Ch. 94: Fire Starter

CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR
Kyle~
Ally and I had a long few days of ‘playing defense’ as we were calling it. We couldn’t rip Rachel away from her current reality yet, and we couldn’t do anything to Sean lest he do something worse to Rachel. But we sure as hell could limit their time together.
It was hard not just punching Sean in the face when I pulled him to the side for our little chats. He was threatening my friends’ safety. And for all I know, he could have been behind my own kidnapping, or worked with Vance on it to keep me from Rachel.
Threats laced his every word to me. I had tried on our first day doing this to bring up my kidnapping suddenly to see if he would give anything away. But this guy was a total snake in the grass. He hadn’t reacted at all. Not really. He held a deadness in his eyes. On the surface he put out this whole easy-going, cool guy routine, but there was something calculating beneath the surface.
We wouldn’t be able to keep this new information from Jake much longer. And while sure, he had the right to know, between dealing with the murder of his parents and finding the demon who had helped Vance in Rachel’s kidnapping - he had enough to worry about. We couldn’t risk him snapping and killing Sean before we were sure of how to safely get Rachel out of this. Her body and her mind.
Ally hated keeping a secret from Nick, but we both knew it would be very hard for him to keep a secret like this from his Alpha. She really didn’t want to put him in that position.
And we would tell them, once we had an action plan. Or, worst case scenario, once we had no other choice and our hands were forced to risk Rachel’s safety. Fae Goddess above, please don’t let it come to that.
“Hey, are you up?” Ally asked in a whisper from the door.
“Yeah, what’s up?” I asked and sat up in my sleeping bag.
I had started sleeping in the room next to Ally and her mom earlier this week. It had been well overdue for me to start getting back to normal. Well, as normal as I could get to until my friends were safe. Then, and only then, would I worry about me. About the darkness I know was implanted in me, about the numb monster that took over my body at random times a day and made me space out, took me back to that place.
“I have a good feeling about today,” she started to say.
“Yeah, you have a good feeling because you just spent the last hour making out with Nick in your room,” I said back smartly.
“Yeah, yeah,” she laughed and turned her embarrassed face away. “No really, I think, I think I’m going to make some progress today.”
“Alright, I’m coming,” I relented, pushing myself up off the floor. “Let’s go Miss Spring-In-Your-Step.”
She followed me down the stairs as I added, “Oh and you might want to cover that hickey before your mom comes home from work.”
I heard her hand smack her neck in response. “Ahh, are all the Fae pains in the a*s like you?”
“Oh, no. You’re just lucky,” I retorted.
“Da*n sassy Dreamer,” she teased.
“At your service,” I said back.

About an hour later, we weren’t making any progress after all.
“Don’t say it,” Ally said, one eye peeking at me after so long with her eyes closed in concentration.
“Me?” I said teasing her, incredulously. “Never.”
“Ugh! I swear, this was going to be it. I felt it!” She said, exasperated.
“Shake it off, it’s alright. How about we try something we know you can do? Like, a warm up?” I suggested.
“Okay, sure - Living Dream?” she suggested.
“Let’s do it,” I responded, holding my hand out for her.
We dove in.
This time it was much easier to dive in. Almost as soon as Ally put her hand in mine, we were off.
I opened my eyes to water. It was some sort of large river, with active waves rushing down the way. The water was rushing loudly past me, the roaring from it crashing against the shore very loud. If I had been able to talk to Ally I would have needed to yell for her to hear me.
A bird flew up ahead and went in the direction of the flow, and so I followed it, pulling Ally’s hand along.
After a few feet the river began to widen, and before I knew it, it was the ocean. Looking around, everything I saw became familiar all at once. We were down the road from Pacific. Near the pier. I could feel Ally walking us towards the school. We walked on and I saw something between two houses, so I pulled us toward it. As we got closer, the scene changed again. We were in a forest at night. I heard voices that got louder as we neared a fire. And then I saw her - Maxine.
She was standing next to an older woman. She looked significantly younger. Her palms were open and she was concentrating while mouthing some unintelligible words. Fire appeared in her palms, making the woman next to her smile and nod.
It looked like she was being coached, and her coach was pleased with her progress.
As we got a little closer things changed again. We were at Pacific. Maxine was in front of us, looking over at the parking lot. What was she doing out here? There was no one else around, just a few cars in the lot. It looked pretty early. After a few moments, I see Rachel and Ally’s bus coming up our way. I looked around for any sign of what time of year this was. Has this happened? Will it happen?
The bus pulled up and I saw Rachel coming down the steps. Maxine was saying something I couldn’t quite understand, and then Rachel was on the ground. Wait. Could it be? I looked at Maxine’s face as she winced, pacing back and forth while watching people helping Rachel after her fall. This was the past. When she had hurt herself.
Next a whirlwind of smoke surrounded us and we were in a fire. We walked outside of it to find ourselves on the back side of the school. Ally pulled me aggressively ahead, nearly running. We ran through the courtyard and toward the office. Ally seemed to be dragging me somewhere specific. Then I saw two people ahead. As we got closer I realized it was Rachel and Maxine. They were rushing outside from their seated position as the fire alarm went off. We chased them and as we were outside, I kept my eye on Maxine. I knew what I was going to see, but it still angered me when it happened.
Maxine stood there amongst the little growing crowd, and all the students on the bus behind her who stood up with their phones in hand taking videos, and she was clearly manipulating the fire. Her mouth moved as she chanted something over and over, the fire growing with it. The look of concentration on her face broke after a minute and she had a look of distaste on her face as she looked at Rachel and the crowd around her. How could she? Why was she doing all of this?

Ally~
I couldn’t watch any more. I was way too pissed. Not only was Maxine working with some truly messed up, violent people, she had also clearly been behind at least one attempt to hurt my best friend. Why was she doing this? What was her problem?!
“What is she doing?!” I yelled out while letting go of Kyle’s hand as we re-entered our reality.
“I can’t believe - I mean I know we saw some messed up stuff before, but why Rachel? What is going on? What are we missing?” he thought aloud.
My blood was boiling with anger.
“She’s not getting away with this,” I declared. “We need to do something Kyle. I’m not sitting on the sidelines for this. I’m not just looking at things, being passive. We have to act. Now.”
“Uhhh…” he looked to the side and then back at me. “I have an idea. But - it could be a little dangerous.”
“What is it?” I asked him, ready to get up right now and run to do whatever he was about to say.
“Let’s call your wolf and make a plan. And see what your grandma can find out. If we can find her, I can get into her head,” he said looking down the backyard. “It’s going to get dark in a couple hours. Assuming she’s going to sleep tonight, I can find her general location and with some werewolf assistance, we can figure out her exact location. Then… I can jump into her dreams, and get into her memories.”
I nodded, reaching for my phone to call Nick.
“I need to be closer to her to manipulate what I’ll see. I may need you to lend me some of your magic. I haven’t really done this before with someone not volunteering their mind to open for me. Dreams are automatic, but if we are going to dig into her mind - I think I can do it, but it’s going to be hard. We may need to end up taking her to a secure location if I take too long diving in…” he continued as the phone rang.
“Love?” Nick asked.
“I think we need your help, we’re about to do something risky…” I said.
“I’ll be there in twenty,” Nick said with assurance.