Page 1 of Phoenix

Prologue

Phoenix, 7 years old

What’s that smell?

It doesn’t smell right.

It smells like Dad when he makes one of those huge bonfires in the backyard and we roast marshmallows. But Dad’s not here and I’m inside. And it hasn’t got the sweet burnt smell of sugar with it; it smells more like one of Dad’s bikes.

“Mom?” I call out, but my voice crackles and my throat is really dry; in fact, I end up choking around the word as soon as it leaves my mouth with little to no volume.

I feel scared and push myself out of bed, even though I am tired and just want to go back to sleep again. Dad always told me that if something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. ‘Never ignore your gut, son,’ he says to me. This must be what he was talking about because I feel like I need to keep going, even against my eyes that sting with sleepiness.

First, I walk over to Lou’s little bed, except when I walk, it feels more like I’m trying to push through the thick and heavy air. My breathing sounds funny, and everything smells even stronger. My eyes are leaking tears, and my skin feels hot to the touch.

“Lou?” I whisper over her tiny body, checking for the rise and fall of her chest, just like Mom does. She doesn’t wake but squirms a little bit, so I know she’s ok. “Come on, Lou,” I say as I pick her up. She’s still really small; Mom says she’s a dinky little thing for her age, but that just means we need to love her more. “Let’s go and find Mommy.”

When I open our bedroom door, I hear a cracking sound, like someone’s in the front room with a bag full of sticks, just snapping them one at a time. The air is even thicker out here and my eyes sting so badly, I almost want to slam them shut. Lou begins to squirm again, so I rush toward Mommy’s door and push it open, then close it behind us.

Mommy’s in bed, sound asleep; I can see her under the cover, slowly breathing up and down, up and down, mesmerizing me in this moment of safety before I step toward her.Dad is away on a job, or so Mommy says. She doesn’t like it when he’s away, she gets upset and worries, even though she tries not to show me. But I sometimes hear her crying at night, and I keep catching her twisting her wedding ring when he’s not here to tell her to quit worrying, that he’ll always protect her and us kids. Dad says I have to be the man of the house when he’s away; I have to protect the girls because I’m their superhero when he can’t be. I hope I am…I try to be.

“Mom?” I whisper-shout before coughing to the point that it scares me even more. She doesn’t move or make a sound, just keeps on sleeping. I move closer so I can put Lou on the bed next to her and begin tapping her back. She moans like when I try to get her up early in the morning, or when I go in to tell her I’ve had a nightmare, but she keeps on sleeping. So, I nudge even harder until her eyes finally open, and she looks right at me.

“W-Warren, honey, what’s wrong?” she mumbles as her eyelids begin fluttering closed again, so I nudge once more. She coughs and comes to, eventually leaning up onto her elbows to force herself awake and pay attention to me.

“It don’t smell right, Mommy,” I tell her, “and there’s a funny sound outside.”

“W-what? Are you having a bad…”

She stops halfway through and begins sniffing. Soon after, her eyes open wide, and she jumps out of bed while gathering Lou inside of her arms. She’s scared, I can see it, and it makes me even more afraid. But I try really hard not to cry because superheroes don’t cry.

“Good boy, Warren, you are such a good boy. Daddy would be proud of you!”

“He would?” I ask shakily, my bottom lip trying to release my held whimper out into the space between us. She just takes hold of my hand and pulls me toward the door, but when she opens it up even just a little, reams of smoke push their way in, making us all cough, even little Lou, who wakes up and begins to cry her tiny lungs out.

“Shit!”

“Mommy, you said a bad word,” I say, but only because I’m so scared, and I can see her crying, just like when she does when Daddy leaves.

“I know, baby, Mommy’s just a bit scared,” she says before bending down to talk to me. Her eyes are red and looking right into mine with a face that tells me this is really important. “Listen, Warren, you need to take Lou and get out of the house. There’s not enough room for Mommy to take you, but you two are small enough to crawl through. Louisa will probably cry, and you might feel like coming back to me, but you have to keep going until you’re outside. Do you understand, Warren?”

“Mommy…” I can’t hold it in anymore, the tears are now rushing down my cheeks and the pain of whimpering with such a hot and dry throat is enough to make me cry even harder. “I want you to come with me, I’m scared!”

“I want to come too, Warren, and I will,” she says and strokes my cheek softly. “I’ll come after, but I have to make sure I have everything before I come out. You take Lou and I’ll come out after, ok?”

“Will you bring my baby blanket?” I ask, suddenly worried for it because I take it everywhere with me. Javier doesn’t know about it because I’m careful to hide it, but it smells like her, so it comes with me always.

“Course, baby,” she says on a whimper, then kisses my forehead. “You have to go. I love you, Warren, and Lou. You’re my babies. Remember that won’t you?”

I nod before wiping away a few of her tears with my trembling fingers because I can’t bear to see them on her; she’s my mom, the most precious person on the planet to me. She pushes back from me, then straps Lou around my tummy using the belt from her old robe. I smile at her one more time, then ready myself to go. She opens the door to reveal angry-looking flames everywhere, all of them destroying our house and furniture. She follows me up until my bedroom where I have to duck down low and crawl away; she can’t come any further, she’s too big. Lou bumps along the ground underneath me as I go, and I hate it because I know she’s crying. I’m hurting her, but Mom keeps shouting at me to keep going until I can no longer hear her anymore.

It feels like ages before I can see a patch of darkness without fire in it, but when I reach it, I manage to jump up and cuddle Lou against my chest tightly. She’s gone back to sleep, so I kiss her little, hot head, then open the door in front of me. There are people everywhere, all standing in the front yard in their robes or uniforms. The flashing of blue and red lights hurts my eyes, but I keep walking toward them; I keep doing what Mommy told me to.

“Come over here, son!” A policeman yells. “Come on, good boy!”

I do what he says because Mom always tells me I should do what the police say, even though Daddy had laughed at the time. She had smiled at him and whipped his butt with a tea towel, then laughed right along with him. He then chased her around the kitchen, and we all laughed, even Lou, but when he caught her, he began hugging and kissing her, so I told them they were being gross. Mom screamed with a smile on her face because he kissed her even more just to wind me up. Daddy’s silly like that. I want to see them do that again, but I can’t because the kitchen is no longer there; it’s on fire. Where will Daddy chase her now? Where will they kiss if there’s no kitchen there?

“Quick!” The man yells, bringing me back to the front yard with all the eyes on me. He then jumps toward me and pulls us forward. We fall to the ground with his body covering mine like a tortoise shell. From beneath that man’s huge body, I hear an explosion, and a huge bang rings through my ears. That feeling in my gut, the one Dad said not to ignore, it feels like it’s trying to burst out of me, and I begin to cough and cry because it hurts more than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life.