EMIL
I got to get to Bautista.
I visualize the gray and gold flames, trying to center myself, but it’s hard when I hear the fire already roaring around Brighton and Maribelle. The fear of disappointing Wyatt creeps up on me, but I got to push that thought out and keep my eye on the prize. I concentrate, heating up, and I bite down on my bottom lip to keep from screaming and ruining Brighton’s and Maribelle’s progress.
No, I got to stop. I cut out everyone else. I’m the only one in the room.
I train myself to believe that I could overheat like a supernova right now and no one else would die.
I’m trying to—no, I have to run with this faithfully. No doubts. I’m going to walk through Bautista’s life. I’m going to somehow find the right moment I need to learn the true names of the ingredients for the power-binding potions. I think about them all, memorized from all the time we’ve spent researching: burnt-berry, Shade Sea water, cumulus powder, feather-rock, ghost husk, crimson root, dry-tear, and grim-ash. Once I’m Bautista again, once I’m in his flesh and bones like I’m possessing him, I’m going to get all my answers. I’m going to bring his knowledge back with me, knowledge I would’ve been born with if Luna hadn’t killed me. No, him. No again.
I’m going to know everything I should know if Luna hadn’t killed us.
Someone whispers in my ear, but I can’t understand the words, even though my gut tells me it’s not some foreign language. It’s strange, but I almost feel like I can smell the words. They’re rank like some of the times at Nova when I didn’t brush my teeth because we were too busy strategizing how to stay alive or I was too depressed to care.
Man, this doesn’t make sense, but I swear I can hear gold. It’s heavy, but I wouldn’t compare it to an actual block of gold. The weight is like my gray and gold flames. But these flames aren’t mine. They’re Bautista’s and I can practically hear his skin, the way it must’ve panicked when those gold flames were first set alight, all those nerves hushing once it was clear that he can’t be harmed.
I’m feeling closer and closer, moving into his life—our life.
Bautista will be Emil, Bautista has become Emil, and Emil was Bautista.
We are one; we’re not even we.
Fire rages around me and my tongue is thick with blood. I’m tasting death. No, wrong again. I’m tasting life, I’m tasting the infinity cycle. There are explosions of pain throughout my body and I want to be comforted by my parents, but I don’t know the souls who parented Bautista. I’m slipping without this knowledge, like I should know those people as clearly as I know Carolina and Leonardo Rey. The fire and explosions grow tenfold, and staying in this space is as difficult as flying with weighted wings.
I’m falling, falling, falling back into my own life, and even though I trust that I’m safely sitting in the Sanctuary, the dizzying sensation and inferno within me feels like I’m an earthbound meteor.
And I no longer believe I can’t hurt those around me.