Chapter 5: Hot and Heavy

The gym was dark except for the exit signs, and it smelled like fresh varnish. Eliana's sneakers squeaked on the new floor as Lexie dragged her down the bleacher aisle and across the court, and their footsteps came back off the far wall a second late. The hall doors were chained shut with a padlock the size of her fist. It was the first thing all day that had turned out the way she said it would.

She looked back once. The door they'd come through stayed shut. Nothing glowed around its edges, and the smoke alarm above it kept its flat note. That felt worse than it should have.

The locker room was warm and damp, and the alarm shrank to a buzz behind the cinderblock. Lexie's bracelet chimed against the metal lockers as they ran past. The air was wet towels and floor cleaner, and for the first time since the hall, nothing smelled like smoke.

At the end of the row, a heavy door with a push bar and a small square window led onto the pool deck. Lexie stopped with her palm flat on it.

"Okay," Lexie said. "On three."

"Wait." Eliana's voice came out too fast. "We'll be soaked, our clothes will weigh a ton, and if the fire spreads around the pool, we're stuck in it."

"Then we get out before it does."

"What if we can't?"

"And what if we stay here!" Lexie's palm was still flat on the push bar. "You got somewhere better to be? C'mon! Hurry!"

Lexie hit the bar and the door banged open.

The pool deck was bright and almost silent. The overhead lights hummed, the water lay flat as a sheet of glass, and a single kickboard floated in the shallow end. It was the quietest place Eliana had been all day. After the hallway it felt like stepping into a serene wonderland of safety.

Lexie sat down on the edge of a bench and started yanking at her boot laces.

"What are you doing?" Eliana said.

"I'm not sinking in these." One boot hit the tile and skidded. "Take your shoes off too!"

"What! Why?!"

"You said it yourself, clothes get drenched and weigh us down. Shoes and socks do the same!"

"Wouldn't we have to take off our clothes too?" Eliana opined before she really thought about what she was saying.

"I'm not stripping in front of you! And don't strip in front of me either!"

"I wasn't- I didn't mean-" Eliana felt her whole face go hot as she cut herself off. "That's not what I was asking."

"Whatever. Shoes and socks. Hurry."

Lexie was already pulling off her second sock, staring at the far wall. Eliana set her sneakers under the bench with her bag on top and told herself her cheeks were warm from running. Lexie shoved her boots and the cable beside them. Neither of them looked at the other.

They stopped at the edge of the pool. The tile was cold under their bare feet, and the water lay perfectly still.

"This is a terrible idea," Eliana said.

"Better than having no ideas."

"If this doesn't work..."

"Guess we'll find out." Lexie took a breath. "On three, for real this time."

Behind them, the little window in the locker room door had started to glow orange.

"Um... Lexie."

"I got it." She took Eliana's hand. "One... two..."

She didn't wait until three.

The water was freezing. It closed over Eliana's head, and the alarm disappeared. Her clothes pulled at her as she kicked up and broke the surface, gasping. Her feet found nothing but water. Lexie came up next to her, still holding on, hair plastered to her face. Something heavy pressed against Eliana's thigh. Her phone. It was soaked, and she knew without checking that it was dead.

For a second it was almost funny. They were treading water in a bright, empty pool in their school clothes, hand in hand, with the only sound being their breaths and the alarm.

Then the locker room door banged open.

The fire came across the tile in a single line and didn't slow down. It went straight for the water. Eliana waited for the hiss and the steam.

It didn't go out. A bright seam ran across the surface, and the water split along it in white lines, with bubbles streaming up from underneath. The pool wasn't putting it out. It was coming apart.

"Swim," Lexie said. "Go!"

They kicked for the shallow end, away from the door. The fire came after them across the surface, one bright line tearing the water open as it moved and leaving a trail of bubbles behind it. It seemed faster than it was on land, or maybe they were just slower.

"Ladder," Lexie said. "Go!"

They hit the wall, and Lexie hauled herself onto the deck and pulled Eliana out after her. They stood there dripping, water running off their clothes and pooling on the tile.

Behind them the fire reached the wall just under the ladder and stopped, burning on the surface, with the water splitting apart around it. It looked like it was waiting.

"Why isn't it out?" Lexie said. "It's in water! It's supposed to be out!"

"I don't know."

They backed away from the edge. The fire stayed where it was, burning on the water under the ladder, and the surface around it kept tearing into thin white lines. Eliana was shivering, and she couldn't tell how much of it was because of the cold. Lexie was still holding her hand.

Then the fire jumped.

It crossed the gap in a single bound, a long bright body of flame, coming straight for Eliana. She had time to understand that it was going to reach her. She didn't move.

Lexie did. She ripped her hand out of Eliana's, stepped in front of her, and threw up her arm.

The fire wrapped itself around her wrist, bracelet and all. Lexie whipped her arm sideways and snapped it off.

