Chapter 28: INTERVENTION
The ceiling was wrong again.
Not wrong like that first morning in California, when I'd woken up in someone else's body with fire in my veins and no idea how I'd gotten there. Wrong like the aftermath of a car crash—everything tilted, everything spinning, my brain struggling to process basic information like "up" and "down."
"It's one PM." Max's voice cut through the fog. "You missed school. Mom said you ate everything in the kitchen last night."
I tried to sit up. The room lurched sideways, and my stomach lurched with it. I grabbed the edge of the mattress and held on until the spinning stopped.
"I'm fine."
"You're clearly not fine." Max stood at the foot of my bed, arms crossed, wearing an expression I'd last seen on her face during the road trip when I'd told her I wasn't the same person anymore. Concern masked by aggression. Fear wrapped in attitude.
She'd make a great cop someday. Or a terrible one. Depended on your perspective.
I tried again to sit up. Made it this time, though the effort cost more than it should have. My arms felt like they were filled with wet sand. My head pounded with each heartbeat.
The Phase 3 breakthrough. That's what had done this.
Last night—or was it two nights ago?—I'd pushed past the barrier that had been holding me at four meters. Pushed through frustration and exhaustion and the voice in my head that kept saying "not yet, not ready." The fire had responded, had surged past its previous limits, had turned from orange to yellow to something approaching white.
And then everything had gone dark.
I'd woken up on the quarry floor, cold despite the heat still radiating from the scorch marks on the walls. Managed to get to the Camaro. Managed to drive home without hitting anything. Managed to consume approximately everything in the refrigerator before passing out in my bed.
Fourteen hours later, I was still paying the price.
"What happened?" Max sat on the edge of the bed, close enough to touch but not touching. Giving me space while making it clear she wasn't leaving until she got answers.
"The fire powers." No point lying. She'd seen me train. She knew what the caloric cost looked like. "I pushed too hard."
"Too hard how?"
"Breakthrough. New phase. More power, more range, more heat." I rubbed my temples, trying to ease the pounding. "More cost."
Max was quiet for a moment. Processing. "You almost killed yourself. For training."
"I almost killed myself for progress." The distinction mattered, even if she couldn't see it yet. "There's something wrong in this town, Max. Something dangerous. And I need to be ready for it."
Her expression shifted. The concern was still there, but something else joined it—the sharp awareness of a kid who'd learned young that the world contained threats adults didn't talk about.
"Wrong how?"
A hole between dimensions. A monster made of shadow and cold. A government lab that experiments on children. Your friends getting pulled into a nightmare that will kill people and nearly kill you.
"I can't explain all of it," I said instead. "Not yet. But the rot you've seen on the pumpkins? The weird feeling I get near certain places? It's connected. Something bad is coming, and the fire is the only weapon I've got."
Max studied me for a long moment. The silence stretched, filled only by the distant sounds of the house—Susan moving around downstairs, the tick of the clock on the wall, the normal rhythms of a life that was anything but normal.
"Don't die, idiot." Her voice was rough. "I just started liking you."
Despite everything—the exhaustion, the pain, the weight of secrets I couldn't share—I managed a weak smile. "Deal. But I need food. Lots of it."
"I'll make something." She stood up, headed for the door. "Try to sleep more. You look like death."
"Thanks for the pep talk."
She flipped me off without turning around. Sibling affection, Mayfield style.
The cooking sounds started a few minutes later. Clanking pans, opening drawers, the kind of kitchen chaos that suggested Max was improvising rather than following a recipe. I didn't mind. Any food was better than no food, and my stomach was a black hole that demanded filling.
I lay back against the pillows and tried to assess the damage.
The Phase 3 breakthrough was real—I could feel it in my fire, that new capability waiting to be called. The temperature range had jumped significantly, from the orange-yellow of standard flame to something closer to the white-hot of a forge. The projection range had extended too, though I hadn't had a chance to test the new limits before passing out.
But the cost. God, the cost.
Back in California, Martinez had told me not to waste what I had on anger. Good advice. But he hadn't warned me about the danger of wasting it on desperation.
I'd been training like the deadline was tomorrow. Pushing harder every session, ignoring the warning signs, treating the caloric debt like a problem that could be solved by eating more. But there were limits to what food could do. The body needed time to recover, to process, to rebuild what the fire burned away.
I'd been stupid. Reckless. The kind of reckless that got people killed.
The smell of burning reached me before Max did. She appeared in the doorway a few minutes later, carrying a plate stacked with pancakes that looked like they'd fought a war with the griddle and lost.
"Don't say anything."
"Wasn't going to."
"They're burnt on the outside and probably raw in the middle. I don't actually know how to cook."
I took the plate. Ate the first pancake in three bites. It was exactly as bad as she'd described—crispy char giving way to uncooked batter—but my stomach didn't care. Fuel was fuel.
"These are perfect," I said, reaching for the second one.
Max rolled her eyes, but I caught the hint of a smile. "Liar."
I ate six pancakes. Would have eaten more if there had been more. The hunger was still there, a gnawing emptiness that demanded attention, but the edge had been taken off. I could think now. Could plan.
"I'm going to train smarter," I told her. "Not just harder. Find the limits without breaking myself against them."
"Good." She sat down in the desk chair, spinning it to face me. "Because I didn't sign up to be an only child again."
The words hit harder than she probably intended. She'd had siblings before—half-siblings, from her father's first marriage. I didn't know the details, didn't know if they'd stayed with the father when her mother left or if there was some other story there. But she'd been alone for a while. Long enough to forget what it felt like to have someone in her corner.
Now she had me. And I wasn't planning on going anywhere.
"You're not getting rid of me that easy," I said. "I'm too stubborn to die."
"Stubbornness isn't a survival strategy."
"It's worked so far."
She shook her head, but she was smiling now. Actually smiling, not the sarcastic version she used as armor.
By evening, I was strong enough to walk around. My legs were shaky but functional, and the constant headache had faded to a manageable throb. Susan had made dinner—real food, properly cooked—and I'd eaten three helpings without anyone commenting.
Max watched me from her doorway as I headed back to my room. "You sure you're okay?"
"Getting there." I paused, looked back at her. "Thanks. For the pancakes. For checking on me."
"Whatever. Don't make it weird."
But she was still watching when I closed my door. Still concerned. Still present.
Not alone. That's what mattered. I wasn't doing this alone anymore.
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