Flame Guardian Read online

  Kasian Publishing LLC

  11923 NE Sumner St, STE 759356

  Portland, OR 97220

  www.KristinVanRisseghem.com

  Copyright © 2019 Kristin D. Van Risseghem

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Mallory Rock

  Rock Solid Book Designs

  Author photograph by Jessica Krueger Photography,

  www.JessicaKruegerPhotography.com

  Formatting by The Writer Lab

  Series edited by Melissa A. Craven

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-943207-40-4 (Paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-943207-84-8 (Kindle)

  Other works by Kristin D. Van Risseghem:

  Deities Series

  Flame Guardian, Book One

  Earth Guardian, Book Two

  Water Guardian, Book Three

  Air Guardian, Book Four

  Seascape Chronicles

  Seascape, Book One

  Landscape, Book Two

  Dragon Slayer Series:

  Dragon Magic, Prequel

  Dragon Slayers, Book One

  Dragon Wars, Book Two

  Dragon Protectors, Book Three

  Enlighten Series:

  Swords & Stilettos, Book One

  Daggers & Dresses, Book Two

  Wars & Wings, Book Three

  Fires & Fairies, Sidelle’s Novella

  Arrows & Angels, Kieran’s Novella

  Poisons & Princes, Finn’s Short Story

  Ninjas & Nephilims, Shay’s Short Story

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  www.KristinVanRisseghem.com

  May you burn bright.

  I am fire. I am pain. I am death.

  My name is Ashley Warfield, a child of the foster system. I’ve bounced around town to town, home by home. I don’t trust anyone except for my twin brother and my BFF. The jury’s still out on the hot guy who shares my abilities.

  Just before my 18th birthday, I’m charged with arson after failing to keep my newfound talents in check. Then I’m shipped off to juvie with my only option being to join the army – I need discipline, control, and obedience. Then it’s to Special Ops so I can become the hero I’m meant to be. Or is it the bad guy?

  Because of my special powers, the government wants to keep those like me under wraps, but I know enough that others will want to use me for their cause. To top it off, someone is after me, and I need to figure out who that is and if they have anything to do with my parents’ death. Because I know I didn’t start our house on fire those 14 years ago either.

  I am the FLAME GUARDIAN.

  Table of Contents

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Part II

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Part III

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Part IV

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Letter to Reader

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Part I

  Chapter One

  “Where is he?” I run through the school’s corridors, passing dull red lockers. “So help me, if anyone is protecting him, you’ll regret it.”

  Students step out of my way, afraid I might barrel into them. It wouldn’t be the first time. I’ve been known to slam people onto the floor, shove kids against the walls, and steal people’s homework assignments. All for fun. Some people call me a bully. No, I’m not; I swear. Can I help it if people’s faces run into my fists? Is it my fault if others say stupid shit about me that’s usually not true?

  Needless to say, high schoolers stay clear of me in hopes they aren’t the target of my wrath. Some adults, too.

  Today is going to be shitty. I can feel it.

  The alarm blared too early this morning since I forgot to reset it. That’s what I get for staying out too late, partying. The shower ran cold since my twin brother takes the world’s longest showers, a waste if you ask me since he doesn’t use his pretty face to get the girls. Then on our way to school, we just missed the city bus. We had to run the two miles. We went faster than the streets choked with crawling cars. Scores of people flood the walkways like ants.

  “I know someone is hiding him and nothing will stop me from finding out who, so you might as well own up to it now.” People dodge my glare. “Was it you?” I point to a random girl. She’s wearing ripped jeans and an ugly shirt. Yikes. She hangs her head and scurries down another hallway, not stopping to answer me. I poke a football player in his chest. “You?”

  “Nope. You know I’d never do anything like that.” He glances down at me.

  Yeah, so I might only be barely five feet tall, but my harsh words have always made even the tallest and bulkiest guys pause. Plus, it helps that my brother will pummel any ass who messes with his kid sister. He and I are twins and he’s older by three and a half minutes. But those two-hundred and ten seconds means everything to him, and he never lets me forget it.

  It’s fine, really.

  He can keep thinking I need protection. I don’t. But that’s neither here nor there.

  We protect each other: family first. That’s our motto, born of the fucked-up foster system, of having no one to keep us safe but each other. It’s been our promise to each other since we could remember, as that first social worker pushed for us to remain together. It could also be that we defend each other so fiercely since we shared a womb for nine months.

