Like every other high school, the students of Ravenwood Academy know nothing more beyond the world of their own teenage lives -- a world of classes to pass, social reputations to live up to, and dirty little secrets to keep.
But when strange dangero...
There was a snap in the dark, and they felt it, all five of them—a spark of potent energy, an eerie flicker of vague familiarity, like the faintest memory of a dream.
Then hell broke loose.
In a second of a heartbeat, the flame in the large blond boy's hand turned to a raging blaze. But the boy felt no drastic rise in heat, and his eyes caught no sight of the fire, which all too suddenly grew larger than it was last. He was drowning in his own sea of ecstasy, his brain filled with nothing else but the bliss of adrenaline. Then it burned wilder, more violent, than before, and it was only then the boy felt the excessive increment of heat. His eyes looked up to the flare in hand, realizing its length had been significantly reduced, just as the fire caressed his skin. The flare itself was now gone, and what remained in sight was a silhouette in the flame, a faint shadow shape of a hand gripping nothing.
He saw nothing but fire, felt nothing but pain. And he heard nothing else but the gruff scream that came out of his mouth.
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The flame burned on, and smoke rose high into the air, spreading throughout the auditorium. All around students and teachers were breathing in the fumes, coughing and wheezing amid the haze.
Somewhere, bells began to ring, loud and resonant. And with the noise, the floodgates opened, water raining down on everything and everyone in the auditorium.
Two teachers, each with a hand over his nose and mouth, hurried up the steps, as fast they could, and pulled the double doors, holding them wide open. A teacher shot a hand up in the air and made a signal, one that gestured a collective exit. "Evacuate! Move! Move!" he shouted, over the chaos. "Quickly!" The students obeyed, without hesitation.
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Three boys emerged from behind the curtains, stumbling onto the stage. They breathed in the fumes, coughed, hands flying over to noses and mouths. Their eyes stung from the haze, yet they recognized the silhouette before them, before another cloud of smoke struck them in the face—their friend, the huge boy, stood center stage, his arm moving erratically in an attempt to fan away the flame. Yet the fire danced with him, feasting on his hand and wrist. And a force—not of nature, neither of divine intervention—kept his arm from burning any further . . .
