Chapter Four

The flames slowly died down. Only smoke and glowing sand remained. Maeve stood at the center of burned ground, breathing hard, stunned, and trembling. She stared at her hands in disbelief and horror. Confusion flooded her senses as the realization of what she'd done settled in.

"I didn't mean to..." she whispered.

The large wolf approached slowly and stopped a few feet away, watching her carefully, calm and steady. Behind him, men were now coming down from the ridge to help the migrants.

Maeve looked at the wolf again. He was enormous, easily the size of a small horse, with thick, black fur and steady gold eyes that didn't seem afraid of anything. Up close, he didn't feel dangerous the way she expected a wolf to feel. He felt calm, controlled, like he could be violent if he needed to, but didn't want to be.

"You're with them," she said quietly. "You're helping them."

The wolf blinked slowly and turned, walking back toward the ridge, then looked over his shoulder once as if telling her to follow. Maeve swallowed, still shaking, and despite the ridiculousness of it, decided to follow the wolf into the desert night.

Maeve was exhausted on the walk back. She thought of the wolf and the fire. The men running, the migrants crying, and the heat in her hands. It felt like she was walking through someone else's dream. Her memories felt like someone had shuffled them out of order and handed them back to her without instructions.

The large wolf walked ahead of her through the desert, stopping every so often to make sure she was still following. Other wolves moved in the distance, shadows along the ridges, silent and watchful. The men she had seen earlier had helped the migrants into another vehicle, speaking softly, handing out water, and moving quickly but calmly, as if they had done this many times before. She wondered where they had gone and if they were safe.

No one tried to grab her. No one tied her wrists again. No one told her where to go. She just followed the wolf. She kept checking her hands for signs of fire. The rage she felt earlier lingered slightly in her chest, but as it wore off, a deep fatigue began to overtake her. She stumbled, almost falling. The wolf circled back to check on her.

As if noticing how tired her body was, the wolf lay down in the sand. All the other wolves stopped and watched the interaction. Maeve was struck by a silent intelligence that seemed to circulate amongst the wolves, as if in an inner dialogue. She swayed in place for a moment before crumpling to her knees.

Her left hand landed in the coarse fur of the dark wolf by her side. She could feel warmth and the movement of breathing. A shudder ran through the wolf's body, startling her. She removed her hand, but the wolf let out a slight growl. He shifted to reveal more of his back. Maeve understood that the wolf wanted her to climb on.

Maeve managed to shimmy herself up onto the wolf. His broad back made it easy for her to lie down without fear of falling. He stood up and began walking again. The steady rhythm of his pace lulled Maeve into a calm she couldn't remember feeling since she was a young child snuggling with her grandmother. Her eyes closed, and she drifted off to sleep.

She wasn’t sure how long she had slept when a quiet growl awoke her. Looking up, she saw the desert rocks open into the hidden camp again, campfires glowing low between the stone formations. The wolf slowed as they approached, then stopped to allow her to slide off its back.

Still tired, she managed to stand upright on her trembling legs, already missing the warmth of the wolf as the cold, desert breeze hit her. She watched the large wolf disappear behind a large rock outcrop near the tents. Maeve stopped at the edge of camp, unsure what she was supposed to do now.

Moments later, a man with jet black hair cut close to his head, except for a mop of short curls on top, and serious, deep brown eyes walked around the rock wall, pulling a shirt over his head. She caught a glimpse of a washboard stomach before it was hidden by the white cotton tee. He had tattoos on his right arm and neck. As he stepped into the firelight, he glowed golden. Now Maeve understood the glowing stranger she had seen earlier. The campfire had played tricks on her eyes.

Javier stopped the moment he saw her. But it wasn't seeing her that confirmed it. It was the scent. Fire, ash, and heat with something ancient and sharp beneath it, like lightning and old stone. Stronger now than before. Much stronger. It was her. The girl from earlier, but not the same girl. Something had changed.

He walked toward her slowly, keeping his movements calm so he wouldn't scare her. He could see now that she had fiery orange hair and vivid green eyes. There was a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, and Javier realized what Diego meant when he said she wasn't a migrant. She did not have the haunted, exhausted look of someone who had been crossing the desert for days.

She wasn't moving like someone who had given up or was waiting to be told what to do. She stood tall and defiant, shoulders back, chin lifted, even though fear was clearly written in her eyes. Most of the people they found out here looked broken by the time they reached the Guardians. This girl looked angry. She looked like someone who had been taken against her will, not someone who had chosen this road.

