Soul Fire (15 page)

I whirled around, my eyes on the TV screen.
Vine Street? Delta’s street. No. It couldn’t be
. I held my breath. The reporter’s long hair blew in the early morning breeze. Behind her, fire crews sprayed water across the front of the house.
Delta’s house!
“No!” I heard myself scream and I doubled over in physical pain at the thought of what might have happened to him and his mother. Were they dead? Injured? His words screamed across my mind:
You have to promise you’ll never tell anyone where I live.

“What have I done,” I whispered, thinking of my OD in their yard and subsequent news coverage. I stood up to find my family gaping at me.

I looked back at the television.
The front of the house was charred black with smoke escaping from the broken windows. I forced myself to calm down enough to concentrate on what the reporter was saying. “…an elderly neighbor who lives next door, told us he was awakened about 6 a.m. this morning by a loud explosion. By the time he got outside, the front of this house was in flames. He says he tried to get inside, but the heat was too intense. Police say a single mother is known to reside here, along with her teenage son. She is apparently confined to a wheelchair. Still no word on what caused the blast or on the occupants.”

Mom was gaping at me, her eyes wide. I knew we were thinking the same thing. Dell had crossed the Tarantulas by helping me. This was their revenge. From the camera shots of the house, it looked like the worst damage was around the living room. The bedrooms were at the back of the house, so hopefully, there had been enough time for Delta to get his mom into the special chair and for them to escape down the back ramp.

I raced upstairs to grab the little book I used to jot down phone numbers since losing my cell. I fumbled with it until I found Dell’s cell number. Hands shaking, I punched in his number. “Come on.” It rang six times and then went to voicemail. I left a message, dialed Celeste’s cell, and pushed into the corner of my bedroom window hoping to catch sight of her as I waited impatiently for her to answer.

She finally picked up. “I saw it.”

“We need to go over there.”

“Oh, no, Ashla. Bad idea.”

“I’ve got to know. It’s my fault, Celeste."

Silence. “Okay. Meet me out front in ten.”

I threw on my jeans and sweater and watched out the window for Celeste. When her blue Cavalier backed down the drive, I ran downstairs, this time calling goodbye just before closing the front door behind me. I dashed to the car, the wind sending thick curls across my face. Pulling them out of my eyes, I jumped in, and we were off before I could be stopped.

We found a place to park three blocks from Dell’s house. Celeste and I hurried up the block. The wind had picked up, dissipating acrid smoke throughout the neighborhood. We approached the yellow tape that encircled the property and came to a stop beside a small group of onlookers. Neighbors, I guessed.

I turned to the woman next to me, “Have the firemen gone inside yet?”

Her eyes never left the building. “A few minutes ago.”

“Did they find them?”

She shook her head. “No word yet.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I keep praying.”

“You know them?”

She nodded and blew her nose. “Lynn tutored my boys for years. She started out teaching us English. Then, she tutored the boys at every grade level until all of a sudden they jumped ahead of the other kids. Of course, that was before she got ALS. She was an amazing teacher. And you know what else? She did it for nothing! Can you imagine? Said she loved teaching, that we were doing her the favor. Such a gifted woman. She has a big heart. Never met anyone like her.”

A teacher
. “And Dell?”

“Smart boy. Miles ahead of most kids. Could have graduated two years back, but by then Lynn was too ill to go through all the hassle of having him tested.”

My mouth dropped. “Really?” Wow, had I ever underestimated Dell, although I had noticed that when we talked with no one around, his speech was grammar perfect.

She turned to look at me for the first time. “You a friend?”

“I know Dell.”

“Then, you know how bright he is. His mom taught him through all the grade levels and then she started him on university courses . . . to keep him interested. Science. That’s what he likes.”

Science!
Obviously, I didn’t know Dell at all. I had seen only what he wanted me to see. His disguise.

“He’s such a good boy,” the woman continued, “Looks after his mom so well. But she gets worse by the day, and it’s close to the point where she’ll have to go into the care unit. I don’t know what Dell will do when she passes. He’ll be alone. No close relatives, except an uncle who’s overseas. I told him I can put my two boys in one bedroom and give him the other, but he keeps saying he’ll be okay.”