  As I sprint down another hallway, looking for my ex-boyfriend, the teachers part like the red sea. I’m sure my face expresses my fury. Even they know not to mess with me. They’ve tried everything: sitting me down and lecturing me, calling my foster parents; that went over real well, and even went so far as to try getting my brother to calm me down when I go into fits of rage.

  Nothing works.
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  I’m a hot head.

  Like really.

  Right now, I need to find that good-for-nothing piece of shit I used to call a boyfriend. When I see those baby blues, I’m planning to give him a real black eye. Or two.

  No one calls me a slut and gets away with it.

  Not unless you’re my best friend. I’m sure that Tage wouldn’t spread that rumor about me. Besides, if she ever did call me that, it’d be a term of endearment.

  ‘Tage rhymes with Sage’ is what she told me when we’d first met at the beginning of this year. We clicked on my first day at Von Steuben High School, the latest in my long list of transfers. Maybe I can actually stay here long enough to graduate in six months.

  I check Loser’s homeroom. He’s not there. Then I sprint to the gym. Negative. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I hear my brother’s voice in my head telling me that I can’t blow up on random things. My hot head can’t be the reason we get expelled again.

  My last hope is the library. Perhaps he would think I’d never check there. Normally, he’d be correct, but today is not normal.

  I’m on a hunt and will find my prey. My fists are aching to connect with his face. Or gut. And possibly someplace a little lower.

  Wouldn’t that be nice? Watching him bent at the knees, crying like a baby, and hearing his voice rise three octaves.

  The thought alone spurs me forward.

  “I know you’re in here,” I shout across the library, tilting my head to hear the barest intake of a breath.

  A smattering of nerds is hunched over books getting in some last-minute studying. Some glare at me, but that’s all. They know they’ll end up on my shit list if they interfere.

  I round a corner and almost bump into the librarian. He’s short and stocky and always wears a wooly cardigan. Small horned-rimmed glasses perch on his overly large nose. I’ve seen him around in the halls of course, and a few times I’ve come to his domain. Could it be that he’s heard of my reputation since he only places a finger to his lips to shush me?

  Another intake of breath has a smile stretching across my lips. I nod to the librarian as I squeeze my body past his.

  “Sucker,” I whisper, creeping along the bookshelves. “You knew I would find you eventually. You should come out and take your punishment like a real man. I knew you’d be a chicken shit about it.” I stalk forward. “What? You didn’t think I’d hear about you calling me names behind my back?”

  “No.”

  Gotcha. To my left, I whip around and advance on him. I find Chad sitting on the dirty carpet in the back row in the old, dusty stacks where no one wanders into unless you want to hook up or have a heavy make-out session. Okay, we’ve used this area, but that was before he called me a slut. Normally I don’t mind gossip, but name calling irks me to my bones.

  Loser is just lucky I never told my brother about what he said. If I had my brother, Smoke, would have been searching the grounds alongside me, and I know he’d given Chad a world of hurt. Even more than I would.

  “Ash, I didn’t mean it. It just sort of slipped out.” He doesn’t even meet my eyes.

  “Like how your dick just happened to slip into Emma? And you call me a slut? At least while we were together, I was faithful. Unlike your wandering penis.” I smirk, knowing I speak the truth and he can’t deny it. He’s still hanging his head, refusing to acknowledge his mistake. “What? You didn’t think I knew about that, did you?”

  “Ash,” he says again.

  “Save it.” My fingers clench, knuckles turning white. I’m trying to keep a lock on my temper. It’s barely holding on. “I don’t need to hear any more filth spewing from your lying lips.” The rage spills over, and I can’t contain it. Gray smoke wisps up: is it coming from my fists? The smell of burning wood permeates the air. My radiating heat hits the cringing boy, and his eyes widen when he finally does take a peek at me.

  “Please,” he begs.

  I take a step back as tiny flames appear through my fingertips. Oh shit. I really need to calm myself otherwise something really bad could happen.

  “What the hell, Ash?” He scoots back, trying to get away from me and the fire.

  A spark jumps to the dusty books on my right. An old book alights, flames instantly licking its cover. I stare at it. What happened? I’ve never shot flames out of my palms before. Or fingers for that matter.

  Before I know it, the fire spreads. Loser scrambles off as I grab the books and throw them to the ground, stomping the small inferno, releasing my fury into the brittle pages. A mess of smashed spines and blackened papers scatters on the worn carpet, a blackened burn stain underneath.

  The school bell screeches, making me jump. It’s just a warning that first period is about to start. My brown eyes lift to curse the speaker screaming that horrible sound.