It tumbled across the tile in a spray of sparks and slid back into the pool, where it skidded across the water, sputtering and hissing. Lexie hissed too, through her teeth, more furious than scared. The flame hadn't marked the bracelet at all, but the charms had gone white-hot, and she shook her hand hard, as if she could fling the pain off.

Her arm was soaked, but it didn't matter. The metal had been too hot.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Lexie's voice came out too high, and she knew it. "It's fine."

Eliana stepped closer. The bracelet was perfect, every charm whole and shining. Lexie turned her hand over, and across her palm and the inside of her wrist, three red rings, one inside the other, with a lightning bolt behind them, had been pressed into the skin.

Eliana knew it. She had drawn it herself, and Tommy had filled whole pages of his notebook with it. It was that same symbol, burned into Lexie's hand.

Lexie followed her stare, looked down, and went still.

Neither of them said anything. Over the pool, the flame had gone ragged. It drifted across the water in a lopsided circle like it couldn't decide where to go.

Eliana's hands had started to shake. Her thumb went looking for the cap of a pen, found nothing, and pressed into her own fingers instead. Her breath came in short pieces. The fire had gone straight for her. Lexie had the symbol burned into her hand because she'd stepped in the way. It was all too big to hold at once.

"I can't think," she muttered under her breath.

"Hey." Lexie's good hand closed on her shoulder. "Look at me."

She did. Lexie's face was white, her jaw tight, her eyes wet from the pain. She wasn't fine. She was holding on anyway, and the hand on Eliana's shoulder didn't shake at all.

"Yeah, I can't think either," Lexie said. "So don't think. Just look at it now, and tell me what it's doing."

Eliana swallowed. Her breathing slowed a little. Then she turned and looked at the pool.

The pool was still tearing itself apart. Wherever the fire drifted, the surface split into white seams, and thick lines of bubbles poured up from underneath, far more than any flame should make. The water behind it had gone cloudy.

"Why is the water doing that?" Lexie said.

"I don't know." Eliana watched the bubbles. They weren't steam. They were coming out of the water itself, as if the fire were pulling it apart. "It's not putting the fire out. It's using the water."

"Using it for what?"

"To burn. I think." Her voice wobbled. "Water has oxygen in it. I think it's taking it out."

"But you can't breathe underwater. How can there be oxygen?"

"It's not like that. Water's H2O. The O is oxygen." Eliana felt her face go warm. "I think it's pulling it apart to get it."

Lexie looked at the pool, then at her. "So the fire's making its own air."

"Yeah. And if it didn't have any, it would go out."

Lexie didn't answer right away. She was looking at the fire, but her mind had gone somewhere else.

"No air," she said slowly. "Like when you crack open a jar of pickles and the lid pops. That's because there's nothing in there with the pickles. No air."

Eliana stared at her. "A sealed jar."

"Yeah. That."

"If it's sealed, nothing can get in. It would have nothing left to burn." The idea snapped into place, so simple it was almost embarrassing. "We need a jar."

"And where do you find one of those right now?"

"The cafeteria kitchen. They've got shelves of them back there." Eliana pointed at the far end of the deck, where a second door led out to the back hall. "That goes straight there. Two minutes, maybe."

Lexie nodded. "How'd you even figure that out? The oxygen thing."

"Well, it's some chemistry. Who knew science could be useful, right?" Eliana gave her a small, careful smile. "But the jar was a really good idea. I wouldn't have thought of that."

Lexie blinked, like she hadn't expected it. "Yeah? Well, thanks. You're actually pretty smart. I figured you were just a Hannah clone."

"Thanks. But Hannah's smart too. People just don't see it."

Lexie shrugged. "Okay. Fair." She almost smiled. "I'm bad at compliments."

Over the water, the fire had stopped circling. It lifted off the surface, slower than before, and turned toward them.

"Go!" Lexie said, and grabbed Eliana's hand with her good one.

The pool door banged shut behind them, and then they were in the back hall, a long stretch of cinderblock and flickering fluorescent lights, with the alarm still going overhead. Their feet slapped on the linoleum. Lexie kept her good hand locked around Eliana's and held the burned one stiffly away from her body.

Eliana didn't look back this time. She could hear it, a low crackle somewhere behind them that never got any farther away.

"Left," she said. "Here. Left."

The cafeteria kitchen had steel double doors with a round window in each. One was propped open with a mop bucket, and they ran straight through it.

It was dark and cold and smelled like bleach. Steel counters ran down the middle of the room, and metal shelves ran along the walls, stacked with cans and bags of rice and tubs of mayonnaise the size of buckets.

"Jars," Lexie said. "Jars, jars, jars."

They split up. Eliana ran her hands along the shelves, past the cans, past a crate of lemons, and then she found them: a whole row of mason jars on the lowest shelf, the ones the cafeteria used for the grab-and-go salads. A cardboard box of lids sat beside them. She grabbed two jars and a fistful of lids.

