit of rubbing, every trace of the burn was gone, and my skin was as clean and unmarred as it had ever been.

It was at that point I knew there was something unnatural about me. I knew, deep down, that somehow I was the one who had caused those fires.

It was because of Kyra that for the first few years inside I had never been pushed or angered to the point where I lost control—except for that first night. I wanted to believe that those flare-ups had been isolated incidents. Rationally, I knew better. Prison was a violent place. There was always the possibility of confrontation, and that could lead to something very terrible—unless I could find a way to keep control.

Although it was never designed for someone like me, I learned the mantra from Kyra that night, and—except for one other incident—it had helped me through the remainder of my stay in prison.

* * *

Behind me a horn honked and jarred me back to the present. I yelped and hopped off the bench. Down the street some kid had raced in front of a car on his bike, completely oblivious to the danger. The driver poked his head out the window and yelled something I couldn’t hear.

As the boy sped off on his bike, he passed the Middleton Library.

The prison library had a computer with an internet connection, but I had never used it. The guards monitored usage, and there was no way I could do any kind of research about my affliction without alerting them.

But now there were no guards, no wardens, and no other inmates looking over my shoulder. I had a few clues; a starting-off point. I was not the only person in the universe to have suffered this burden. My great-grandmother had endured it until the end of her days, and had effectively hidden it from her family and friends.

Maybe there was a way I could look up my ancestry, and see if anyone else in my family had this ability. I had a million questions. How far back did it go? Why did Beatrice and I have it, and not my mother or grandmother? Was it just the women? Was miscarriage the trigger, the break in the bond of blood? Or was there more to it? Was it just my family? Did anyone else have this problem?

…Was there a way to control it?

My mind kept coming back to that one main point I had taken from my aunt’s revelation of my family history: control. It was
possible
to control it. Up until now, I had only been able to suppress it.

There had to be a way for me to get a rein on this thing. It was time to stop letting it consume my life. I stood and crossed the street to the library. It was time to find some answers.

Chapter Sixteen

I never made
it into the library, though.

Avoiding the traffic on Main Street, I hurried across the road and stepped up on the sidewalk. When I got to the front door, I swore: I was fifteen minutes early. The doors were locked.

I peered through the glass to see if there was anyone moving around. The place was deserted.

Momentarily frustrated, and more than a little chilly, I looked around for someplace more hospitable to wait out the duration, when someone called out my name.

I turned and blushed when I saw Neil wave at me and call my name again.

“Darcy!” He grinned and headed toward me.

“Hi,” I said when he got closer. I was a brilliant conversationalist.

“Sorry if I startled you,” he said. With a glance at the closed sign on the library door, he asked, “Grabbing a book?”

My gut reaction was to be defensive, as if he were prying into my business; but then I realized he—like anyone else—was just being polite.

“No, uh…”

Neil raised his eyebrows, still smiling that disarming smile of his. Why did guys like him have to be so charming? With my past, I should never even look twice at another man; yet every time Neil was around my stomach got butterflies.

Also, he had never been anything other than a perfect gentleman. Despite my natural misgivings, I found myself letting my guard down.

“The motel doesn’t have the internet. I was going to do some online research.”

Neil perked up. “Yeah?”

I had to be careful what I revealed and how, but Neil was a firefighter after all. I was certain he was as good a person to help me as any. “About fire, actually.”

“Oh,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “My area of expertise.” He gestured down the street. “I was just headed to the fire hall to fill out some forms. Want to come with me? There’s a computer there you can use. Maybe if you tell me what you’re looking for, I can steer you in the right direction.”

When I hesitated, he lifted the large paper bag in his hand. There was a stamp on it from the deli down the street. He said, “I think I bought too much lunch. I can split my sandwich with you.”

My stomach growled at the mention of food. “That sounds like a plan.”

As we walked, I felt passersby staring at us. I kept glancing back at them, trying to meet their eyes, but whenever I did, I saw they were looking elsewhere.

“Something wrong?” Neil asked.

“Oh, uh, nothing.”

* * *

The fire hall was warm, and for that I was grateful. I stamped my feet and rubbed my hands to get the circulation going again.

Neil led me into the office. No one else seemed to be in the building.

“It’s Sunday,” he said. “We have the place to ourselves, unless someone calls in. Let me put the password into the computer for you.”

After he fired up an internet browser, he gestured for me to take the chair. “All yours. You hungry?”

“Famished.”

While Neil divided up his lunch, he glanced over at me. I hadn’t typed anything into the address bar.

“Did you need help?” he asked.

“I know how to use the internet,” I said.

“Sorry. I didn’t know if they let you in—”

“Yeah, the prison library had computers, but they were monitored closely. I went on it a few times, but not for anything personal.”

He passed me half a sandwich and opened a soda for me. “If you want, I can give you some privacy.”

“No. I’m more hungry at the moment,” I said, and smiled as I bit into the bread. We ate in silence for a moment.

“Maybe if you tell me what you’re looking for specifically, I can suggest a starting point.”

“How about spontaneous combustion?” I asked, and glanced at him out of the corner of my eye to measure his reaction.

“Interesting,” he said. “We had a demonstration when I went through the academy on various chemical reactions. It’s an important part of what we investigate. Compost heaps, manure, grain dust, even pistachio nuts can ignite in large quantities. It’s a combination of fermentation and oxidization. Chief Hrzinski has a list around here somewhere. One of our duties is to go around to the ranches and farms in the district and inspect their holding areas and barns for possible combustibles.”