Page 41 of Of Flame and Fate

Your arms were destined to embrace me.

You were supposed to leave me pure.

Instead you looked away and sighed.

Leaving me to weep. Leaving me to die.”

Every word is like a dagger, stabbing me through the heart, his voice as commanding as Chad Kroeger and his words as poignant as Eminem’s, telling a story of a life filled with torment and sorrow.

A few people beside us fall to their knees, clutching their chests and openly weeping.

This is only the first song and their response to his music is not what I expected. No, Johnny, isn’t what I expected.

Something in me clicks in a way I don’t want it to, sending the urgency I’m feeling out of control. “We have to get to Destiny.” I rush forward, pushing people out of my way as I make my way closer to the stage. “We have to get her out of here now!”

“T.T, what’s wrong?”

I can’t explain to Shayna what I don’t understand myself. Johnny is different, even more so than Destiny. It’s a bad thing, I think. No, not think,know.

It’s as if a grenade has rolled to a stop at my feet with its pin missing. I don’t wait for it to explode. I move fast, desperate to spare us from the blast.

I think Emme and Shayna follow. At least I hope they do. I don’t stop to look, dodging around the bodies too large to push through.

The music blares, each beat matching the painful thuds of my heart, and each syllable flowing through Johnny’s lips, pulling out memories better left forgotten.

I reach the arena floor when my phone vibrates in my back pocket. I only answer it because I think it’s Shayna or Emme.

Gemini’s face flash across the screen. “What’s happening?” he growls. “I can feel your torment.”

“I don’t know,” I say through my teeth. I’m not a hysterical woman. It’s not a luxury I can afford if I want to stay alive. I’m hysterical now, the raw feelings poking through making it hard to stay calm.

“I need you here, okay?” My already fast breaths quicken. “Please come, love. I need you.”

“Taran,Jesus.”

Like me, he probably can’t believe I’m this much of a mess, begging him for help. I should get a hold of myself. He’s not here and all I’m doing is further stressing him and his beasts.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, trying to make sense of why I’m so upset. “Did someone hurt you or the others?”

“No. We’re not hurt—something isn’t right,” I say. “There’s magic, lots of it. I don’t know what kind it is. But it’s affecting us and everyone around here.”

It’s as much as I manage. “We’re in route,” he tells me. “Stay alive, you hear me?”

I nod, although he can’t see me, my nervousness propelling me forward and to the first row of seats. My foot hits something hard. I’m not sure what it is, my gaze unnaturally fixed on Johnny as he sings, every deep emotion I’ve ever felt dripping like honey with each of his lyrics.

The stage, the people, everything falls away, leaving me in a world filled with blinding white light.

Quiet greets me, loud in a way and eerily still, erasing the panic engulfing me seconds ago.

At first, I think I’m dead, and somehow made my way into heaven. But then hell arrives, knocking me hard in the head and reminding me of my sins.

Skulls litter the desolate and burning ground, their charred remains smeared with blue and white ash. Some are human. One is of a beast. There’s no life around me, nothing but smoke and what remains of my fire.

It’s then I know that I’m in neither heaven nor hell. I’m in the future, my vision forming from stress or panic, or simply the need to fuck with me.

I fall to my knees from the gruesome sight, lifting the skull of the beast at my feet. It’s feline, a tiger. Just like my sister.

A sob cuts through my throat as I clutch it to me, its weight unbearably heavy and too much to hold.

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