Across the room, Lexie had pulled her phone out of her pocket. She stared at the black screen for one second, then shoved it back in. "Great. Awesome."

"I've got one," Eliana said. "Two. I've got two."

Lexie crossed the room quickly and took a jar from her, her good hand closing around it. "Then we only need one to work."

Behind them, orange light crept across the little window in the kitchen door.

"It has to come through that door," Eliana said. "Straight at us."

"Then I hit it first." Lexie was already moving toward the door with her jar raised and her burned hand curled at her side. "Wait by the wall, I'll..."

Eliana caught her good arm and held on. "Not with your hand. Look at it."

Lexie looked. The red lines had started to blister. For one second her face went blank, and then she let out a breath through her teeth.

"Okay. So what, we just stand here?"

"Yeah. Together, with our backs to the counter, so it can only come at us from the front." Eliana's heart was pounding. "You hold the jar. When it gets close, put it over it."

"And you?"

"I'm the one who'll flinch. You won't."

Lexie almost laughed. They stood shoulder to shoulder against the steel counter, with her jar held low and out of sight from the door. Eliana set her spare jar down and held a lid against her stomach with both hands.

The window in the door went orange.

It came in low, a small ragged flame no bigger than a kitten, with a patch of gray on its side. For a moment it just sat there on the tile, flickering. Then it saw them.

It jumped.

Eliana wanted to run, badly, but she held her ground and watched it come, and at the last second Lexie swung the jar up and caught it in the open mouth. Eliana slapped the lid on and twisted with everything she had.

Inside, the fire thrashed. It beat itself against the walls and then shrank, and shrank again, until the flame was a dull red glow. Then it went out. Behind the glass, curled up on its side, was a salamander no bigger than Eliana's phone, with black skin and orange cracks that were slowly fading.

Neither of them said anything.

Lexie lifted the jar to eye level and turned it. Inside, the salamander slid across the glass and lay still again.

"Is it dead?"

"It might be?" Eliana said.

"Hey." Lexie gave the jar a hard shake. "Wake up!"

The salamander tumbled against the lid and curled up tighter, its tiny feet scrabbling at the glass.

"Stop it." Eliana put her hand on the jar. "That's cruel."

"It's been trying to kill us all day."

"But it's so small..." Her voice came out gentler than she expected. "It's scared. Give it to me."

Lexie hesitated, and then she let go. She flexed her burned hand and looked away, as if she'd been caught at something.

Eliana held the jar against her chest with both hands. Through the glass, one of the orange cracks along the salamander's back pulsed once, faintly, and went dark.

A siren started up outside, faint through the kitchen walls, then another. Under them came a sound Eliana hadn't heard in a while: people. Voices, a lot of them, drifting in from somewhere beyond the back door.

Lexie's head came up. "That's the lawn."

"Hannah's going to freak out. I've been gone this whole time." Eliana reached for her pocket on instinct and pulled out her phone. The screen stayed black.

She pressed the button anyway, twice. Then she looked down at the rest of herself. Her clothes were soaked, hair plastered to her neck, bare feet on the cold tile. Her sneakers were still under a bench by the pool, and she was holding a jar with a salamander in it.

She set the jar on the counter and pushed her wet hair behind her ear. She straightened her shoulders and pulled the damp hem of her shirt flat. When she spoke again her voice had gone up half a step, bright and even, the voice she used on the front steps.

"Okay. We need a story." The words came out calmly. "The class went east and the stairs backed up, so we got separated. You were in the practice room when the alarm went off, and I found you in the hall. The hall was filling with smoke, so we cut through the gym. The hall doors were chained, which is true, and anyone can check it. We tried the back stairwell, but the fire was already coming up, and the pool was the only place left. We took our shoes off so they wouldn't drag us under, and we waited in the water until the smoke cleared. Then we went out through the kitchen because it was the one door that wasn't blocked. Oh yeah, and we didn't call because our phones died in the pool."

Lexie looked at her, perplexed. "Wow. That was fast."

"What was?"

"Nothing." Lexie shrugged, but she kept watching. Her burned hand was pressed flat against her side, out of sight.

Eliana didn't ask what she meant. She picked up the jar and looked at the salamander, curled up and dark, and then at the door.

"We can't take it out there."

"Then what do we do with it?"

"Leave it here." She opened a low steel cabinet under the counter, pushed a stack of baking trays aside, and slid the jar in behind them. "Nobody counts the salad jars. We'll come back tonight."

Lexie crouched next to her, frowning. "And if it gets out?"

"The lid's on." Eliana shut the cabinet and stood up, smoothing her wet shirt flat. "Come on. They'll be wondering where we are."

She went to the door. The voices outside had gotten louder.