  Chad is long gone, the bastard. My body still heats, and the room flashes red for a second. I clamp down on that feeling. Now is not the time. Inhaling, I try to calm myself.

  What just happened?

  I keep staring at my fingers. Small tendrils of smoke are still coming from my hands even as I shake them.

  Did fire really just come from me?

  No, that’s not possible. Someone left a burning cigarette or something. That wasn’t me.

  Chapter Two

  I walk to homeroom, thinking. Lucky for me, it’s near the library, so I take my time.

  Get a grip, Ash. That wasn’t you. Probably someone left a cig on the stacks … I calm my breathing as Smoke always tells me to do. In … out … in … out…

  The school could have burned down, like last time. But I hadn’t caused that fire. Had I?

  That’s happened once before, and it can’t occur again. It was an accident. Smoke—my older brother—found me hiding in the girl’s bathroom after school. We were ten. Some stuck-up snobs teased me for my gray-streaked hair, called me old. After all the abuse in the foster homes, I wasn’t taking any more shit. That was the last time they said those remarks.

  No one was injured, thank the heavens. But they made my blood boil. I didn’t know how to control it back then. Not that I can now; at least I try to manage it, but my fury grows more every day.

  I’m just angry, all—the—time.

  That fateful day seven years ago, I didn’t understand what was happening. My body grew warm, rose to a scorching level, and then my brother had found me, soothing my emotions. All around us, fire erupted. He got us out as the billowing smoke filtered out of the classrooms’ doors and windows.

  We told our then pretend parents what happened and two days later, we were removed from that family and transported across Chicago to a new foster home.

  No questions were asked. I’d never been in trouble before. At least nothing more than my loose lips, which still lands me in the principal’s office quite frequently.

  I enter the room—Trig—just as the bell rings, which shakes me from those young year thoughts. Why does this have to be my first class? I hate math. Actually, it doesn’t matter what subject it is: I’d hate it because of the sole reason it’s the first class. No one should have to be up at this hour in the morning. How do grown ups do it? I guess I’ll find out in a few month’s when we turn eighteen.

  The room is your basic square with a scattering of battered desks in rows. Dirt-covered windows shield the sun’s ray, casting the furniture in gray.

  Mrs. Peters is already standing at the whiteboard and glares at me when I walk by.

  “Sorry,” I mumble.

  After my brother and I graduate, we want to go to college. Which one? How will we pay for it? Maybe we’ll qualify for a minority scholarship. We have Cherokee golden-olive hue to our skin and dark brown eyes. College is still up in the air. We’ve got to figure this out soon, though.

  Thinking of Smoke, my eyes dart in his direction. We might not be identical, but we do have an uncanny relationship like twins often do. He’s a brainiac. It’s not that I’m not smart. I am. I prefer to do other things w
ith my time. I have fun. He studies. Sometimes I can get him to come with me, especially if I know certain girls will be there.

  Many people think my brother is good-looking. I guess I can see it. He’s got the same gray-colored hair as me. But it makes him look distinguished. As I got older, it made my face look old, gray-brown rather than warm tan. He got the height. I got the personality, packed into a fun-size shape.

  “What’s the matter?” he mouths.

  “Nothing.” I sit next to him. He takes out his textbook and tablet, ready for the teacher. Nerd.

  “What were you yelling about this morning?”

  “Not your concern. I took care of it.” His face blanches. “I didn’t do anything. If you’re nice to me, I’ll tell you later.” I give him my best convincing smile. It doesn’t fool him.

  Our conversation is over as the teacher starts class.

  Frankly I have no idea what the teacher is yammering about. I should listen. My grades don’t really suffer since I have the best brother in the world. He helps me. I shouldn’t rely on him like that. I should learn this stuff. But why? I won’t be going into math or science as a profession. Kudos to those who do make a living at that, though.

  So, what do I want to do? Not sure yet. I still have time to figure that out. Until then, I’m trying to make the most of my senior year: having fun, shirking responsibilities, and not starting any fires.

  That last one is harder than it sounds. My priorities should be figuring out the flames shooting out of my hands, what causes it, was I born like this, does Smoke have any abilities. But I push all those thoughts deep down in my brain. I just can’t think about any of those. I don’t have the answers, and maybe I really don’t want to know.

  Under my harsh exterior, what’s happening scares the shit out of me. So, if I don’t voice it, or think about it, maybe it’ll go away.

  Before I know it, my brother is nudging my arm. “Are you coming?” Smoke asks. “Or you planning to stay in Trig all day? I know how much you love the subject.”