The Chronicles of Fire and Ice: The Revealing Read online

  Marcus had to work until close. He was working another double like he was all week. I, on the other hand, went home to relax and grab a bite to eat until it was time.

  My parents didn’t like it when I left the house after a certain time. I never knew what time that was, but I knew. Leaving a little before midnight wouldn’t fly so I went to Trey’s house before it got too late. His parents still haven’t figured out how he wrecked his car so he hasn’t been driving much these days. Dad would flip if I wrecked my car. The beast would truly unleash. I wasn’t sure what lie Trey told, but he was still alive so that was a good sign. We went riding around and visited some friends to pass the time.

  “Where to next?” Trey asked.

  “Man, I’m super tired. Think I’m gonna call it a night.” I fake yawned.

  “Come on are you serious, dude? We barely have time to hang out anymore and now you’re turning into an old man on me.”

  “I have work in the morning. How about next week me, you, and Marc drive up to Albany for a day?”

  “Sounds like a plan. Don’t bail on me.” He reached for the handle and opened the door. He paused then closed the door. “What is Marcus?” Trey asked hesitantly. “I mean, is he human?”

  He had to be a human. If he wasn’t human then I wasn’t and I know I am. “I’m positive Marcus is human.” I assured him. He shrugged, cracked a smile, and then got out the car. From there, I headed to the address Marcus gave me.

  I pulled up to a titanic isolated building that sat on a field of withering grass and shrubs. There were other gigantic buildings surrounding it. Combined they almost formed a small campus. The mix of dead and lively trees surrounding the field secluded it from the rest of the city. Vines crawled from the ground and hugged the walls to provide color to the dull brown bricks and the giant hole on the side provided character. From the outside, it looked like an old nineteenth-century castle. The lot reminded me of an island minus the water that surrounded the place. I got out and began walking to what I assumed was the front entrance.

  When I got to the door, I caught myself about to knock before I realized that no one would answer. I grabbed the padded lock and closed my eyes for a few minutes until it froze and cracked. So unlike me, but I felt chills run down my spine when I had to force the old beaten door open. It creaked and scraped the floor from years of not being used. I took a few paces forward and couldn’t see much. The only light I had was the moonlight shining through the dust-covered windows and cracks from the boarded ones. I was in a lobby of some sort, but I still couldn’t tell what kind of building this used to be. I walked outside to wait for Marcus.

  I posted up on the two stairs that led to the front door. A few minutes had passed and that’s all it took for me to realize I couldn’t sit still. I got up and just wandered around, not really going anywhere.

  I just needed to move.

  I walked back up to the door and slowly reached down for the doorknob, preparing myself to enter again.

  I couldn’t do it.

  I turned around to go back to my car and gasped. A shadow stood dead in my face, and it took a few moments for my brain to process that it was just Marcus.

  “Damn, you scared me,” I said. “What on earth is this place?”

  “Come to the truck with me and help me get this stuff out.”

  I followed. “Where are we?”

  “It’s an abandoned insane asylum.” He snuck a quick glance my way. “Scared?”

  “Few bugs and dust don’t scare me.”

  “Yeah, they closed it down after a fire or something.”

  We got to the truck and he pulled out some tiki torches. We carried them inside. We walked around the lobby setting up a perimeter of torches, and Marcus lit them with the touch of his pointer finger. The place became illuminated and we could see how creepy it really was.

  We walked the halls to get a feel of where we would be training. Cobwebs infested the corners of every room we entered and the molded walls were decaying. The walls in the hallways had plants growing on them just like the exterior. It was like a nuclear wasteland rainforest. Not to mention that it reeked of mold and dead animals. Wheelchairs, tables, and syringes covered in thick layers of dust consumed the rooms that once belonged to patients. It looked more like a torture chamber than an asylum.

  As we walked around, we lost the light from the torches. Marcus ignited one hand and held it in front of him. It took us almost an hour to explore one side of the building and the six stories. After that, we went back to the lobby.

