JACKIE:

  “Move it, Jackie.” Firestorm crouched down so I could mount him

  I scrambled to my feet, but slipped on a small pool of blood from my now dripping re-opened abdominal wound.

  Fighting fatigue, I lifted my frail body and stumbled toward him, leaving a trail of blood behind.

  I leaned into Firestorm for support and lifted my leg over his back. It took every ounce of energy I had to not fall over.

  He crouched lower, and I mounted him clumsily.

  “We’ve gotta fly.” Firestorm ran through the shattered window and flew out of the Life Rite building, soaring above the Twin Flames cityscape.

  My breath caught in my throat as I gripped his neck tighter.

  Skyscrapers clawed their way toward the glistening Grid, providing safe havens for Flyers to keep away from the hungry riff-raff below.

  I wanted to reach out to touch the Grid, but guilt prevented me from enjoying the breathtaking view from this high. Flyer’s high-rise balconies housed gardens watered by stolen resources. To them, the world below was distant and disposable.

  The wind opened the back of my bloody hospital gown as we flew over the smog-choked downtown.

  A chill ran through me, but exposing myself was the least of my worries.

  I had to tell Firestorm what had happened. We needed to save Bennu Island, besides finding Grace and Baxter.

  My problems mounted as I rode away from Life Rite on the back of my phoenix. Blood from my open wound spilled onto Firestorm’s scales.

  “Firestorm, I made things worse.” I sniffled.

  He groaned. “Bad stuff happens when we tinker with the timeline.”

  We passed an outdoor clothesline between buildings.

  Firestorm called out, “Grab what you need,” as we flew through it.

  I grabbed what I could, and the wind carried us onward, high above the impoverished city.

  My eyes scanned the horizon for my home on Wright Road, but I was too stunned to find it.

  A minute later, we flew over the outskirts of town and landed on the roof of an abandoned, graffiti-covered building.

  Surveillance drones hovered nearby, so we had to be quick.

  I dismounted and fell, but caught myself by grabbing onto Firestorm’s beak.

  I peered into his eyes and caressed his scaly skin.

  “You’re real,” I said in a daze.

  Firestorm’s neck hung low, and he averted his eyes. “Yes, I’m real.”

  “I thought you were my imaginary friend.” I wiped my nose on my sleeve.

  He said, “I’ve been watching you since you were a child.”

  “I never knew… How have I been so ignorant my whole life? I’m part of the Claudi family, for goodness sakes! We should have tried to find my mom sooner.”

  Firestorm shrugged. “Time is now.”

  Heartburn gurgled from my stomach to my throat.

  “Firestorm, I messed up,” I admitted through tears.

  He put his wing around me. “The most probable future is being written. The scorching has begun, so we’ll go to Bennu. Get dressed for the long flight.”

  The surveillance drones flew closer, scanning a nearby building.

  “Hurry.”

  I put on my new clothes: sweatpants, a black T-shirt, and a leather jacket with the Project One Life logo on the back.

  I used the gross hospital gown to soak up the blood from my gunshot wound. When I wiped it away, the gash had already closed.

  “How am I healing so quickly?”

  “Time to soar.” Firestorm bent down for me to mount him.

  I jumped on his back and gripped his neck.

  As I situated myself, a surveillance drone flew over and scanned us. “Phoenix gene detected.”

  Firestorm unleashed a torrent of fire like a living flamethrower and charred that sucker.

  With a shattering impact, the drone smashed onto the rooftop, broken and motionless.

  “That was amazing.” I patted him on the shoulder.

  “More drones will come. Time to roll.” He ran full tilt and flew over the side of the building, setting off to see the effects of my mistake firsthand.

  How far-reaching was the devastation on Bennu Island? How much blood was on my hands?

  I pressed my cheek into Firestorm’s warm skin to ruminate over my worries on the long haul flight, plagued by a dehydration headache. Time lost meaning, stretched thin by altitude and adrenaline.

  Wind roared in my ears, sharp and icy, chapping my lips until they cracked.

  Below, endless landscapes sprawled; mountains, forests, rivers twisting like veins. My muscles ached from gripping scales that pulsed with heat and power, every beat of Firestorm’s wings sending tremors through my bones.

  When we finally reached Bennu Island, smoke plumes billowed from its forests.

  “Strange seeing it in person rather than through the Slipstream,” I said.

  It looked the same as the future stream, fields of fire and scorched land as far as the eye could see.

  “The future is now.” I coughed in the smoky air.

