Wildefire Series: Wildefire Part 25

When Rolfe spoke next, his voice was so crisp that Ash knew he must be standing right by the door, but she couldn't help herself from sliding closer anyway. "We made that agreement two months ago," he said. "Two months ago, and as I remember, the stipulation was only if we weren't dating somebody at the time."

She snorted. "Good to know I was always the backup plan." Bad Lily had returned. "Well, I'll give it two days before she figures out the truth. That you're a superman on the streets . . ." She paused provocatively. "And a dud in the sheets."

303.

Rolfe inhaled a sharp breath, and Ashline's whole body constricted as she prepared to intervene. But then Rolfe let his breath out slowly. "Better a dud in the sheets," he said coolly, "than a b.i.t.c.h who never had a chance."

He slammed the door on his way out, hard enough to rattle the wall Ashline had pressed her body against.

Rolfe noticed her immediately. His jaw was tight and his chest rose in and out in hurried breaths. Ash just a.s.sumed he was going to berate her, deservedly, for lurking outside and listening to the whole conversation.

Instead he managed a courteous-albeit fake-smile.

"Knock 'em dead today," he said, and wandered off down the hall.

Ash walked the few extra steps to Lily's door and raised her hand to knock. But the room was just so silent. . . .

"Pele," Ash whispered.

She lowered her fist without knocking, and headed for the tennis court.

Ash sat in the locker room on a bench, rocking back and forth. Her nerves were on fire. She had a wet towel, soaked with cool water, draped around her neck.

Outside, she could just faintly hear the persistent hollow cluck of the tennis ball combined with the rhythmic grunts of the Alyssa Gillespie-clack, grunt; clack, grunt-steady like a metronome. From in here Ash could 304 tell who won each point based on where the cheers came from-shouts from the right meant it was Southbound's point; a ma.s.sive wave of howls from the left, and Alyssa had scored.

She dabbed at her forehead with the cool towel. It was pretty typical for her to vomit the day of a game.

Usually purging her lunch soothed any jitters and kept her light on her feet, but today was different. Her anxiety sat in her stomach like a mud brick, and her body crawled with the heat itch.

"You're not looking too hot," Eve said, leaning against a row of lockers.

Just hearing the sound of her sister's voice was like falling into a nest of angry scorpions, pinp.r.i.c.ks shooting up and down her arms and all around her neck. "I'm going to pretend like you came here to wish me good luck."

"No, something even better." Eve took a seat on the bench in front of Ashline. "You've been talking a lot about family lately, and I think I'm finally on the same page as you."

At first Ash experienced a glimmer of hope that her sister was talking about her parents, but the excited gleam in Eve's eye said otherwise. "You had the vision last night too."

Eve smiled and seized Ashline's hands in her own.

"We have a little sister, Little Sister."

Ash retracted her hands. "Yeah, and that little sister 305 is some sort of out-of-control G.o.ddess of war. Or did you miss the part where she ripped open the throats of some innocent villagers and blew up a house?" She shuddered.

"She's just a little girl," Eve snapped.

Ash stood up and chucked her wet towel into the corner of the locker room. "Well, that little girl seems to have a lot more in common with you than she does with me."

Eve smirked. "I thought burning down things was your department."

"I don't need this. I've got a tennis match to play."

Ash picked her racket off the bench and headed for the door.

Eve intercepted her, blocking her exit. "Let's go to Central America, you and me. We'll track our little baby boom down and bring her back to the land of the living.

The three of us together as a family." She raised her eyebrows provocatively. "Maybe make a stop in Cancun or Cozumel on the way back."

"No," Ash said curtly, and attempted to skirt around Eve.

But Eve stepped to the side to block her again. "You have an obligation-"

Ash grabbed her sister by the front of her black coat and with a fierce growl wheeled her around and slammed her against the nearest locker. Eve's head snapped back and hit the metal with a heavy crash. "Don't you say another word to me about obligation, Evelyn Wilde. In less than a month I have to go home to Scarsdale and 306 sweep up all the pieces that you left when you took off on your cross-continental adventure. So please forgive me for laughing in your face when you pretend like you give a s.h.i.t about anyone but yourself."

Eve glanced down at the hands on her lapel. "Says the girl who is choosing a tennis match and a friggin' masquerade ball over her imperiled little sister."

Ash's grip on Eve's coat tightened, and before she could stop herself, she had whipped her sister around and thrown her forward. The momentum carried Eve back until her calves caught on the locker bench, and she dropped to the tile with a sharp thwack.

When Eve sat up, she was ma.s.saging her head with a grimace of pain. "Well, I haven't seen that Ashline since you took care of Lizzie Jacobs last year." A smile bled through. "The real Ashline."

Outside, the audience roared, signaling the end of the previous match and Alyssa's victory. That put the current standing at Blackwood: 3, Southbound: 3, with Ashline's game versus Patricia determining whether the home team was awarded the W.

"Have fun trying to raise the little girl as a single mom," Ash said as she bent down and picked her racket off the tile. "I'm sure you'll win a mother-of-the-year award if she doesn't blow up Vancouver first."

