Heroes 'Til Curfew (Talent Chronicles #2) (42 page)

Even if what I have to do is completely
impossible.

I didn’t say anything. I just grabbed Joss
and swung her, hurling her body at that spot, and then I jumped
after her, rolling when I hit the ground. When I stopped rolling,
she was still hitting me.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.”

“You moron, your pants were on fire. Are you
all right?”

“Yeah, think so.” I lay on my back and
squinted up. I couldn’t see anything through the smoke, but it was
there, in my mind’s eye from when I’d come through here before. I
stood up and Joss grabbed at me.

“Stay down!”

“Hang on.” I held my breath and squeezed my
eyes shut as I felt around over my head with both hands. Just as I
thought I was going to pass out from the heat and smoke, one of my
hands caught the rope. I yanked down, pulling down the trap door
for the attic access, feeling for the ladder and unfolding it. I
dropped back to the floor to catch my breath. “Attic,” I wheezed.
“Let’s get up there before all the smoke does.”

From the way she choked, I think Joss wanted
to make another wise crack and couldn’t do it. I boosted her up
onto the ladder and went up after her, pulling the door closed
behind us.

The attic was really just a crawl space. And
of course it had no windows. That would have been too easy. “Make
for the side there.” We belly-crawled it to the side, over sheets
of plywood that weren’t even screwed in place. Where the roof met
the floor I reached in and pulled out insulation until I felt
fresh, cold air from outside. We lay there on the floor and just
breathed.

“Air is good,” Joss croaked.

I just nodded. Right now we had fresh, cold
air on our faces, but it had to be over one hundred degrees up
here. Below us were two floors of burning house. No windows, no
exit except the way we came in, no way out. Basically, we were
screwed and we’d just found a source of fresh air such that we
could probably stay conscious until the house collapsed and we were
burned alive.

* * *

Joss

We were quiet. It was hard to talk, but I
knew it was really because we didn’t want to acknowledge the truth
of it. That there was no way out. That we had given up. I reached
up and touched Dylan’s cheek, enjoying the prickle under my
fingertips.

“What are you thinking?” His voice was wary.
Like maybe he didn’t want me to answer.

“I was thinking how it would be nice to see
your face when someone hasn’t been pummeling it.”

“Picky.”

“I love you.” I don’t know why it was so
hard to say it. It was always hard. But here, looking right at him,
when it was so important, it was still really hard. “I should tell
you more.”

He caught my hand, brought it to his lips.
“You don’t have to tell me anything.” He lowered his head, brushed
his mouth lightly over mine. It was about all the kiss we could
manage anymore. He pulled me against him, tucked my head into his
shoulder in that way we just fit together. I squeezed my eyes shut,
tried not to cry. “I love you, you love me. We know what we know,
right? We don’t have to talk about it.”

“
We know what we know.” Was he just
talking about our relationship, or did he mean we didn’t need to
talk about how we were going to die?

“
Joss.”

“What?”

“What?” Dylan asked back.

“You just said my name.”

“No I didn’t.”

“
Sorry, that was me.”

I sat up, banging my head on the roof. “Who
is that?”

“Hey, stay down here where the air is,
okay?” Dylan pulled me gently back down. “How’s your head?”

“Not good, I think.”

“
Um, okay, so you hear me. Heather’s
right, you do think loud. I mean, I’ve never heard you before, but
my Talent seems to be a lot more selective than hers. But now that
she’s got me tuned in to you—”

“Who are you?”

“It’s still me, Marshall. It’s Dylan. I’m
right here.”

“
My name’s Joel.”

“Joel?”

“Joss, what are you talking about?” He took
my face in his hands. “Who’s Joel?”

“The voice in my head, I guess.”

“Jesus.”

“
Yeah, Joel. I’m a friend of Tim’s. We
met at that other fire. Look, I was at his house when that guy Rob
called and Tim said I could come along. And you don’t have to talk
out loud. I can hear what you think. You know how that works. Just
like Heather. She’s right here next to me.”

Heather’s here?

“
She’s right here. So are a bunch of
other kids. They’re trying to put out the fire, but we need to know
where you are.”