  Firestorm looped around the volcano to get a bird's-eye view of the complex sitting on the lip of the volcano. The castle tower was complete.

  Beatrice stood on the balcony directing her fire-spitting Alpha drone, which led a swarm of drones unleashing torrents of flame, setting the trees ablaze. The lush green forest was in dire jeopardy of being erased acres at a time.

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  “Man, she moves fast.” The sight of the trees igniting one by one sent an icy shiver down my spine despite the rising heat.

  “This future has officially been written.” Firestorm sighed.

  “How powerful is her fire portal?” I asked. “How deep can she go? She’s always ten steps ahead, isn’t she?”

  Before Firestorm could answer, two scavenger Bennu birds screeched in the distance, hungry and on the hunt.

  “Let’s go somewhere safe so we can talk.” He banked to the right and flicked his wings to stay ahead of the scavengers.

  They hunt in packs, so we didn’t meet the ones that called out, but there were two more waiting around the bend.

  “Incoming.” I pointed as a scavenger leapt out from behind a tree below.

  It swooped into the sky to chase us.

  Firestorm waited until it got close and smacked it with his tail.

  The bird roared, but was unrelenting in its pursuit.

  It chomped its giant jaws around Firestorm’s tail. The force of the bite jolted me.

  Blood splattered.

  It was Firestorm’s turn to screech. His piercing roar made my teeth hurt.

  “Quick. Get off, Jackie.” Firestorm nosedived toward a safe spot in the forest fire. The blaze inched closer, relentless and hungry, smoke stinging my eyes.

  I dismounted so Firestorm could return to the fight without me holding him back. Leaves crunched beneath my bare feet.

  Two Bennu birds surrounded him with bloodlust.

  He swung his tail, smacking them both in the face, but that wasn’t enough.

  Watching their battle, I held my breath as snapping branches echoed. The air reeked of burning pine.

  Both scavengers attacked Firestorm, drawing blood with their claws and teeth.

  I wanted to help, but he didn’t need it. Somehow, he was stronger and faster than both of them combined.

  He grabbed one by the torso and ripped its wings off with his beak. A mist of blood sprayed from its torn ligaments. That was the end of that one.

  The other one got burnt to a crisp when Firestorm inflamed its whole body with his fiery breath. It was incredible to see how powerful he was.

  Why is he more skilled than the others? Will he hurt me if I go against him?

  He swooped over to collect me.

  I jumped on, and we flew over a fire field, toward the dank warehouse where Grace found Zayne in the cage.

  “There it is.”

  Firestorm followed my pointed finger and touched down by the decrepit building.

  I hopped off and shoved the broken door aside so Firestorm could enter. It fell off its hinges, leaving the entrance exposed.

  Still, Firestorm thought it was a safe place to regroup.

  I stepped into the damp space and inhaled the rotten air. Grime clung to my feet.

  I’d already been here through the Slipstream, but the reality of the moment was heavy and inescapable.

  I rested my hands, caked with glowing blood, on a shelf covered in dust, grappling with the weight in my chest.

  “How are you holding up, Firestorm?” I checked his skin for consequences from the scavenger fight, revealing thousands of cuts on his back.

  “Don’t worry about me.” He shook his massive body like a wet dog, and his wounds vanished.

  I gasped. Firestorm healed before my eyes.

  “How’s your gunshot?” he asked. “All gone?”

  I touched my abdomen. My wound was nothing more than a scratch.

  “How?”

  “We’re special, Jackie.”

  “I don’t feel special. I changed things for the worse. I told Beatrice about fire portals, and she’s turning Bennu to ash,” I said. “Now what?”

  “We’ll think of something.”

  I sat on a broken cage, defeated.

  A training manual with the Life Rite logo sat next to me. I picked it up and opened it, hoping it contained answers to my problems.

  A hollow pit opened in my stomach when I saw its contents. Polaroid images of Zayne and other village boys filled the manual. The photos started out normal, albeit sad to see them imprisoned.

  As I turned the pages, the photos grew more grotesque. These manuals showcased the stage by stage progression of the villagers mutating from boys to Bennu birds.

  First, scaly patches of skin covered their bodies, then their arms grew wings. Their spines arched unnaturally, their bones cracking like splintered wood. Talons ripped from their knuckles. Their flesh molded into something… inhuman.

  I looked at Firestorm. “They did this to you too, didn’t they?”

