Phoenix Flame - Sara Holland Page 0,30
when it was just my butt on the line. But now that it’s Brekken offering to try it out, the whole thing seems a lot flimsier.
An idea hits me. I read online that the Fourth of July celebrations last week had been postponed down in Loveland because of thunderstorms—thunderstorms that missed us in Havenfall, given the bubble of good weather that seems to hover over the mountaintop. They moved it to the next Friday instead—which is tonight.
So that’s how Brekken and I end up driving half an hour east as the sun sinks down, down out of the mountains. In the passenger seat of the Toyota Camry Dad gave me, Brekken navigates and I follow his directions, almost vibrating with tension, afraid at any second that whatever magic is allowing this will give out, and Brekken will start shaking and sickening, too far into our world for his Fiorden blood.
But it doesn’t happen. Instead, Brekken seems to perk up more and more as we go down the mountain, looking out the window with avid interest, to the point where I have to remind him to tell me the next turn. At the sweeping, immaculate green park where the show is happening, we don’t venture into the picnicking crowd. I’m aware that Brekken is recognizably, if subtly, not human. Instead, we sit on the hood of the parked Camry, craning our necks to look up at the sky as the fireworks whistle and burst above.
They’re beautiful, but I keep getting distracted by Brekken. While we’ve been in the town of Haven plenty of times before, for ice cream or hiking or sneaking drinks, we’ve never gone farther. It’s strange to be with him like this, on the outside. To see him not amidst the glitz and glamor of the delegates, but juxtaposed against everyday human life, the disorderly crawl of cars trying to cram into a parking lot, the smell of barbecue and cigarette smoke and the gunpowder from the fireworks, overheard conversations about work and school and weather and traffic, hundreds of cell phones upturned to capture the fireworks and memorialize them.
Against it all, Brekken looks even more beautiful, more unearthly. I’m not sure that I like it. It’s a reminder of just how different we are, he and I. But when he reaches out across the car hood and catches my hand in his, I don’t pull away. Nor when he slides slowly against me until our sides are pressed together, both of us leaning on the other.
“Brekken,” I murmur in the lull between two shrieking fireworks. “Are you sure you want to go to Fiordenkill with me?”
I weave our fingers together, sparks firing in my blood just like the ones raining down from the sky. I don’t know why I’m afraid all of a sudden, but the fear is here now and I feel like I need to give voice to it.
“Maddie.” He looks down at me, strange light playing across his cheekbones, tiny reflected fireworks scattering in his eyes. “Of course. You know I would never let you go alone.”
“It’s just …” I take a deep breath and shift my weight on the hood. “Something could go wrong. We could get caught.”
“Then wouldn’t you shelter me?” he asks. His voice is gently teasing, but there’s an edge of something serious there too. “Keep me safe at Havenfall?”
“Of course.” I look hastily back at the sky. “But I don’t want you to risk your future on my account.”
For all I disdained Mom’s and Marcus’s warnings, I can’t seem to get their words out of my head now. They echo there, like buggy recordings.
I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that it’ll never work.
We in this family have a bad habit of falling in love with Fiordens.
Do you think Brekken would be happy here at the crossroads?
In the moment of quiet between words, everything working against us crams into my head and I almost convince myself that all this, the fireworks, the kisses we’ve shared, his closeness now, are flukes and delusions. That he only cares for me as a friend, and everything else is spun sugar and wishes. But then he speaks.
“I’d risk everything.”
All traces of jokiness are gone now, his voice dead serious.
I don’t look at Brekken, scared that if I do my face will reveal too much. But I can feel his eyes on me like a laser beam. He waits for me to turn to him, and finally I do.
The world seems to