We’re in the attic. Who’s here?

“
I don’t know everyone. Hold on.”

“Heather and some other kids are here.
They’re trying to get us out.”

“
There’s Tim, Raine and Lakota, and
Heather says Rob, Eric—”

“How do you—”

“Hang on,” I interrupted, “I’m
listening.”

“To the voice in your head.”

“Joel. We met him the other night. I guess
he’s a telepath.”

“
Didn’t we already cover this?”

Not for Dylan. Okay, so a bunch of our
friends are here. Do you think they can get us out?

“
Tim’s going in. He can draw some of the
power out of the fire, but I don’t know if he can handle this much.
Raine wants to go in with him, but he says no and they’re arguing.
She says it’s too hot inside. He’ll be burned. She can probably
bring the temp down, but he’s yelling at her that the structure’s
not sound. Rob’s agreeing that it’s not safe for either of them.
Okay, wait, I think he’s giving up and letting her follow him
in.”

“Tim and Raine are coming in.”

“Are they insane?”

“Apparently.”

We lay there and waited for several
minutes.

Joel, are you still there? What’s going
on?

“
The big kids are fighting.”

Who?

“
Um, Heather and Kat want to go in and
find out what’s going on. Eric and Rob aren’t letting
them.”

Tell them I said stay right where they are
or I’m kicking ass when I get out of here.

After a moment, Joel’s voice came to my head
again.
“Oh, nice job. Heather heard that, dissolved into tears.
Kat wanted to know, so I told her, she started crying. Wait, hang
on. Heather says I need to tune in to Tim.”
A pause.
“Tim’s
thinking the stairs are no-go, but he and Raine are on the back
side of the house, in the kitchen area. That’s where you guys
should be, right? From the outside that looks like where the attic
would be.”

“Um…would you say we’re on the back side of
the house? Kind of over the kitchen?”

“Yeah, I think so, why? What’s going
on?”

Yeah, Dylan thinks that’s where we are.

“
Okay, well I hope so. Tim’s got the fire
under control on the back side of the house, but I don’t know how
much more thermal energy he can absorb right now. His brain’s going
like he’s on crack or something. The stairs are shot, and parts of
the floor are gone. They’re trying to figure out how to get up to
the second floor.”

If Tim’s used up his Talent, they need to
get the hell out of the house.

“
Hold on. He’s stubborn. He’s boosted
Raine up so she could freeze the ceiling. They broke off part of
the banister and used it to break through. They’re trying to find
enough furniture to stack so he can climb up, but a lot of it’s
burned and it keeps falling.”

Tell that stupid kid to get out.

“
Heather just said Raine’s thinking the
fire from the front of the house is creeping back toward
them.”

“Tell him to get that girl out of the house.
Right now,” I said aloud without meaning to.

“Joss, what’s going on?”

I gave Dylan a quick run-down of the
situation.

“Crazy kids.”

“
Okay, Joss? Tim’s thinking he’s got
enough of the fire on the second floor that you guys can come down.
But he’s tapped and he’s choking on the smoke. Eric and Rob are
going in to help them get out. You need to trust us. Come down out
of the attic. It’s going to be hard to see, but just be careful.
Find the hole in the floor in the hallway that’s over the kitchen,
right behind the first landing of the staircase. Climb down or drop
down or something. Come through the kitchen to the broken window.
But you have to hurry. Without Tim there to draw the fire down,
it’s just going to start coming back.”

Okay, we’re on our way down.

I quickly related Joel’s directions to Dylan
as I pushed the trap door down. Smoke immediately flooded the
attic, blinding and choking us.

He went down first. “Floor seems solid right
under the ladder. How you doing?”

“Better, I think. Not as dizzy as earlier.”
And that was actually true, not just for his benefit.

He waited right under the ladder, to make
sure I didn’t fall off, I guess, rather than looking for the way
down. I didn’t have it in me to get too aggravated about it. I
could hear the fire crackling around us, but it was so dark that I
couldn’t really see it except for flickers of orange on the far
side of the house. We dropped to our knees and carefully felt our
way across the floor.

