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Warmth permeates from the flame on her finger. Worry grabs me. “Careful, Addy!”

“It’s my magic, silly. It doesn’t hurt,” she says with a giggle. Turning her hand, palm facing me, fire appears in the center of her palm. An orb the size of a golf ball. It illuminates her face in our otherwise dark bedroom.

Mommy and Daddy will be mad if they know we’re playing with our magic. Especially me.

“It kind of tickles,” Addy admits with a soft giggle.

I smile at that, and envy stabs through me. I want fire! “Let me feel.” I place my small hand against her own. Addy’s gaze meets mine, filling with panic seconds before I realize what I’ve done. My power latches on to Addy’s, humming in excitement, amplifying what is into something more. A rare affinity that made my parents happy and scared.

“She’ll need to learn how to control her amplification,” the doctor had warned before offering pamphlets to send me to some special school for kids like me. My parents had vehemently said no, and the doctor looked upset.

Now I know why. Addy’s little ball of fire changes color, turning a brilliant shade of blue, and before I can take my hand away, it shoots up from between our palms, engulfing the ceiling, turning the drywall into ash in a matter of seconds.

{More,} a strange voice whispers in my mind.

“Raina, stop!” Addy tears her arm away.

“I don’t know how to stop it!” The fire is hot in my chest, swirling in circles and rushing down my arm. Fire shoots out of my palm, slamming into the wall, and I whimper as that bursts into flames. “I didn’t mean to!”

Addy’s fingers clutch at my face, eyes round with fear. “Relax, just like Tutor Milly says!” Addy shouts over the roaring flames, which have already devoured the walls around us.

I try to relax, but the fire has destroyed the walls, and I can see Mommy and daddy are sleeping. The unnaturally blue flames inch toward them, spreading through their room, trapping them. My magic makes everything stronger.

My heart feels like it’s going to pop.

I can’t breathe.

I close my fingers into a fist, but the fire doesn’t stop.

“Girls? Girls!” Mommy’s voice is so quiet compared to the fire, which roars like an angry dragon. Through the flames that burn high and wide, I can see her sit up in bed, face bright from the flames, which are already inches away from her. Her eyes widen in fear.

My dad startles awake, taking in the flames and Mom’s terror. He looks at me through the flames. “Raina, what have you done?”

My lower lip trembles, and I reach my hand out, trying to pull the magic back, but that’s not how my power works. “Daddy!” The fire leaps toward them like a wild animal, ravaging them.

Their screams pierce the air.

“Raina, please!” Addy sobs, shaking my arm. “Stop, Raina, stop!” She hits me. Scratches at me. But all I can do is stare at the fire, transfixed as it grows and grows and grows as agonized cries wrap around me.

Our house burns down in three minutes. The once-small ball of orange flames, still blue, finally shrinks with nothing to devour, shrinking and shrinking until Addy and I sit on the ashes of what used to be her bed and our bedroom floor.

Addy is screaming for our parents, sobbing and stretching out her arms, as if she could bring back the dead. My stomach churns, and I vomit, hands slapping into the ashen remains as my gut empties, until I cry and gag on bile.

“Raina,” Addy cries.

“Raina!” A palm cracks across my face, and my head whips to the side, the memory fluttering away, but the grief and terror are still embedded in my chest like a knife.

I grasp at it, choking on smoke that’s heavy in my lungs, eyes burning.

“Goddess above,” Drake says, the hands on my shoulders shaking me. “Why didn’t you leave the building?”

But I barely hear him as I watch what was once the facilities building burn to ash, just like my childhood home had. I push his arms away, standing up and staggering toward the structure, lost between realities. My chest splinters and cracks.

“No.” The word trembles out of me. I shake my head. “No,” I say again, though this time, it’s thick with emotion, a sob lodging in my throat. I collapse to my knees, my fingers digging into the earth, grasping at the grass.

I killed them?

I killed them.