Caloric

The first thing Phoenyx saw when she opened her eyes was Sebastian’s gorgeous face a few inches from hers. They were laying as close to each other as they comfortably could with the bars between them. He was still sleeping. Damn, he is so cute, and last night was fantastic! She felt all warm and cozy inside. She slept surprisingly well for a woman with a death sentence.

She sat up and stretched her arms up in a yawn.

“Good morning,” Lily said behind her, surprising her. “Or should I say good afternoon?”

Phoenyx looked around to see that Lily and Skylar were both awake. He was already in training mode; he was once again staring at Lily intently.

“Afternoon?” Phoenyx asked. “What time is it?”

Lily looked at her watch. “Almost one o’clock.”

“Whoa, I can’t believe I slept so long,” Phoenyx said happily.

“I can’t believe any of us slept at all,” Lily said. She extended her hand holding an apple. There was a single bite taken out of it. “Here, you should have a bite. Just one so we can conserve.”

“Thanks, Lil,” Phoenyx said, feeling touched by Lily’s consideration. She took the apple and took one big bite. Geez, she couldn’t remember a time when an apple ever tasted this good. She took her time chewing, savoring, and moving it from side to side until the mush dissolved away. Then she gave the apple back to Lily, doubting her self-control.

As soon as she took the apple, Lily was suddenly lifted up a few inches off the floor and then fell hard back on her butt. Skylar let out a big breath and put his hand over his forehead soothingly.

“Ow!” Lily yipped.

“Sorry,” Skylar said. “It’s still hard to control. I’ll try to be gentler.”

“It’s okay,” Lily said. “It’s my fault for having such a boney butt.” She laughed, leaning to the side to rub one cheek.

Skylar chuckled and shook his head. “All right, I need a break.” He took out an apple from his own reserve and bit into it.

Sebastian stirred. When he opened his eyes, he looked lost for a moment; then his eyes found Phoenyx and he smiled. He sat up and yawned, running his hands through his hair, seeming very rested and satisfied.

“Good morning,” he said, giving Phoenyx an intimate look.

“Morning,” she said back, giving him a Mona Lisa smile.

“Technically, its afternoon,” Lily said.

“Oh, right,” Phoenyx said, remembering that she and Sebastian were not alone. Then she remembered that, if it was one o’clock, she had wasted a whole morning’s worth of training. Crap! I need to get started now.

“Sebastian, we need to get to training,” she said. “We slept all morning, so we have a lot of catching up to do.”

He breathed in deep through his nose. “Okay,” he said. He looked at Skylar, snatched the apple from his hand, took a bite, and then handed it back before Skylar could gripe at him about it. With his mouth full, Sebastian smiled wide at him, then moved to his post in front of the toilet as he chewed the apple bite loudly.

Phoenyx followed her own instructions and took one of the paper bags from the pile. She sat back against the wall and crumpled up the bag into a ball in her hands, then set in on the floor in front of her; she knew she could start a fire by touching whatever she wanted to burn but she needed to learn to burn things without touching them. Okay, time to test Sebastian’s anger theory. She had to get mad. What would make her mad?

Her eyes wandered over to Sebastian. He was looking at her too. She blushed and made that weird frown that comes from trying to hide a smile and looked away. How on earth was she going to get angry right now? She had just had one of the best nights ever. The only way it could have been better is if they could have fully explored their lust for each other. Her whole body blushed at the thought. Her mind was filled with thoughts of Sebastian, and it wasn’t easily going to let go of them.

She looked at him again, and again he was looking at her. She smiled at him, and he winked at her, making her blush again.

“What’s the winking all about?” Lily asked somewhat playfully. “What’s going on over there?”

Sebastian and Phoenyx reluctantly broke eye contact to address Lily.

“They made out last night,” Skylar said flatly.

“What?” Lily burst with a big open-mouthed smile.

Now both Phoenyx and Sebastian were blushing madly and fidgeting embarrassedly.

“Just so you both know, I’m trying as hard as I can to stay out of your minds. I’m still disgusted,” Skylar said.

Phoenyx and Sebastian burst out laughing. Sebastian patted Skylar on the shoulder.

“Sorry, buddy, we’ll try to keep things PG,” he said.

Lily looked all bubbly and excited. “How did it happen?”

“I-I’ll give you details later,” Phoenyx assured in a hushed tone.

Lily smiled enthusiastically. Phoenyx could tell her new friend was mentally appraising Sebastian.

“All right, seriously,” Skylar said, “can we all just please focus on the task at hand. It’s hard enough to do this with silence, let alone trying to block out live streaming porn from both of your minds.”

Another wink from Sebastian.

“You’re right, Skylar,” Phoenyx said. “You’re right, we—” she looked at Sebastian—“need to cool things down. We need to focus.”

“Yeah, we’ll just wait till you fall asleep again,” Sebastian teased Skylar.

Skylar laughed somewhat sardonically and shook his head, then closed his eyes and sat up straight in a meditative sort of position.

Phoenyx took a page from his book and did the same. She took a deep breath in and then whooshed it out. She grudgingly pushed Sebastian out of her mind and told her body to chill. This really was serious, and she didn’t have time to daydream about Sebastian. Though she didn’t want to, she had to learn how to control her element. She may end up needing it.

