Page 1 of Firestorm
Prologue
Skye
Thunder.
Thunder so loud, so bright, I was momentarily blinded. Momentarily deafened. My ears rang, my vision blurred as I tried to regain my balance. The world was tilted, and everything around me was–
My eyes widened as I took in the scene of complete and utter devastation.
I wasn’t imagining it. I wasn’t dreaming. I couldn’t be. My breath came quicker and shallower. No matter where I looked, the damage only grew worse.
Glass littered the street. The brown brick wall I’d been standing next to with Mom and Ben now lay across the road, reduced to rubble.
My hearing suddenly came back in a rush. My hands flew to cover my ears, the sounds around me too overwhelming.
People screaming. People crying. People crawling out of debris, crawling because they were…missing limbs?!
Missing arms. Missing legs.
A little girl huddled next to her mom on the ground, crying hysterically. Her mom wasn’t helping her. Why wasn’t she helping her?
I choked on my next breath, taking in how still the mom was, how her body and neck were twisted at odd angles–
Then it hit me. The mom was dead.
Wait, where wasmymom?
“Mom?” I called out, my voice scratchy. I grabbed at my shoulders, then looked down as my hands dropped to my stomach. Everything was still attached. In fact, there were no scratches or cuts anywhere on me. Some blood trailed down my neck from my ears, still ringing from the blasts.
My mind was fried. I glanced back and forth between the little girl sobbing, a woman clutching what was left of her arm while screaming, a man moaning and groaning at a missing leg, and what remained of the brick wall behind me.
How?Howwas I not hurt?
Lightning did this? It wasn’t even cloudy. But I’d heard the thunder…
“A bomb,” a woman wailed into her phone nearby, drawing my attention.
“Two explosions,” A man said from behind me.
Explosions. Not thunder.
I choked out a sob.
A bomb. Someone had set off abombin the square. More than one. Someone had set off a bomb and everyone around me was super messed up, and I–
I could only assume my affinity had completely protected me. I was totally unharmed, the only person in the square not covered in blood…mine or anyone else’s. My hindbrain must have reacted to the danger before my consciousness realized what was happening. I was completely safe, save for my throat which felt rubbed raw, like I’d been screaming; and my ears, which were bleeding and throbbing.
My eyes landed on Mom’s blue coat, flapping in the cool breeze. It looked so serene, like there hadn’t just been a–two, explosions. But something was wrong with that scene, too.
“Mom?” My voice wavered.
Mom’s coat was impaled on one the metal bars of the wrought iron fence we’d been standing by.
I gasped. If Mom’s coat had been impaled, that meant–
“Skye!” Zephyr’s voice cut through the air. “Close your eyes, Skye.Do itnow.”
My eyes snapped shut. My big brother’s body barreled into me a moment later. His arms banded around me tightly, squeezing me like a python.