  His eyes went moist as he nodded. “They make the Life Rite serum from the DNA of Bennu bird eggs, but it’s so powerful that it causes mutations. After testing the serum on the local boys, Mark got the brilliant idea of making a second serum from the Carriers’ blood. He gave the refined serum to Beatrice, and now to Life Rite’s rich clients.”

  I threw the manual across the room, disgusted.

  He sighed. “They experience rejuvenation and rebirthing without the mutational side effects.”

  We sat in silence for several minutes, sitting with the hard truth of what Mark and Beatrice had done to these boys.

  I couldn’t deny the rejuvenating benefits of the Life Rite serum, but the cost to create it made my blood boil.

  Why was one life more valuable than another? The injustice left a sour taste in my mouth.

  “What happened to Grace and Zayne after they threw Beatrice and Mark into the volcano? Did they escape the island?”

  Firestorm’s neck drooped. “We got out, but…”

  “We?”

  He looked at me. “Jackie, I’m Zayne. Firestorm is what I’ve become.”

  “Oh,” was all I could say.

  A tear rolled down my cheek. I wept for the boy in the cage who had escaped, only to turn into an unrecognizable creature.

  Firestorm continued. “Grace and I left this wretched place and started a family. We tried to be normal.”

  I looked at Firestorm through my tears and imagined Zayne mutating into the phoenix standing before me; skin to scales, teeth to fangs.

  “Does that mean…”

  “Yes, Jackie. I’m your father.”

  My breathing quickened, and my hands balled into fists.

  That was a lot to take in. Not because he had mutated into a full-on phoenix, but… well, maybe because of the phoenix thing.

  Every cell in my body tingled as a million emotions collided inside me. Pacing in front of the cages, I put my hands on my red-hot cheeks.

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “I needed you to understand what we were up against. I needed you to see me for who I was, not what I’ve become.”

  My pacing quickened. “So I’ve found my real dad, and he’s a time-traveling, rebirthing phoenix. He saved me from Life Rite in order to right the wrongs of the past, but I made everything worse.”

  I picked dry blood from my fingernails and shuffled my feet, trying not to break.

  “Where’s Grace now? Why did she leave me with Baxter? Why did you leave? I have more unanswered questions than ever.”

  Firestorm sat on the dirty floor to rest his weary body. “I hoped I’d stop mutating when we fled Bennu. The injections stopped. I wanted to be normal, but… I’m a freak.”

  He shook his mane. “Look what they did to me… But really, I’m the lucky one.”

  “What do you mean?” I stopped fidgeting.

  “For some reason, my blood type slowed the mutation process. That was the key Mark needed to create the first successful serum for Beatrice. All the other boys mutated too quickly. Those boys, Tinga’s son, my childhood friends, they’re the scavengers who seek to destroy us.”

  “They lost all traces of humanity.” I sucked in my shock.

  Firestorm stretched his wings. “It doesn’t look like it, but I have a shred left.”

  I nodded. Probably should have said something polite about him not being a freak, but didn’t have it in me.

  So he continued. “Life Rite is still making mutants. What do you think happens to the ones they kidnap from their yearly checkpoints?”

  “The people with the PX virus?”

  “I don’t know what the PX virus is, but I know this. Because of their blood type, they turn the people from the checkpoints into Carriers for their base serum, which mutates them.”

  My lip quivered.

  “Life Rite takes their blood to make the final serum that allows Flyers to rebirth and explore the Slipstream. Beatrice has to be stopped.”

  “I tested positive for the PX virus…” I rested my arms on my head to open my lungs. Still, I struggled for air.

  Firestorm put his wing around me. “I wanted to stay and raise you… but I couldn’t hide the mutations anymore.”

  “What’s Grace’s excuse? Why did she leave me with Baxter?”

  “Once she realized Beatrice was alive after dying in the volcano, she knew you would never be safe.”

  “So she left me with the Dusters struggling to survive?”

  “You’re a pure gene carrier, Jackie. My blood and Grace’s blood… With the serums we took, that’s incredibly powerful. You’re the first person born with the phoenix gene.”

  I wiped my sweaty palms on my stolen Project One Life jacket, processing the fact that my blood had value to anyone.

  “Where’s my mom now? What happened to Grace after she left me with Pops?”

  Firestorm’s dragon-like head with ridged bone plates fell to the gritty, corroded floor. His chest deflated.

  “We can still save her, right?” I tasted acid and forced it back down.

  He opened his beak to speak, but I already knew—whatever the answer was, it shattered something in Firestorm, and in me.