She didn't look back as she headed down the hall.

The chants echoed down the hallway, the words indecipherable but growing louder as she approached the 307 courts. Still, the sentiment was clear. She was about to enter the gladiator arena, and the people wanted blood.

Ashline was to be their champion. Her fingers tightened around the tape on the handle of her racket.

Finally she pa.s.sed over the threshold, and the audience erupted. In unison they rose to their feet, a sea of green and brown-the Blackwood colors-looking like a living forest, while the smaller but still potent crowd on the other bleachers, decked out in Southbound crimson, looked like a flame ready to cremate their opponents.

There were easily four hundred spectators packed into the home team bleachers, an overstuffed suitcase of students and faculty. A few faces stuck out from the rest.

Bobby Jones had persuaded the entire soccer team to go topless, with their chests and faces painted in forest camouflage. Their feet rumbled heavily against the bleachers.

She noticed Headmistress Riley, tall as ever, in the faculty section; she was not partic.i.p.ating in the chants, but Ash did notice that she'd traded her blazer and slacks for a superfan T-shirt and jeans.

And not too far from where Ade, Raja, and Rolfe were sitting, she spotted a familiar ranger uniform. Her eyes locked with Colt's across the court. He greeted her with a rea.s.suring smile, but his hand unconsciously touched his chest.

Ash approached the net at the referee's instruction, and the sinewy Patricia joined her. The Hawaiian girl had a red tennis cap pulled down tightly on her head, but 308 her eyes smoldered fiercely beneath the brim. Whatever heritage they shared, whatever colliding paths of fate had allowed two Polynesian girls to climb the ranks to become two of the best tennis players in California prep school athletics, there was no love lost between them as they shook hands. Patricia's vise grip crushed her hand with the force of a trash compactor, but Ash wasn't about to grimace.

Blackwood won the coin toss, so Ash took the line and pulled the ball from her shorts. She toed up to the paint, gave the ball a few practice bounces. The crowd hushed. And then she flipped the ball straight up into the air, and her racket hammered down.

Ash was headed for the left corner of the court before she realized that Patricia was actually sending the ball hurtling toward the opposite side. She changed directions on her heel, but it was too late. She went sprawling to the ground with her racket outstretched, but the ball touched down right on the paint before it took its second bounce and dribbled into the corner.

The referee shouted, "Game!" Ash slammed her racket to the clay before picking herself up; she made sure her back was to the ref when she repeatedly swore under her breath. Ash had taken the first set, and Patricia the second. Ashline had steamrolled out into the final set, taking the first four games, with only two more needed for the win. But for the last ten minutes Tricia had decisively 309 trammeled her, winning six of the last eight games. They were tied, six games apiece, and a final tie-breaking game would determine the victor.

From the opposite end Tricia called time and headed for the visiting team locker room. On Tricia's way across the court, Ash noticed that her opponent had an almost undetectable limp and was favoring her left foot.

"Wilde!" Coach Devlin shouted. Ash hobbled over to the bench, where the coach pressed a water bottle into her hand, but Ash shoved it right back. The last thing she needed right now was more weight in her stomach, and there would be plenty of time to rehydrate later. Instead she grabbed a towel from the bench and mopped at her forehead.

"You see what just happened there?" the coach whispered to her.

"She's limping, I know."

"Slipped and came down on her left foot wrong when she charged the net in that last game. It would be very unsportsmanlike for me to suggest that you try to fire off some quick shots to her left," Coach Devlin mused.

"Loud and clear." Ash tossed the towel onto the bench.

"Good." Coach clapped her on the back. "Now pretend like every serve is a single nail you're hammering into the lid of her coffin." She shoved Ashline back onto the court.

Tricia emerged from the locker room with her stride 310 even and her leg magically healed. To Ashline's immediate surprise, her combatant actually approached her instead of returning to her own side. Tricia tilted her head back, and her face came into focus beneath her little red cap.

Ashline nearly dropped her racket.

"Where is she?" Ash hissed.

"You mean that chick with no sense of humor?" Eve asked. "Taking a long nap on the shower floor. Hopefully she'll wake up in time to catch her bus." She tugged at the tight tennis shorts. "Good thing we're about the same size."

Ash took a step toward her. "I am not playing against you."

"Yes, you are." Eve tossed her racket playfully from hand to hand. "Because if you'll notice, the stands on which everyone that you know is sitting-your friends, your teachers . . . your boyfriend-are made of metal.

Conductive metal."

"You wouldn't." Ashline's throat went as dry as the Gobi, and she suddenly wished she'd taken that drink when she'd had the chance.

"That's the game, partner. You win this match, I disappear off to Vancouver and I stop hounding you.

Patricia wakes up with a ma.s.sive headache, maybe thinks she slipped and hit her head in the showers, has to take a bus ride home being consoled by her cla.s.smates about a match she doesn't remember losing. But if you lose, then you quit pretending to be Suzy Valedictorian, dump 311 Blackwood like an ugly prom date, and come with me.

