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Across the clearing where the trailer homes used to stand, she could see mounds of bodies burning. Were those her friends?
For a moment, she thought his father was right, and this had been Wreck’s destiny all along…but then she remembered something.
She remembered how his face had softened when he’d watched Ruger open his trading card. She remembered how protective he was of the girls when they’d gone out for karaoke. She remembered how Gunner had approached him in the hallway of that bar and told Wreck he respected how he’d handled things with her mother, and she remembered the look on Wreck’s face when he shook Gunner’s hand. He hadn’t even burned Gunner that time. She remembered the funny stories he’d told her about the Fastlanders. She’d felt the care in his voice as he’d spoken about them.
She remembered how tender he’d gone when she’d asked him to save Riyah.
She remembered how gentle his lips had gone when he’d kissed her.
She remembered how terrified he was to touch her the night he’d burned his home.
He didn’t like hurting people.
Wreck wasn’t bad.
He wasn’t evil.
He was powerful, yes, but he cared.
Deep down, he cared.
Timber tilted her head toward the sky, and at a normal volume, she uttered his name. “Josiah.”
The phoenix screeched a metal-on-metal sound.
“Stop that, girl,” his father ordered, anger infused in his words.
She inhaled deeply and lifted her voice to the sky. “This isn’t you, Josiah. It never was.”
Another screech, and the enormous phoenix dove for her, lifting up at the last second. She didn’t flinch. He wouldn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t.
“You and I have only just begun our story. If you leave these mountains burning, you’ll never be okay again, and I need you to be okay.”
“Stop it right now!” his father screamed from right beside her.
He couldn’t touch her. He wasn’t real.
As his father faded away, she lifted her voice higher, clenching her hands into fists. “Josiah Itall, can you hear me? I need us to be okay. I need our friends to be okay.” Her face crumpled, and she gripped her hair tightly as tears streamed down her face. She looked back into Damon’s empty eyes. She could so easily see herself reflected there. Naked. Streaked withsoot and blood. Dried crimson painted the right side of her face, and her eyes glowed bright-blue. She didn’t even recognize herself, and probably never would again after tonight. “Josiah. For me, I need you to bring them back.” She tilted her face to the sky, and at the top of her lungs, she screamed, “Bring them back, or kill me with them! Give me your fire!”
And as that phoenix she loved and believed in spewed red fire in a trail aimed right for her, she knew what to do. She had to succumb either way. Burn alive, or burn to live, it would be up to the phoenix, not the man. She had to trust that he loved her enough.
Tears streaking through the blood and soot on her face, she stood and held her fists out, threw her head back and screamed, “I love you, Josiah!” When his fire hit her, she fell to the earth and slammed her fists onto the burned ground, and a wave of power blasted from her. Her body was incinerated. That’s what it felt like, but she still existed. Screaming, she forced her eyes open to witness the green flames covering the land as far as she could see. It felt like a thousand deaths.
Her skin melted off, and then repaired, melted off…repaired.
The wind and the power of the flames were too much for her to handle. She had to dig her fingers into the dirt so she wouldn’t blow away. She closed her eyes against the pain and screamed in agony, and as suddenly as the fire started…it stopped.
Dragging a breath into her suffocating lungs, she curled in on herself and pried her eyes open. She was face-to-face with the enormous head of the blue dragon. His mouth was parted, and his razor-sharp teeth were exposed. His spikes and horns didn’t look like weapons now. Not when he was lying here with no life in him.
The dragon was burning, but the flames were green.
Something hit the ground hard. She flinched at the impact, and stared in horror as she realized what had just landed in the clearing.
Wreck knelt there, arms out, every muscle in his body tensed. He screamed, and another pulse of green flames extended from him. He opened his eyes, and they landed on hers. She could see him there. She could see his soul. It was good.Hewas good.
His face crumpled, and he said, “I love you too. Timber, I love you too.” And then he tensed, and another wave of forest-green flames consumed everything, blurring her vision completely.
She was the one who saw life come back to the dragon’s eyes as his reptilian pupil constricted and the low rumble of his snarl vibrated the earth underneath her body.
