Winds of Salem by Melissa de La Cruz

screaming that one of her roommates was trapped inside. “I know Sadie’s in there. She was asleep when we left for the party. Get her! Please!”
    Red, white, and blue lights flashed over the houses. Neighbors in pajamas had come outside to watch. A cluster of frat boys in flannel shirts, hoodies, and jeans commented on the action. “You think chucking that keg of beer at it would help?” one said.
    “Why would you do that, dude?”
    Another giggled. “The flames are awesome, man! God, I’m high.”
    “Me, too. You mean this is real?”
    The girl, raccoon eyed and looking rumpled in a puffy jacket over a short dress, explained to the first responders that when she had returned home from the party two fire trucks, an ambulance, and three police cars were already on the scene. The truck ladders were extended and several firefighters had climbed onto the roof and were hacking away. One of the firemen sought tocalm the girl down, instructing her to sit on the curb out of the way. The EMTs came over and gave her a blanket. “My other roommates are still at the party, but Sadie—she stayed home. She’s in there,” the girl sobbed to a pair of police officers taking notes.
    Inside the house, Freddie was making his way through the smoke-filled corridor upstairs. Somewhere behind him was his team—Big Dave, Hunter, and Jennie, the lone firewoman on the team. The trapped girl had been calling out to them for help from one of the rooms in the back, but now she’d gone quiet.
    The hallway seemed to go on forever, the rooms on the way empty, filling with smoke and flames. It was as if someone had splashed the entire place with an accelerant. And there was not one fire sprinkler in this campus house. Huge possible lawsuit, Freddie thought. Underneath his mask with the self-contained breathing apparatus, he could hear his breathing getting louder.
    Freddie reached out a hand, pushing at the flames along one wall, redirecting them: they moved down the wall but unexpectedly billowed back. Usually they responded to Freddie’s every command, the way a musician in the orchestra pit follows a conductor’s baton and hand gestures: rising, lowering, fading, stopping. Tonight the flames had a mind of their own.
    If he didn’t find the girl soon, they were screwed. First came self-preservation, then rescue. But he knew she was close, and he needed to get to her. At this point, they would have to exit via the roof. The fire had followed them up the stairs. He remembered a recent dream in which he’d been surrounded, engulfed by flames, and realized the nightmare was presently unfolding before him. He had no power over the flame—he had become an ordinary firefighter in the midst of an out-of-control fire, a house on the verge of collapse. Sweat poured off his forehead, trickled down his neck. He heard the axes against the roof.
    He moved farther inside a room. He sensed her. He could hear her heart pounding, or was that his? The carpet burned in spots. The crackling grew louder around him. He pointed his flashlight and saw an opened door, the bathroom, the girl on the tile floor, curled in a ball. Something hit hard against his helmet, falling behind him, grazing his bunker jacket—flaming debris. He quickly moved toward the girl in the bathroom. Flames leaped out at him from the side. He made a hand gesture and they rippled away, but then detached and spread, crackling and flickering, barring his way. He couldn’t stop them. The fire paid no attention to him.
    Dammit! He knew his magic had been losing vigor, but he hadn’t been aware it had become this feeble. He needed to save the girl and get out. He moved forward, but the flames moved toward him. He lunged to the side. The flames lunged, flinging Freddie onto the floor like a wrestler, clasping a hand of fire at his neck. His mask fell off, and Freddie gasped in scalding flames. This is it, he thought.
    Images flashed through his mind. He remembered the first time he had