Someone would not make it out here tonight. It was a thought that constantly echoed through my bones, a thought I still faced every day despite all the years that had passed. Despite all the things I had done. 

  A flick of the wrist, and swirls of flame engulfed the opponent in front of me, blazing a path so hot they burned blue. His power to control air only fed it. 

  With burning eyes, I forced myself to watch him struggle, to remember what it took to survive in the slums and how much you needed to sacrifice. There was no one to save you here. You would find a way to survive by yourself or you would not be living for long. 

  Helplessly, the young man began dragging himself in my direction, and a flicker of emotion passed through me. Shame, I realized slowly. Guilt. I pushed the thought away.

  His skin was black as coal. It was blistering all over, stained like charcoal and—Please just say it. Please just end this.

  “I surrender,” the young man finally choked out, shock flaring at his own words.

  Gasping, I clamped down on my power, turning away before I could catch sight of my opponent once again. Somehow I still did. He was huddled there, groaning. Bleeding, burning, dying. It was an image I had seen far too many times.   

  A rather heavy sack of money was waiting for me on the counter, and I pocketed it without a word. This is the way of the Hardingale slums, I told myself. Either you hurt or you get hurt. It was not a difficult choice. 

  I strode to the door with heavy footsteps, preparing to make my way back to my ramshackle apartment with a far fatter purse. Although the wealthy could afford to reside in the cities, where neon lights dazzled and bustling streets cheered, I never cared to see it. Never will.

  And maybe it was that very thought, the question of a better life, that distracted me from seeing the hooded figure until it was too late. Steel cold fingers yanked me outside and hurled me into a wall, its rough bricks slicing into my back. 

  In a heartbeat, I was raising my hands to summon flames. Nothing happened. Panic, everywhere at once. 

  Images clanged through me in rapid succession, making my body lock up and my bones hollow. I heard a voice that belonged to someone long since dead, a voice I had desperately chased ever since that day. Ever since my whole world had gone up in flames. 

  The sudden weight on my arms was the only thing rooting me to consciousness as my head snapped down to see the shackles my attacker had slammed on my wrists. To prevent the use of power. 

  The memories faded, one by one. 

  “What do you want from me?” I called out coldly with a voice that did not shake. 

  His muffled steps were a familiar pattern, drawing quietly toward me even amidst all the spilled alcohol and broken glass. The mysterious figure took one more step before pausing. A soft breath.

  And in that moment, I knew. It was him. I risked a glimpse at my chains. Could I could pick the lock fast enough? A hair pain was hidden behind my ear for these circumstances precisely. No. There’s no way I could’ve predicted this.

  My plan was just a rush of thoughts, darting around the damning name of the boy towering over me. It wasn’t possible. I was just being paranoid. 

  But that didn’t stop my heart from hammering as he pulled back his hood in one fluid motion.

  The blood ran cold in my veins. This time I couldn’t stop the trembling as I whispered almost inaudibly, “Why...Why are you here?” He still had the same tousled brown hair, the crystal eyes that had always seemed much too clever for his own good. They glinted with amusement. 

  “Selina. You haven’t changed last I saw you.” His voice was low yet charming. Kind, even.

  I looked away. “The rich life doesn’t suit you, Ian.” 

  “No? I don’t suppose you can offer any better.” It was a smack in the face, a knife in the heart. Worse. But it was still a snap back to reality. 

  “We used to be friends. We used to fight together,” I snarled, discreetly sliding my hair pin into my shackles. Who chained people’s hands in front of them? Ian was still a fool despite his new life. 

  “We used to kill together, Sel. It’s not the same thing.”

  Sel. “You’re not a long lost prince. You don’t get to waltz back into my open arms. So I will only ask once more, Ian. What do you want.”

  “I want you to consider coming with me.”

  I stifled my shock alongside a laugh. “So what? I can con people out of their money and bathe in gold to celebrate?” 

  Ian’s gaze was laced in disappointment. “It’s not like that.” He stared at me for a moment before saying quietly, “Power. Influence. It was all I’ve ever yearned, the dream that drove me to bloody victories and this new life. I knew it was wrong.” His eyes were blue chips of ice. “But I still convinced myself otherwise. Every fearful glance was a treasured possession, every triumph a prize.”

  “You didn’t have to do that. You could’ve told me.” The words hung uselessly in the air.

  Ian’s eyes slid to mine for a brief, vulnerable moment before darting away. “It almost destroyed me, Selina. I don’t want the same to happen to you.”

  “I don’t fight for influence.”

  “No.” He swallowed. “You crave strength. Every time you defeat someone in those combat rings, you feel as if your helplessness is ebbing away, bit by bit.”

