The Condemned by Claire Jolliff Page A

blast, alien invasion, fiery comets of judgement raining from the heavens, that type of thing. Leci had seen many of these buildings. A lot were now inhabited by people who simply had nowhere else to go, some served as way stations for renegades travelling and in need of a place to rest for the night. She had never stayed in one while she had been alone.
       She remembered them mostly from her time with Xavian, even had distant memories of sitting inside a room just like this on her father’s knee. They had always sort of scared her a little, she couldn’t really place why but when she had found herself alone and self reliant she had avoided them, maybe it was the feeling of being trapped underground in a room that had only one way in or out that she wasn’t so keen on.
       The layout was similar to that of her cell at the prison, slightly larger, four bunks along the walls, one lower down on either side and one above each of those. She sat on one of the lower beds; a thin blanket was twisted and bunched around her ankles, this explained the bindings she had perceived when she had been struggling.
       Looking down at herself she saw she was still dressed in the oversized baggy prison issue men’s shirt. Tentatively she raised a shaking hand to her face. It came away wet with tears but she felt the rough scab of her healing scratches and breathed a sigh of relief, noting the irony in being pleased to find herself injured, choosing to ignore it.
       Her tortured mind was playing tricks on her. Their escape had been real enough but subconsciously she still didn’t believe it and was trying to tell herself this through her nightmares, trying to cause her to doubt herself and the people around her by casting them as the villains in her warped imaginings.
       Glancing down, she saw Amato’s hand. The back of it was raw and bleeding, crossed with scratches made by her nails. She looked up at him and he smiled briefly.
       ‘I’m sorry... I didn’t mean to hurt you, I thought I was bac- I had a bad dream.’
       ‘Don’t worry about it, Firebug. I reckon I came off lightly, you coulda just set fire to me.’
       He grinned but the gesture didn’t reach his eyes and she knew it was a genuine concern. It stunned her to find herself wondering if maybe she had made the hugest mistake of her life. She would never be accepted into a normal society when people knew who she was and what she could do. She could attempt to control herself for as long as possible but she wasn’t naive enough to think she could hide her ability forever and if people did accept her she knew it would be out of fear. There would never be trust, in the past the people she had become close to had a way of winding up dead. Now the people she was close to would almost certainly die, they just knew there was a chance it would be directly via her own hands.
       She found herself unable even to allay his worries, the only reason she had not used flames to protect herself was because in her mind her attacker had been the man who had led her to safety and she would never knowingly hurt him.
    If she had dreamed of Beriael then the Amato who held her now would have been reduced to ashes.
       Perhaps she should’ve just stayed where she was, paid her debt to society by not forcing her presence upon them. Maybe it was safer for everyone else if she were kept imprisoned. Better yet, if she just wasn’t here at all, didn’t exist and could cause no more hurt to anyone ever again.
       Leci fidgeted to sit up and since it was clear she was no longer a danger to herself or anyone else, Amato released her.

He had been crouched beside the bunk that she was sitting on and now he stood and moved over to the one across from her, sitting on it and watching her quietly.
       Untwisting the blanket from around her feet, she draped it loosely over her legs before taking another look at her surroundings. A metal cabinet stood in one corner, it would at