  “OK, shall we get started?” Marcus asked.

  “What's the first thing you think we should practice,” I replied.

  “Well I have learned to ignite my hands on command. You should try to cover your hand with ice.”

  I was ready but still a little nervous about what I would look like to him if I couldn’t do it. “OK. Here goes.” I flickered my hands in front of me and nothing happened.

  “Try again,” he said. I tried again and still nothing happened. I tossed my hands into the air as frustration overwhelmed me. “Alright, relax. When I first started setting things on fire, I noticed that it happened whenever I was angry at something. I'm guessing there’s an emotional trigger to this thing. The first time your eyes turned blue, what were you feeling?” he asked.

  “Don’t judge me, but when my eyes first turned blue, it was in class and Diana was trying to seduce me.” Seduction? I said to myself. Could it really be the trigger to my powers?

  “Wow, so a girl tries to seduce you and you freeze things? Hate to see what happens when you have—”

  “Marc, Please. Do not finish that sentence.”

  Marc laughed. “OK, so maybe there was another emotion you may have been feeling at the same time. Think back to some other times that you have used your powers or when your eyes turned blue.”

  Well, I thought to myself, there was the time that I found out you didn’t get into Harvard, or the time that I was walking around with Monica, but I couldn’t tell him those things. I had to think harder, what else? “I got it,” I said. “When I tried to turn the rain into hail, your voice was very calming and relaxing. You were encouraging me to do it, so I put myself in a relaxed state of mind and I began to freeze the window.”

  “So we got it, relaxation. Now relax yourself and give it another try.”

  I closed my eyes and pictured everything around me as a frosty wonderland. I blocked out all the noises, the annoying bugs buzzing in my ears and creepy sounds of the wind seeping through the cracks of the creaky boarded windows. Instead, I focused on the faint sound of Marcus’ voice as he told me I could do anything with my powers that I imagined. When I opened my eyes, both my fists were now covered in rock hard ice. I think that in order for me to use my powers, I may need Marcus around to give me that boost of confidence.

  “Good, good,” he said. I defrosted my hands, letting the frost smolder from my fingertips up to my forearm. I imagined a ball of ice in my palm and when I did, ice swirled up from the palm of my hands and made the perfect sphere.

  “Cool,” I said. Next, I took the ball that rested in my palm and flung it in front of me and watched as it went right through the decaying wall.

  “How did you…” Marcus asked.

  “You try.”

  He twiddled his fingers into his palm and a swirl of fire formed into the shape of a ball. He tossed it once in the air, caught it, took aim, and with ease launched it forward. He aimed for the window, but it went straight through the ceiling.

  “Looks like we can use some target practice,” he said.

  “We? Mine went right where I told it. You can use some target practice.”

  We practiced those few moves over and over again and worked on taking control of our emotions so that we could summon our powers whenever we needed them.

  “So you said that you shot fire from your hands like a flamethrower?” I asked.

  “Yeah, why you ask?”

  “Well,
I think that could be a useful and powerful attack. We should both learn how to do that.”

  “Sure. Let’s try.” His hands lit up and my hands iced.

  “Here goes.” I stuck my hands out in front of me. There was nothing, not even a snowflake that came out, just the same old cold air coming from my arms.

  Marcus laughed mockingly. “Let me give it a try.” He did some fancy little spin, the fire in his eyes matching the flames coming from his hands that were shooting fire halfway down the hall. It was clear that Marcus was a natural. It was one more reason to be jealous. I walked over, grabbed him by the wrist and watched as the fire from his hands and tiki torches dwindled until they died.

  “Hey,” he screamed. “What’s that all about?”

  “You don’t have to show off, Marc,” I said as I walked to the window to catch some light. Marcus lit his hand. “See, that’s what I mean, you’re a natural at this, and I … well I suck.”

  “So it’s OK for you to be better at everything we do, but me, I can’t have just one thing where I’m better? You’re selfish, Dylan.”