I looked at the charred house; worry churning inside me like rotten milk.
He’s not okay.
I was unsure if my eyes were watering because of the smoke or what I’d just heard about the guy who barely skimmed through school, who hung out with the worst of the worst, and who had a pocket full of nasty pink pills and smelly smokes. That was the
Delta identity
. It seemed I didn’t know the real
Dell
at all
.

I glanced at Celeste who was listening as intently as I. She pulled me aside. “We need to get out of here before one of the news cameras pick us up. We don’t want to be seen here.” She glanced at the time on her cell. “And I’ve got ten minutes to get to class. Come on.”

We scurried back to the car. “What do you think?” Celeste asked me.

“I don’t know why, but I don’t think Dell and his mom were in the house.”

She threw me a look as we climbed in the car. “Neither do I.”

When we were a block from the school, I instructed her to drop me. “Don’t want to walk by the school or the grounds.” I explained.

“Sorry, Ashla. I should drive you home, but I don’t want to be late for Harrison’s class. You know how he freaks about that.”

“That’s okay,” I told her as she pulled along the curb, “I need the exercise. See you later.”

I started walking east, away from the school, when I suddenly had a thought and swung around. I followed the route Delta and I had taken me the morning we’d met.  After a few wrong turns, I arrived outside his uncle’s rundown house. I hesitated. There was no sign of anyone living there. The yard was overgrown and unkempt, not out of character with the neighborhood. I shivered. It wasn’t the damp, windy April morning that was chilling. It was the fact that I was about to walk into that building without anyone knowing where I was and without knowing who could be in there.

Summoning up a few drops of courage, hoping my hunch was right, I climbed the back steps the way Delta and I had done a few weeks earlier and rapped on the door. Not expecting an answer, I waited a minute and knocked louder. Then, I turned the handle and to my shock, the door creaked open. I pushed it slowly inward until it rested against the wall and found myself peering into the gloom.

All the draperies were drawn. I ran my hand up the wall until I found the light switch and flipped it on, thinking the power was probably off. I blinked in surprise as light flooded the kitchen. If that wasn’t enough, the place was clean!

“Hello?” I called out, ready to charge back out the door. There was no sound inside the house. No footsteps. I stepped inside, and leaving the door open as an escape route, I looked around ready to dash back out at a moment’s notice. I was in a stranger’s house. Technically, I was an intruder. I could be shot. I swallowed and called out, “Hello? Anyone home?” I was so nervous my voice sounded hoarse.

Suddenly, the door slammed shut behind me and the light went out. I jumped right off the floor and whirled around, bolting for the door, intending to flee. Two strong arms brought me to a stop and my scream shot through the darkness.

A hand cupped over my mouth. “Stop!”

I recognized the voice and went limp. His name came out sounding garbled through his hand.

“No more screaming,” he ordered.

I nodded and he gently let me go. “Were you followed?” he asked anxiously.

I collapsed against the kitchen counter. “No one saw me. I was alone all the way here.”

“You sure?”

“Yes,” I replied shakily, trying to see him in the gloom. “Are you okay?”

“You kidding? What’s
okay,
in your opinion?” He was pissed with me. The remark was cutting. “Is your mom alright?” I persisted.

He reached into his jeans pocket, pulled a lighter out of his jeans pocket, and aimed it at a candle on the counter. “Is she alright?” He repeated mockingly and ran his other hand though his hair before looking at me in disgust. “After your big OD, our name and address were plastered all over the news. I knew someone from the gang would pick up on it. When Mako set his sights on me, I had no illusions of what that maniac was capable of, so I put my mom into the care unit where she’d be safe.” He toyed with the lighter. His voice dropped. “Was putting it off anyway. She’s near the end now. Not much time left…”

His voice broke and he turned away. I put my hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry, Dell.” I really didn’t know how to comfort him. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose the only person in the world you love. I realized that given everything, Dell was much worse off than me. At least I had a loving, supportive family and close friends. I wasn’t facing things completely alone as he was now doing.

