Page 3 of Brutal Alpha Bully

It starts with the air around Nora and me becoming clearer, the smoke flowing away from us like a powerful fan has blown it off like a fog floating out over the mountains.

Nora looks up at me, her blue eyes tinged with red and going wide at the realization of what I’m doing. She knows about my magic, but I’ve made it clear that nobody else is to know about it. And after starting school, Nora knows why.

She knows that she’s the girl with the freak mom. The girl whose mom played a role in the fires all those years ago.

I swallow all that down, definitely not about to think about it right now, and force myself to focus, controlling the magic until it becomes hard and rigid, forming a bubble around Nora and me. We force our way through the burning house like hamsters in a ball, and when it gets too hot in the ball, I use what little energy I have to cool the air in our little bubble to a bearable level.

Finally, after what feels like a marathon through hell, Nora and I burst out onto the lawn, gasping for air. She coughs next to me on all fours, heaving until I’m sure her lungs are going to slide right out of her mouth.

I rub her back, trying to use a trickle of magic to help her, get the smoke out of her body.

Then, raising her head, she says, “Mom, look!”

Our street is burning all around us, the other houses in various degrees of consumption like dying stars. One at the end of the street looks like the fire has only just begun to touch it, while just beside it is a pile of that silky ash, the finest soot, shifting in the dry wind from the blaze next door.

The results of a daemon fire, burning ten times hotter than the typical wildfire, sending the humans around here into a frenzy, trying to put it out. For weeks, they brought planes full of water, dumping it down and becoming astounded and frustrated when it just kept on burning.

But that’s the thing about daemon fire—it doesn’t give a shit about water. The only way to put it out is to stifle it—much like a regular fire—but in a more serious way. To stifle daemon fire, you have to take the energy from it.

My thoughts scatter and reform when, across the street, I see a little boy leaning out the top window of his house.

He opens his mouth and screams for someone to come help him. My heart drops into my stomach, pounding hard enough that I swear I can taste it.

“Stay right here,” I say to Nora, planting her on the sidewalk and maintaining that invisible bubble around her just in case. It’s drawing energy from me quickly, like a little hole has been opened just on my side and I’m leaking out.

I should retain that energy to help Nora. To keep myself safe.

But the boy screams again, and I know what I’m going to do. Running, bare feet screaming at the hot pavement pushing up against them, I sprint into the neighbor’s yard.

Even the grass is hot, sticky, and wet, almost like it belongs to a play set that’s been melting, left out on the sidewalk by a kid on a hot day. I race through it, hiking my nightgown up around my calves to run faster. I glance around quickly, blind panic filling every corner of my mind.

Somewhere in the back of my head, I acknowledge the fact that this is the first time I’ve been in this neighbor’s yard. Despite summer after summer of living here, and barbecue after barbecue, Nora and I have never been invited. We’ve never joined the parties. Nora has never joined the kids in playing on blow-up water slides. I’ve never clinked a beer with the other adults, grousing about rising insurance prices.

“Help!” the boy screams, sounding strangled with fear, his voice twisting and rising to that high, grating pitch only little boys can manage. He’s not looking at me until I come to a stop under his window and throw up my hands toward him.

“Jump!” I command, my own voice coming out haggard and raw. It’s too much for me—I know that. The strain of keeping the protection around Nora, and trying to help this boy.

But I can’t just let him burn. No matter how cruel his parents have been to me. No matter how poor the reception was when Nora and I showed up, moving into my late grandmother’s home. No matter the fact that I remember this same boy refusing to deliver a newspaper to our front door.

He shakes his head, eyes going wide at what I’m suggesting. It’s a long way, a drop that would surely break his bones without something to lighten his fall.

Doing something I almost never do, I use my magic to compel with my voice, telling him with the might of a pissed-off school principal, “Jump!”

Looking like it’s the last thing in the world he wants to, he brings his body up into the frame of the window, the bright orange and blue of the daemon fire behind him illuminating his skinny arms and legs. Then, standing with his arms outstretched, one hand on each side of the frame, he swallows and pushes off with his feet, gravity immediately taking over and bringing him toward the ground, toward me, toward my outstretched hands.

Using what little magic I have remaining, I fight against that gravity, mentally pushing himup, up.His body slows, his face shifting from terror to wonder when he realizes he’s not plummeting at a normal speed, but floating down with the grace of a feather.

My arms shake, and my body heaves with the effort. I feel like I’m being pinned at the bottom of a pool, lungs desperate for air, but my body is unable to break the surface.

Then, with only an inch left to go, my magic gives out, and he hurtles down onto my body with an“oomph.”

For a long moment, I just lay in the grass, my skin numb and tingling, my breath coming hard and fast, the weight of the little boy making it harder to breathe. But I have no strength left inside me to move him to the side.

“Mom,” Nora gasps, falling to her knees in the grass beside me. I open my eyes and see her face upside down, sweaty, sooty blond hair falling over her forehead and trembling in the breeze around us. “Are you okay?”

I blink, still coming back into myself, trying to come up with something to say to my daughter, when another noise infiltrates the little moment.

“Brandon!”

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