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NINE

T hat night, Kel couldn’t sleep.

She picked at the mattress’s tattered sheets and stared at the office’s ceiling, fantasizing about convincing Dira to abandon the Coupers brothers. She tried to conjure impossible ways to pay the money she owed. She imagined what her father would have said to Cristo’s recruiter.

She thought of those damn words.

We’re no different.

She knew that couldn’t be true. She didn’t participate in CAPR for the thrill of racing or for the isle’s attention. Even though she knew there were plenty of CAPR practices that, though technically legal, did nothing for the phoenixes’ well-being, she and Dira had no choice.

Crumbling dreams and fragmented memories rattled through Kel’s skull; Oska’s screams and Rube’s farewell. Those three words echoed in her ears the entire time.

Her whirling thoughts kept her from noticing the different timbre of Savita’s squawks until it was too late. Until she felt the heat creeping under the office’s door, and finally recognized the dark tint to the air.

Smoke.

Kel bolted upright and threw the blanket to the floor. The office was bathed in orange, and heat, and Savita’s screams. Kel had never heard this kind of noise before.

Savita was afraid.

She couldn’t see her phoenix through the window. There were only growing flames, shrouding every tree in the aviary.

Her home was burning. Not from phoenix fire or even a rebirth.

This fire was entirely mundane, and far more monstrous.