"You're safe here," he said.

Maeve stared at him

"I've seen you before," she said slowly. "When... when someone was wrapping my wrists."

She looked down at her wrists that were no longer covered in bandages, but in light burn marks where the zip tie had been.

"Lucia," he said, nodding toward a woman standing nearby. "She was treating you earlier."

Maeve nodded slightly, still trying to focus. Then she looked past him toward the rocks.

"Where's the wolf?" she asked.

Javier didn't hesitate.

"He brought you back," he said. "He won't bother you."

Maeve looked around the camp again, scanning the shadows.

"You people train them?" she asked quietly. "The wolves?"

Javier glanced briefly toward Mateo and Tomas, who were unloading supplies nearby. They were listening without trying to be obvious.

"They help us," Javier said. "And we help them."

Maeve nodded slowly, as if that somehow made sense.

She looked tired. Covered in dust. Hair tangled. Her eyes were still wide from everything she had just survived. But beneath the dust and fear, Javier could still smell the fire coming off her skin like heat from sun-warmed stone.

"I'm Javier," he said.

"Maeve," she answered automatically.

"I know," he said.

She frowned slightly, "You know?"

"You said your name to Lucia," he said. "When she was helping you."

Maeve looked down at her hands again. They were dirty, scratched, faintly red, but not burned the way they should have been. The flames had not damaged her skin; the only wounds were from the hot plastic that had melted away.

"I started a fire," she said quietly.

Javier studied her for a long moment, replaying in his mind the image of flames shooting from her fingertips.

"You scared some very bad men," he said. "That's all that matters."

She shook her head slowly.

"No. Fire came out of my hands."

Javier didn't respond right away. The scent of ash and heat was still drifting from her skin, stronger every second as if something inside her was still burning.

"I don't know what I am," she said quietly.

Javier looked at her, really looked at her now, the fear, the exhaustion, the confusion.

"You're alive," he said. "That's a good place to start."

For some reason, that almost made her cry.

"Where are the others? The people who were in the truck with me? Those children?"

"They have been taken to safety," Javier replied.

"Who were those men? What were they going to do with me?"

"Nothing good," he answered.

Just then, Abuela Rosa approached with a blanket.

"Come, mija," she said gently, wrapping the blanket around Maeve. "You are tired and frightened. All problems are worse when you lack sleep."

Maeve took the blanket automatically.

"Thank you," she said.

Abuela Rosa studied Maeve's face for a long moment, then her eyes moved slowly down to Maeve's hands. Then to her chest. Then back to her eyes. Her expression changed with recognition and certainty. She glanced at Lucia, who nodded with a knowing look in her eyes.

She looked at Javier and said quietly in Spanish, "Es ella. La llama."

It is her. The flame.

Javier didn't answer, but his eyes flicked toward Maeve again.

Abuela Rosa touched Maeve's cheek gently.

"Mi niña," she said softly. "You have been lost for a long time."

Maeve frowned slightly.

"I'm from Washington," she said. "I wasn't lost. I was kidnapped."

Abuela Rosa smiled gently.

"Yes," she said. "But not only that. Some people are lost because they take the wrong road. Others are lost because they are being led somewhere they do not yet understand."

Maeve didn't understand what that meant, and she was too tired to ask. She decided that she was not going to think about the fire, or the glowing hands, or the wolves that moved like soldiers. Her brain felt too full already, and if she tried to understand everything at once, she was pretty sure she would break. So, she picked the only thing that mattered right now: she was alive. Everything else could wait.

She suddenly realized she could barely keep her eyes open. Javier noticed immediately.

"You're safe here," he repeated. "You should sleep."

Maeve looked at him for a long moment.

"You promise?" she asked quietly.

Javier held her gaze and nodded once, "I promise."

She didn't know why, but she believed him. Some deep instinct within her body reacted to his promise, and she relaxed, but only slightly.

Lucia appeared beside her and led her back toward the cave. Maeve re-entered the tent she had left earlier and lay down on the cot again, still smelling faint smoke on her own skin.

Outside, Javier stood near the fire, watching the cave entrance. Abuela Rosa stepped beside him quietly.

"How did you know she was gone?" she asked.

"I couldn't smell her anymore."

"You smelled it," she said.

"Yes," Javier answered.

"The flame has returned."

Javier didn't take his eyes off the cave.

"I know," he said. "I never thought the stories were real, but now, I think everything is about to change."