What was going to get her mad? She searched through her memories. The most recent one was the memory of prom night. She was furious at her ex-boyfriend that night. She expected some big romantic gesture and dolled herself up. Scott turned the night into a complete disaster. Not to mention he ruined her three-hundred dollar dress. Yep, she was still mad about it. This was good. She replayed every detail of that night, letting the anger it caused simmer. Stupid Scott and his stupid friends and stupid habits. It made her want to just punch his stupid face.

She opened her eyes, which were narrowed in a scowl, and stared at the paper.

Burn.

A smoke wisp floated out from the folds.

“Burn,” she yelled in her head.

A longer smoke tail escaped.

That memory must not be good enough. She had to get angrier. She closed her eyes again and dug deeper. She focused on other memories: the time she tripped down the stairs and fractured her ankle and when they went to the hospital there was a huge wait and she had to deal with the pain for an hour and a half; the time she waited in line for Lady Gaga concert tickets for almost a full weekend and got to the teller just in time for them to be sold out, and then she had to hear everyone at school brag about how awesome the concert was; the time her friend Tracy crashed Phoenyx’s first car and made her promise to tell both their parents that it was Phoenyx’s fault, then she got a boyfriend and stopped hanging out with Phoenyx anyway.

Nothing she could think of would create more than a short-lived ember and a few puffs of smoke. Memories weren’t going to do it. They were too far in the past, they wouldn’t deliver the kind of anger she needed. She needed something to make her mad right now in the present.

She looked around. She had a reason to be furious right in front of her, she was sitting in it. She was drugged and taken against her will, thrown into a tiny, cold room with three perfect strangers from whom she had absolutely no privacy, caged like an animal and starved for days— all only so that she could be ritually sacrificed like a Mayan virgin. Her three bedfellows, whom she had grown to love, would be killed alongside her. Lily, sweet and innocent Lily, who had such great potential and a family that would mourn her. Skylar, who even though he could be a bit of an intellectual snob sometimes, truly knew her and didn’t run away from what he saw and, in fact, even liked it. Sebastian—sexy, charming, perfect Sebastian—who came into her life a little too late. None of them deserved this. The people who were doing this were horrible, wicked sadists and deserved to be punished.

She opened her eyes and glared at the paper, feeling only her hatred for her captors. There was a spark and the outside of the paper caught fire. The bag crackled and filled the air with the smell of stale oil and burning paper. Her hatred grew, consuming her. Her breath quickened and the paper burned more rapidly. The fire shown with a luminescence that rivaled the overhead lights. She was faintly aware of a gasp from Lily, who wasn’t too busy concentrating to see the fire.

Fragments of the night her dad died flashed in her mind—the rage she had felt, how dangerous she was then. Suddenly she realized it wasn’t the fire that was dangerous, it was how swiftly her emotions raged and took hold of her. The hatred terrified her. She suddenly panicked and, just like her anger, the fire dwindled and snuffed out.

She lifted her foot and stepped on the partially burnt paper, sliding her foot against the ground until the paper was in shreds and ashes. Then she brushed the remnants to the side.

Even though the fire was out and her anger was gone, the panic didn’t go away. All she saw were replayed images of her house burning, her dad’s face. She had to shake this feeling before it consumed her again.

She decided to invest her attention in her friends and see if she could help them succeed where she was failing.

“Skylar, you’re doing it!” Lily clapped. “This is amazing!” She hovered a foot off the floor, gleeful as Wendy on her way to Neverland. She leaned back, stretched out, and moved her limbs about—basking in the liberation of being no longer earthbound.

“That looks like so much fun,” Phoenyx said. “I want to be next!”

“Oh sure, I’ve known you all this time and, now that we’re about to die, you learn to make people fly,” Sebastian complained to Skylar. “I think I should be next.”

Skylar laughed. “You’ll all get your turn. I just can’t believe I can lift a whole person. I never imagined I could be this strong. Who knows what else I’ll be able to do with a little practice?”

Lily slowly de-elevated back to sit on the floor. “That was a much better landing,” she said. “I barely felt it.”

“Okay, seriously, I want to be next,” Phoenyx offered. “I need a break anyway.”

“This is good; I can see if I can lift you both at the same time,” Skylar said.

“Happy to help,” Phoenyx said.

As she sat and talked with Lily while Skylar concentrated on using them as dumbwaiters, her panic receded. This day was full of emotions and she was spent. First, a morning full of longing; then, an afternoon full of anger and hatred—she was headed toward a night full of fear and regret. Talking with Lily about what TV shows they were missing right now was a welcome distraction. She was grateful that, for whatever reason, Lily didn’t bring up that she saw Phoenyx successfully light the bag. Phoenyx told herself that she would try again tomorrow but the truth was she didn’t want to. Every time she thought about using her power, her insides felt cold and sick, although that could just be the hunger. Even though she wouldn’t admit it to herself, she knew deep down that, no matter what, she wasn’t going to use her fire power. Not when they make their escape, not ever.