And if you try to run or give anyone any reason to believe that something is amiss . . ." She looked ominously to the sky, and a bleak wind picked up. She leaned in and whispered into Ashline's ear, "I will fry everyone."

Ash looked up into the stands. Colt was clapping along to one of Bobby's chants. The referee was watching the two athletes with particular interest. "Guess I don't have much of a choice."

"We'll shake on it, then."

Ash took her sister's hand, and instantly her eyes blanched white with pain and a bright haze swallowed the whole court. Electricity sizzled through her fingers, and her body trembled from her head out to her extremities. She could feel the blood vessels rising to the surface of her skin, and she clenched her jaw so tightly that she thought her teeth would shatter. A tinny whine pierced her eardrums.

Eve finally released her. She did an about-face and headed for the opposite side. "Your serve."

Ash took a moment to collect herself as the seizure pa.s.sed and the searing white faded from her eyes. Then she gathered control of her limbs and made the trip back to the line. The ringing soon died away, replaced with the stomp, stomp, clap of the home team audience. Soon Bobby Jones and the rest of his body-painted male cheerlead-ers started in on a chant of, "Kick some Ash! Kick some Ash!"

312.

At the line, Ash inhaled deeply, flushing the last of the electricity out of her system. Come on, she instructed herself. She bounced the ball in front of her. She was the top-ranked varsity tennis player. She was the one in control. Bounce. It had been years since Eve partic.i.p.ated in nay sort of compet.i.tive athletics, and whatever she was doing with her time in Vancouver, it wasn't making court times and improving her backhand at some posh country club. Bounce.

Ash tossed the ball into the air. Her racket made hard contact.

The ball sailed straight into the net.

"Fault!" called the referee.

Ash shook her head and pulled another ball from her pocket as the manager flitted across the court to snag the loose one.

"Focus," Ash whispered to herself. Double bounce.

Take all of your jitters and force them into the ball.

She lobbed the ball and brought her racket up to meet it. This time the ball cruised over the net- And strayed out of bounds by a solid two feet.

"Double fault!" the referee shouted, met with the dis-gruntled groans of the home team.

For the next serve Ashline took a more conservative swing, and the ball landed in bounds, but in a blur Eve was there to field the shot, sending it right back her way.

The ball approached faster than Ash had expected, but she was ready for it, loping across the court.

313.

A hungry wind swooped down from the south. Just as Ashline's racket swept forward to intercept the fuzzy green meteor, the gust caught the ball and sent it bouncing in the opposite direction.

"LoveThirty," the ref announced. It was all Ash could do not to heave her racket across the court.

Her rage propelled her next two serves over the net with ruthless precision, back-to-back aces that, even with her bag of supernatural tricks, Eve was at a loss to field in time. However, the third serve came off the tip a little on the sluggish side, and Eve sprinted for the corner in time, volleying it back over the net.

It headed for the back corner, within easy reach of Ashline, and moving slowly. What Eve compensated for with fast reflexes, she lacked in technique. Ash trotted over ready to make an easy return over the net.

With a crackle, ice crystallized on the clay beneath her as her left foot came down. She pitched forward onto her face, and her racket only clipped the ball, sending it hurtling at the referee's tower. He leaned back to let the ball jet past him into the visiting team stands.

"Thirtyforty! Match point!"

Bobby seized the moment to incite a new chant. He rose to his feet with the others, stomping on the stands as he bellowed "You're an Ash-hole!" at Eve.

They were all totally oblivious to the fact that the girl they were mocking had electrocuted people for less.

Seeing her fans on their feet renewed Ashline's 314 courage. She drew herself up as tall as she could, let her spine extend, and rubbed her elbow where it had sc.r.a.ped the ground during her fall. There was blood on her fingers, and she ma.s.saged it into the ball, the violent red on the electric green like some sort of twisted emblem of Christmas.

She stepped up to the line. With a crushing blow she placed another sizzling ace down the right-hand side.

Eve moved in a blur but missed the ball by a fraction of an inch. The momentum carried her toward the visiting stands and onto the clay floor. Another Southbound player dashed over to help her to her feet, but Eve shoved her away viciously and pulled her cap down more tightly on her head.

The next serve Eve volleyed back in a high arc that was coming down close to the net, if it was going to clear it at all. This time Ashline expected the ice that crystallized beneath her feet. She rode it forward, sliding until the soles of her shoes scratched against the surface of the clay. With a leap that nearly took her over the net, Ash caught the ball and slammed it down her opponent's throat. The ball zipped between Eve's legs.

The Blackwood side erupted as "Advantage Wilde!"

echoed from the speakers. It was match point, and Ashline was one serve away from sending Eve home. But as Ash returned to the baseline to the raucous chatter and shouts and clapping and stomping of the home team fans, she felt queasy. Would Eve keep her word if she 315 lost? Or would she enact her revenge anyway? She had murdered Lizzie Jacobs in cold blood . . . but was she so far gone that she could send a lightning bolt forking down into an innocent crowd?

Ashline was dribbling the ball, waiting for the crowd to hush, when the sickening feeling crept into her sinuses.