“Yeah…” was all he could say.

My eyes adjusted to the gloom and I looked at him in the candlelight. For these few moments, instead of the charismatic, laid back, tough guy, I saw instead, a lost, lonely boy, and that tore at my heart. Instinctively, I turned to him, put both arms around him, and hugged him. He dropped his head on my shoulder and we held each other for a long time.

I wondered at his allowing me to comfort him. Even as a tough member of the Tarantulas, he was a loner. But now, on the run from them, his mom struggling through the last hours of her life, and with no one to turn to, he accepted what little I could offer.

“Come to my house,” I whispered.

He pulled back and swiped his eyes with his sleeve. “Too dangerous.” He gripped my arms. “You realize, Ashla, that what happened to my place, could happen to yours. Your family is in so much danger.”

His words hit like bullets. He was right. “Mako has to be stopped,” I said.

“How? Shall we call the police?” His voice was thick with sarcasm.

“Yes. That’s it exactly. You could make an anonymous call to them. Tell them you have reason to believe the Tarantulas, and Mako in particular, is responsible for the fire at your house. He committed a crime, Dell. He should be charged.”

Instead of agreeing with me, Dell turned away.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You can’t let him get away with throwing a—whatever it was—“

“Molotov cocktail.”

I swallowed. “A what?”

“It’s an incendiary weapon, of sorts. Kind of like a homemade bomb.”

I backed over to the kitchen table and slumped into a chair. “A bomb,” I whispered. “He threw
a bomb
into your house?”

“Tossed it through the living room window.”

“You sound so deadpan about it.”

“Expected it. That’s why I moved Mom out and came here.”

I glanced around the kitchen. Even in the candle light I could see the scarred counters and floor had been scrubbed clean. The house was reasonably warm so he must have turned on the furnace. The fridge cut in.

“So you won't rat him out.”

“Not my style.”

“Not even to save a life?” I thought of my family. “Or a few lives?”

He rubbed his eyes, exhaustion obvious. “There are other ways.”

I tried to discern what those might be. “Like what?”

“I’ll work it out.”

That didn’t sound good, so I tried out another suggestion. “Tara has a cousin at King News. She could leak this to him. If reporters start snooping around, maybe Mako will take off. Tara’s cousin could pass the info to the police, put Mako on the run. Get him to focus on his own survival rather than our demise.”

Dell shrugged.

“I’ll talk to Tara tonight.”

“You’re forgetting that Mako’s not the only one involved. For starters, he got his sidekick, Crip, who’s almost as depraved as he is. Then there’s about ten Tarantulas who get off on causing extreme human misery.” He leaned back against the cupboard and crossed his arms. “I like my idea better.”

I frowned. “I thought you hadn’t worked it out yet.” I didn’t want to know his plan. Frustrated and feeling like I had hit another dead end, I walked over to the fridge and looked inside. Milk, pizza, juice, and a few apples. I opened the freezer. Frozen dinners.

“Hungry?” he asked, surprised.

“Curious.” Somehow, I knew he was capable of looking after himself. I guessed he’d been doing it for the past three or four years that his mom had been so sick. “Do you have enough money to live on?”

“For now.”

I studied him. He had risked everything to help me the day Mako hurtled that rock at me. But why? Why would a tough guy like Delta do that? His dark eyes held mine. He reached out and ran his hand over my hair. “You’re a beautiful girl, Ashla. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” His voice was almost a whisper. I grabbed his wrist and held it. There was a depth to Dell I could only guess at. For a moment, he let down his guard, and I could see so much emotion in his eyes. The candles flickered across his face. We seemed in a mutual trance, locked in by fear . . . and something else.

Then he pulled back, his hand slipping to his side. “Time’s running out,” he said. “You need to warn your family. Disappear for a while. At least until—“

“Until what? No! Don’t tell me.”

“You can’t risk staying put, Ashla.”

I shook my head. “My parents aren’t going to go anywhere. They’re having enough trouble getting their heads around all this as it is.”

“Make them understand. You’re entire family is in danger. The Tarantulas are out there. They’re going to make their move. It’s just a matter of
when.”