  As he was talking, a sharp pain jabbed the right side of my head. This pain wasn’t like anything I had ever experienced. It was excruciating, like something was crawling around in my head and poking at my brain. I fell to one knee, screaming in tears.

  “What’s wrong?” Marcus panicked. I didn’t know what was wrong and didn’t have the strength to have a full conversation about it either.

  “S-stay back,” I managed to say. I didn’t want to be touched but he didn’t listen. He walked up. The pain grew sharper. My body made contact with the dusty floors. I crunched over. My vision went in and out. I lifted my hand to block him from touching me and with one flicker of my hand, my best friend blasted off the floor, spiraling through the boarded window. Everything happened within seconds. The roof then started to crackle and dust trickled down. The ceiling rumbled and caved in a little followed by one of the doors being blasted off its hinges. Black started to fade in and out, and then all I saw was black.

  Then I woke up.

  “Ugh … my head feels like I was hit with a sledgehammer. What happened?” I said, trying to move. Although my vision was disoriented and blurry I knew where I was. I was in Marcus’ bed. I looked down and he was snoring on the floor. I had no clue how I got there. Last thing I remembered was that he flew out of a window. I lay back down and slept some more to ease the pain.

  “Dylan, Dylan wake up, Dylan,” Marcus said, tapping me gently.

  “Ahh…” I moaned.

  He backed up like he was scared of me when I finally got my eyes open. He never looked at me like that before. It was the look he gave the football players every time they spotted him in the hallway during freshman year.

  Fear.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I tried to enter his mind and I got nothing.

  “You don’t remember what you did to me this morning?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “You threw me out a freaking window.” He flinched and fidgeted his fingers. He took one more step back as I got up and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “How? I remember you falling out the window but that’s all I remember. Then I woke up with a headache.”

  “Fell? You mean you waved your hand and sent me flying out the window.”

  I tried to remember. “You mean I telepathically threw you out the window, sweet! I'm a telepath.”

  “Not telepathically, telekinetically. You’re a telekinetic you idiot,” he said. “Now I'm jealous.”

  I jumped on the bed to celebrate but then my head pounded. “Where’s your brother?” I asked. “He’s normally sleeping at this hour.” Marcus walked to the window and forced the curtains to the sides. The sun terrified me like a vampire and I ran back under the covers.

  “It’s three in the afternoon, my brother is long gone,” he said. “That headache of yours had you in a coma.”

  “Well what time did we get into the house?”

  “We left the building around four this morning, and if I hadn’t gotten up in time that building would have demolished you. Now we have to train on the west wing.”

  “Oops, sorry.”

  “It’s cool, that’s why it’s called training.”

  We both went into the kitchen and grabbed a drink. I was shirtless with the same jeans on from training.

  “Can you think of any other times you may have moved something with your mind?” he asked.

  “Nope I can’t think of a—wait, wait there was that time in school I’d gotten a headache. My eyes turned blue and I think I slammed a locker.”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah, Jess was there and she wondered how the locker slammed by itself.”

  “Hmmmm … and then it was the time you froze the window and got a headache. Right after that I saw the computer mouse slide by itself. Both times you had a headache, and both times an object moved. Yep, I would classify you as a telekinetic.”

  “What do you think all this means?”

  “Bro, I have no clue but like I said, we have to be careful about what we do and who we talk to.”

  “It’s hard enough keeping this thing a secret now. How do you think it will be once we start school?”

  “Guess we can only trust each other.”

  “Clearly, since somebody wants you dead,” I said.

  “Don’t say that.”

  Marcus took me back to the asylum to get my car so I could go home. I wasn’t feeling up to do much of anything so my plans were to just get in the bed and watch some movies.

  When I finally got home and showered, I checked my phone once it charged. I had a missed message from Monica saying that she needed to talk to me.