“Here it is,” Dylan said. “Careful. It
doesn’t feel too steady right here. Still looks okay down there, as
far as I can see.”

“You go down first.”

“Shut up. I’ll lower you down, then I’ll be
right behind you.”

“No, really. Dylan, I said I feel a little
better, but I’m still not steady on my feet. Just go down so you
can catch me, okay?” I know it was stupid to argue. I know it was
stupid to play up the damsel thing just to get him out of danger
before me. Maybe we had some unspoken contest of who could be
stupider, trying to protect the other.

He squeezed my hand. “All right. We’re gonna
be okay, Joss. Just a few more minutes.”

“Yeah.”

Dylan swung his legs around and dropped
carefully down through the hole. One of the pieces of furniture
crumpled and the pile fell with him.

“Dylan?”

“I’m okay!” He pushed the pile out of way
and appeared under the hole. “We don’t need that anyway. Come on
down.”

I started to swing my legs into the hole
when a voice screamed for Dylan to get down. Something exploded. I
fell sideways from the blast, but when I dragged myself back up,
all I could see below me was a wall of flame.

“Raine!”

I heard the scream, even over the sound of
my own and somehow recognized Tim’s agonized voice.

“Tim, make it stop!”

“I’m trying, goddammit!”

I tried to get closer, to get a better view
of what was happening down there, but it was so hot.

Please let him be okay. Please let him be
okay.

“
Joss, are you okay?”

I’m not hurt. What happened? Did Dylan make
it out? Of course he didn’t make it out. He was standing right
there, waiting to catch me.

“
Dylan didn’t come out. Raine got a phone
call from Chelsea. Sometimes she sees things, you know? Raine
dropped the phone and ran back into the house. Tim chased after
her, but he was barely in the window before that explosion. It came
from the front of the house. Rob’s saying maybe there was a gas
fireplace.”

Heather. Does Heather hear them?

“
She says no. Just Tim. Tim’s in
there.”

I can hear Tim. He’s calling for Raine. But
I can’t—

Just as I was thinking I couldn’t see him,
Tim moved into my line of sight. The flames cast an orange glow
over him, and the heat must have been nearly unbearable. He kept
advancing, both hands held out like he would embrace the fire. But
it didn’t come to meet him, it receded. And as he continued to move
forward, calling out Raine’s name over and over, the flames moved
back away from him.

And then I saw it. Right below me, something
huge and crystalline.

It was ice.

Chapter 20

Joss

I dropped down through the hole, sliding off
the ice and onto the floor. My ankle bent under me and I went all
the way down on my elbow. Frantically I scrambled back up, clawing
at the huge mound of ice, squinting to see the two figures trapped
inside.

“Tim! Get them out!”

Tim brought his hands together in a
resounding clap and the flames receded further. He turned to me,
his face reddened under the streaks of black, sweat pouring, the
orange glow of the flames flickering over him. His eyes seemed
wild, and somehow he seemed to crackle with power. It was like he
wasn’t the the same boy I’d been teasing about Pull-Ups just a few
days ago.

He reached out for the ice, his hands—his
whole body—starting to glow. It only took a moment for the ice to
break, going from solid to a flood of water in a blink. Raine lay
facedown on top of Dylan, like she had thrown herself on top of him
in that last instant before the explosion. Neither of them
moved.

“Raine?” Tim grabbed her, dragged her away
from Dylan. He shook her hard. “Raine, come on!”

“Tim, easy!”

I found Dylan’s pulse. It was faint, but
there. But he wasn’t conscious. I tried to stand while pulling him
up and my ankle collapsed under me.

Tim was still yelling at Raine.

“Tim!”

“I don’t think she’s breathing!”

“Get her outside. Start CPR. You know how to
do that.”

Joel, Heather, send someone in to help us
right now!

Eric and Rob were coming through the window
almost as soon as I finished my thought.

“I’ve got her!” Tim snarled at them as he
carried Raine past. It was almost like the fire could sense Tim
leaving. It seemed to swell as he maneuvered through the
window.

“Over here!” I yelled at them. “I can’t move
him.”