ford

I’ve stared death in the face so many times over the past few years, I assumed I knew how I’d feel when the moment finally came.

I thought I’d be angry, enraged that my life had been cut short before I had my revenge. Before I’d accomplished my goals or seen the world or learned to ride a skateboard.

There were no skate parks close to home when I was growing up, but it always looked so damned cool. I wanted to learn someday.

I wanted to live.

I wanted to leave the misery of captivity and betrayal behind and be whole again. I wanted to serve my people and make a difference in the world and celebrate holidays and laugh with my friends, and lately, I’ve wanted to love Juliet.

More than anything.

That’s what I would have told her, if my body hadn’t given out before I could get the words out. I would have told her that I was grateful to have felt what I felt when we were together. I’m sure requited love would have been great, but even one-sided, it was the best feeling I’ve ever known.

Just knowing my heart had the capacity to care about another human being the way I care for her, convinced me I’m not so bad, after all. I’m not like my stepfather or the men who ran the fight pits or any of the piece of shit “Alphas” willing to rig these trials and kill their opposition to stay on top.

I’m braver than that. Better than that.

As I spiral toward the waves crashing against the rocks, the wind whistling as it rushes past my ears, I don’t feel angry. I feel like I did what I was supposed to do in this life, no matter how long or short it was.

I took a chance. I fought for what mattered.

I fell in love.

Who could ask for more?

Just as my eyes are closing and my limbs going limp, a screech so raw it makes my eardrums ache, rips through the air. A second later, I’m engulfed in a wave of heat, and two strong claws lock onto my good arm.

I force my eyes open to see Juliet’s phoenix flapping hard in the air above me.

Let me go. I reach out with my mind, but I don’t expect her to understand. She never has before. I’m just too weak to speak.

When she shouts, Like hell I will, straight into my cortex, it feels like my head is about to explode.

I shudder and almost lose consciousness but force myself to call back, Let me go, I’m too heavy. I’ll kill you. I can’t kill you. Please, Jules.

She’s too small to lift my entire body weight—especially with so much momentum already behind me.

If she holds on, I’ll only drag her down with me.

But she doesn’t let go. She holds on tighter as the ocean gets so close, I can feel the spray on the back of my neck. Heart racing, I beg with the last of my mental strength, If you love me, let me go, Juliet. I want you to live. I’m okay to go as long as you get to stay.

Her eyes burn into mine, filled with drops of liquid gold I have a moment to realize must be phoenix tears before her wings catch fire. The blaze is so bright, on instinct my good arm flies up to shield my eyes.

No, that isn’t my good arm.

That’s the arm Beck did his best to rip out of the socket.

Before I can form a theory as to how that’s possible, Juliet’s wings stretch wider, longer, the flames dancing from the ends of each feather spreading until they seem to take up the entire sky. The rushing wind stops batting at my ears, my stomach flips, and a second later, we swoop away from the water and back up into the sky.

My breath rushes out as I glance down to see the waves zipping by beneath us as she heads farther out to sea.

She did it. She saved my life. Not because she had to, but because she wanted to. Because she wants me here, with her.

I look back at her, lips parted to tell her how f*****g badass she is, but the words die on my lips.

Juliet’s fire is still growing, the flames surrounding her burning brighter with every pump of her massive wings. As I watch, the fire spreads to the fur on her chest, sending smoke billowing behind her like a prop plane with a damaged engine on a collision course with the ground.

The ground…

If we can get back on land, she can stop flapping her wings and hopefully the fire will go out on its own. Land, you have to land, I call out with my mind. The fire’s getting too big!

But it’s like she doesn’t hear me. She just keeps flying, faster and faster, the fire roaring around us and…inside me. I swear, I can feel the flames burning through my veins, but they’re not hurting. They’re healing.

By the time Juliet finally cuts sharply toward the water below, aiming for what I now see is a small island a few miles from shore, I feel stronger than I did when the day started. Strong enough to extend my legs toward the sand and break my own fall as Juliet releases me and rolls through the undergrowth beside the shore.

I race after her, kicking sand on a couple stubby coastal plants that have started smoking in her wake, wondering why her fire didn’t burn me.

It’s clearly capable of burning these shrubs, so why not my skin?

Maybe there’s something about it in that phoenix journal Juliet has back in her dorm. Or maybe this is a uniquely Juliet talent she’ll have to write about in her own log someday.

Whatever happened, I’m just so glad it did, and that we don’t have to say goodbye.

The thought is barely through my head when Juliet’s blaze swells to bonfire proportions. A roar fills the air, followed by a sharp crack. A beat later I’m blinded by a flash of light that sends me to my knees. I press my hands to my eyes with a scream, wondering if this is what it feels like to be in the presence of an atomic bomb as waves of heat flood over my head.

I fall to the ground, shielding myself from the no longer harmless flames. I smell burning hair and smack at the back of my head but wait until the worst of the heat is gone before I roll over and press my singed skull into the sand.

Better burned hair than a burned face.

The sand stings my tender skin, making me suck in a breath with a hiss, but the burn’s a mosquito bite compared to the wounds I had before. I’m back on my feet in seconds, rushing toward the last place I saw Juliet.

But there’s nothing there now—no bird on fire, no naked girl exhausted by her shift—just a few smoking plants and a pile of ash. Before I fully come to terms with the fact that Juliet must have gone full burn, the sea breeze sweeps through the trees sheltering the island, sending a cloud of ash swirling into the breeze.

With a cry of grief wrenched from the center of my chest, I race across the sand and throw myself on top of the pile, determined not to let her blow away.

She’s a phoenix.

If I protect her ashes, she’ll come back to me. That’s what phoenix do.

It is what they do, I’ve read all the books.

But still, a part of me doesn’t believe it.

A part of me knows that Juliet, the Juliet I once knew, anyway, the one who finally decided to love me back, is gone.