  All too familiar memories flashed in the shadows: a darkened closet, thumping footsteps, curdling screams. Blood that wasn’t mine stained on my hands for days after. 

  “What is there to me but my fire?” I demanded angrily, knowing there was no answer Ian could give me. “I am nothing but my ability. Nothing but a fighter.” I willed my voice not to shake but it still did, the words ripped from a place inside me so deep I had not known of its existence.  

  “You are a girl who has suffered too much already, who is being given a chance to stop it. Selina, you don’t have to fight anymore. We can be rich. We can be powerful.”

  I turned away. “I don’t want your pity.”

  But Ian just stepped closer. “Let me help you.” He spoke as if I was a wounded animal, wronged too many times. My fingers curled at my sides.

  “Let me educate you,” I spat. “It may seem all high and mighty on your throne, but the only thing it is built of is the destruction of others. We’re all chained in our own ways, Ian. Yours are made of many things, but I didn’t know innocence was one of them.” I glanced down at my shackles and continued working through my locks. 

   His eyes turned sharp, deadly. “You set fire to people all day, Selina. Don’t kid yourself. A dose of success and prosperity would be good for you.” 

  I thought of the first day I had walked into a tavern, the stench making my nine year old self want to retch. I thought of my first victory in a fight, the way I had sagged onto the floor, watching him burn, even long after I had ripped my power away. How it had felt more like defeat than a triumph at all. 

  “And what has the successful and prosperous ever done for the slums?” I whispered, waving at the darkness around me. “We still ended up on these crooked streets, were still brought to death’s doorstep.” I shook my head. “Everything I’ve ever done is not out of greed but survival. You couldn’t understand.”

  “And when that’s not enough?”

  “I hurt people, I do. And everyday I have regretted their suffering.” A quiet click sounded at my wrists. “But now you ruin lives, Ian. You lie and whisper empty promises and call it success. You still hurt people. You just have a better excuse to do it.” 

  My shackles fell to the ground and I brushed myself off quickly. What a waste of a night. “Don’t come again.” 

  Swiftly, I turned to walk away, but not before Ian clutched my shoulder. “Your fire—it’s a gift, a strength. Yet you would rather neglect your own fear of the past than simply face it.” His grip tightened and coldness slipped into my veins. “It’s made you weak, Selina. Come with me instead.”

  I could hardly think past the roaring in my head, but I still choked out the words. “Once I had a family. Once I had a home. Once I had a chance, Ian. So it is not weakness to live the only life I know.”

  “Are you telling that to me...or to you?” he asked softly, gently. 

  “It’s not me who needs to hear the truth,” I spoke through gritted teeth. In a sudden flash of bitterness, I spun around, reaching out a hand to grasp Ian’s. He almost recoiled, but he still looked at me with hope in his eyes. It no longer stung. 

  “You never belonged in this place,” I murmured as the watch on his right wrist dropped into my waiting palm. A fine price to fetch. 

  And with that I took my leave. I began my stroll back to my apartment, the conditions far worse than Ian would ever remember. If he even bothered to look back. 

  I navigated easily through the winding streets of Hardingale, gazing at the collapsing factories and the permanent smog that had somehow become my home. Somehow become my life.

  It’s made you weak, Selina. No. I’d take my fire to the grave if it meant I had lived an honest enough life with the cards I had been dealt. If Ian wished to land people in the very slums he had started in, that was his business. He didn’t have to bring me into it. 

    What had changed him? In the past, we would always dominate in the combat rings, raising stakes for better profit. By every other fighter, we were known as Justice and Mercy. My lips quirked up. Fitting names. 

  At the end of each fight Ian would always say, “When justice get served soon enough rats will fly too.” True enough. So what had changed? I don’t care, I told myself. It didn’t matter. Power may have driven him, but it had no hold on me. So what did? 

  There was an answer in the wind, the smoke, the dirt. An answer that narrowed the world around me and stole the breath from my lungs as the only thing I could see became the darkness of the closet, the mangled bodies of my parents. I could do nothing but lie down and watch them die.

  My fists tightened, but I still felt the smooth wood of the baseball bat in my hands. It had been the only toy I owned. It had been the only weapon I had. 

  It took all my energy to keep stumbling forward, to keep moving until I saw the familiar black staircase, the crumbling wood and paint, the way the building slanted to the left precariously. I climbed in through the window and lay down on my dirty cot, panting heavily.

  Nothing has changed, I repeated to myself until I believed it. I ended up falling asleep before I could. 

  “Hide and seek, darling, just like when you were little. Mama will count to ten, and we best not find you. “

  “Where’s Papa?” 

  “Quiet, dear girl. He’s taking care of something.” 

  A thud sounds, like a body collapsing onto the floor.

  “Mama?” My voice is frightened, my eyes wide. 