  I slowly drifted away, not paying attention to what was on TV. Couldn’t help but think about training and everything going on in my life. Wasn’t really sure of how or why I was given these powers or what they even meant, but I was humbled that Marcus was going through this life-changing event with me. He was right. The only ones we could trust from here on out were each other.

  Fresh. Meat.

  Chapter 12

  Fight or Flight

  I met with Monica last week. She gave me a quick rundown of what was said and in a nutshell, she never wanted for her and Marcus to stop talking or being friends. And because she only wanted to remain friends and nothing more, Marcus distanced himself. Even said she came to graduation to see us but left after we walked across the stage. In the end, she just wanted her best friend back. Honestly, I couldn’t blame her. Next time I saw Marcus, I told him what she said. I left it there.

  Practice days were Wednesdays and Fridays since they fit best with our work schedules. It also allowed us some relaxation on the weekends. I managed to keep my emotions under control and just accept the fact that Marcus was a natural and I would have to work harder.

  On Tuesdays and Thursdays we went to the track together to work on our stamina. Marcus was on the track team, so his time was better during our runs. He finally started to put on some weight. I swear he has been the same size since our freshman year. Despite adapting the busy training schedules, we still managed to go to work and take on the everyday tasks in our personal lives. It’s like we became workaholics at seventeen.

  I didn’t want to break my promise to Trey so today we were all going on a mini road-trip to Albany. Trey told Diana about the plans, and of course, she volunteered herself to come as well.

  Marcus and I had been up all morning in an intense training session, so I threw the keys at Trey when I picked him up. Trey drove while I slept in the back seat and Marcus slept in the front. I was a little restless because the short drive didn’t leave much time for a good sleep.

  We got there around noon. Diana delegated us with the task of carrying all her bags. When we got to about the third store, Marcus somehow managed to escape. When he came back, the bags had doubled. He claimed he went to the restroom, but I'm sure he went to a shoe store.


  “Last store, guys,” she said, leading us to a lingerie store.

  Marcus, Trey and I were all fighting, trying to stop Diana from pushing us in. “But I gotta pee,” Trey said, holding his hands between his legs and tipping around on tiptoes.

  “Guys,” Diana paused and gazed at us. “It’s just underwear, get over it.” She flipped her hair and rolled her eyes. Trey quit dancing around and held the door open for us. The amount of pink and purple had me thinking we were shopping in a cotton candy store. We all split up and walked around to keep busy until Diana was ready to go.

  I walked around looking at all the lace and fluff. While I was walking, a sign for lip-gloss on sale caught my attention. I was so wrapped up in the sign that I didn’t pay attention to where I was walking—

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, bumping into a girl. Wasn’t sure why that caught my attention but it did. The girl was dressed in all black — slacks and a button-down. She stumbled a bit, and I held out my hands to catch her before she fell. “I was distracted…” I looked down and caught a glimpse of her name badge. “Imani. So you work here?”

  “I do and I can see that you’re interested in some gloss. What flavor?” she taunted.

  “Nah, it’s not even like that. My friend made me come in here,” I said.

  “So he is looking for some lingerie?” Her soft voice lacked any recognizable accents.

  “No … oh no, I meant one of my female friends. She may be looking for some.”

  Imani was short with cinnamon colored hair that came to her shoulders, and a complexion that matched it identically.

  “So black is really your color.” I don’t know what possessed me to say that. Real smooth Dylan.

  Her voice hardened. “I look like I’m headed to a funeral.”

  “What I meant to say is, you probably look good in any color but black really goes good with your smoldering eyes.”

  “Smoldering?” She grimaced.

  Geesh Dylan, get it together, I said to myself. She pushed her hair back and rolled her band off her wrist, putting her hair in a ponytail. “It’s been real, Dylan, is it? But I have to get back to slaving over underwear and bras.” She turned and started to walk off. In an instant — maybe an act of desperation — I grabbed her wrist before she could leave my sight. She flinched and snapped her wrist from my hand.