  She kisses me on the forehead. “I’ll find you soon!”

  The next thing I know, I’m sprinting to the closet in my room and shutting the door quietly. Terror floods me and I snatch up a baseball bat with sweaty hands. 

  A few moments later, someone shrieks. A woman. Mama, I want to scream. Mama save me! Footsteps thunder into my room, getting closer. I clamp my mouth shut with a hand, clutching the bat in the other. Save me. Someone save me. The door opens…

  My eyes flew open. A flame was already summoned in my hand, the slight heat welcome, reassuring. I stared at it until the shadows began to fade and the confidence once again flowed in my blood. 

  “I am strong,” I whispered, the crack of unsurety still present in my tone. The fire burned an orange glow on my bare surroundings. “I am brave.” 

  The morning after the incident, I had woken up to a ravaged house and little to no money, quivering in the small space of the closet. I had forced myself to stare at my parents’ dead bodies and make a vow. I would never feel helpless again, and the only way I knew how to protect that was to fight. It was a promise that kept me up late at night, a promise that drove me to the taverns, to the combat rings. It was a promise that I still honored today. 

  I peered through my smudged window out onto the filthy streets, dimly lit by the rising sun. Maybe one day the nightmares would disappear, or the desire for strength would wane. For now, I waited until night fell and then walked into the tavern again. 

                                                                        ~Eleven years later

  I leaned back into my chair, wanting nothing but to kick my sore legs onto the wooden desk before me. Always business before self. 

  “M’ame, there’s a young man here. He insists upon seeing you,” my servant said, gesturing toward the half-open door and the hushed voices arguing behind. So much security in these buildings, this life. 

  I waved a hand dismissively. “Thank you, Liv. Let him in.” 

  A man with striking blue eyes strode into the room. Even though his crumpled clothes reeked of blood and cheap whiskey, he still held himself up like a king. There was a certain familiarity in his expression that I just couldn’t seem to place. “I don’t wish to take up too much of your time, Miss Selina.” 

  “What do you have for me Mister….”

  “Brandel.” 

  “Mr. Brandel.” 

  He surveyed me slowly from head to toe, eyes occasionally catching on my gloved fingers or the gold watch at my wrist. Finally the stranger began, “I have a request for you, Miss. Would you consider investing in the slums? We already possess many factories that can be used as work spaces.”

  Involuntarily, I found myself peering through my window out onto the lively streets, splendid with its flashing lights. My eyes then drifted to the impoverished section beside it. “It was once my home, Mr. Brandel. Maybe it still is. I’ve always tried my best to protect it.”

  “And we are most grateful. But it’s not enough.”

  I studied the slums again. They were far less foul than the years I had lived there, but it still needed repair. Providing children with an education had only been the first step. It had taken late nights and conferences and seven years of studies, but it was not enough. There was no amount of charity that I could give the poor to save them. But if I could make their lives better, just a little, maybe they could forgive me for all the innocents I had burned. For all the pain I had wrought.

  “I apologize, just give me some time.”

  The man nodded. “There are powerful men and women holed away there, who can prove to be very useful. I hear you were a formidable opponent in those combat rings yourself.” 

  It was a bold statement for sure. “Yes. It is not something I am proud of.”

  “Why didn’t you leave sooner?” 

  I couldn’t help but stare into those icy eyes, couldn’t help but wonder who had turned him into such a husk of a man. Sighing, I said, “I was afraid. That everything I had done would lead to nothing in the end. That there was nothing but helplessness, no meaning but success.” 

  “And prosperity,” he muttered so quietly I wasn’t sure if he had spoken at all. 

  Once again, a sense of deja vu slammed into me at those words, those demanding eyes. 

  “Last question. Do you think that my ability—our ability—is a gift?”

  Interesting. People like us were either scammed or scorned into the slums, forced to fight for our lives while the rich towered over us. 

  But maybe it had amounted to something. The strength I had been born with, used when I still could not embark on my journey through fears. “I believe it is given as a gift, though many don’t see it as such.” I clasped my hands on the table. “All I mean is...be ready, Mister Brandel. Those years, it made me weak.”

  His eyes shone for just a moment, the expression turning over something in the back of my head. Who was this man? And what did he really want? 

  “Have a good evening, Selina.” 

  I shook my head and raised a hand in farewell, but he was already out the door.

  “Wait!” I called out, not entirely sure what I wanted to say.

  He turned slightly. 

  “How did you get into the slums?”

  A bitter laugh rolled out of him, a branch of darkness I never wished to witness again. “I went down a path I shouldn’t have. One with no justice served.” It sounded like a clue, a riddle. “But above all, I wanted to find mercy.” 

  He walked away. 

  This time, I didn’t stop him.