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Lio doesn’t know how long he’s been in the back of the van. Long enough that he’s cried out, the tears dried into crusty streaks on his cheeks. Long enough that his hands have started to go numb, encased in the heavy restraints they put on him.
A truck t-boned his parents’ car in the intersection. The driver ran the light. The shriek of tearing metal and crack of breaking glass is the last thing Lio remembers before the all-encompassing instinct seized him—to burn. To live. Next thing he knew, men in armored suits were dragging him screaming from the fire, hitting him with bitterly cold stinging bullets, forcing his hands into these blocky cuffs.
He can’t be Burnish. He was supposed to graduate high school this year. He’s in the running for magna cum laude. He can’t get hauled off to the Burnish camp. It’ll wreck his GPA. His parents will be so mad.
His parents.
His mind shies away from the memory of the car, engulfed in heaving flames. They must have gotten out, right? They weren’t in there.
The rear door of the van abruptly opens. A man—one of the “Freeze Force” people, Lio saw the writing on the side before they shoved him in—ducks inside, shutting the door behind him. He has to stoop to keep from hitting his head on the roof. Lio straightens his back.
“What’s going on? Where are you taking me?” Lio says, voice shaking.
The man gives him a level stare for a long moment.
“You seem pretty smart, I bet you can guess,” the man says. He shuffles forward and squats next to Lio, arms resting on his knees. “Brand new Burnish like you, they’re gonna take you to the closest camp. That’s Purchase, out in the desert.”
Lio feels the blood drain from his face.
“I’m… Burnish,” he says softly, still partly disbelieving.
“Yeah,” the man says, voice sympathetic. “Sorry, kid.”
Lio didn’t think he was capable of producing any more tears, but he starts to cry again.
“Hey, don’t cry,” the man says, and reaches out and wipes a tear off Lio’s cheek with his thumb. Lio is so desperate for any comfort that he instinctively leans into the touch. The man smiles at him.
“Pretty little piece of jailbait, aren’t you?” the man says.
Lio’s heart freezes in his chest.
No. He must have misheard. The man pats his cheek, still smiling.
“We could have some fun together, you and me. Whaddaya say?”
He didn’t mishear. A shock of cold ripples through his blood.
“N-no?” he stutters, barely above a whisper.
The man pulls his hand away. Lio feels a surge of stupid, pointless hope. Then the man rears back and slaps him carelessly, sending him sprawling onto his side.
“Shut your mouth,” the man says. “You know what you are? What you did? You’re a murderer. All you fucking Burnish are murderers. I don’t know why we bother putting you in camps. You’re lucky I’m even giving you a second look, you little shit.”
Lio slumps onto the floor, one word echoing in his head.
Murderer.
It’s confirmation of the nightmare Lio has been trying not to acknowledge. His parents. He killed them. His mind starts spiraling away from the untenable reality. There’s static between his ears.
“Lucky for you,” the man says, unbuckling his belt, “we still have about half an hour before we have to move out. Just enough time to have a little fun. Might be your last chance. You won’t stay pretty for long in the camp.”
What happens next feels like it takes much longer than half an hour. But Lio doesn’t struggle, doesn’t fight. He lets it happen.
He deserves it.
***
Days and weeks in the camp are made bearable by Esme, the Burnish woman who was the first to greet him when he arrived, mute and shell-shocked. She asked him gently if she could show him around, asked if she could touch him before she took his hand. Lio let her and followed, crying silently, as she toured him around the camp, chattering relentlessly about insignificant details. She stayed with him, a constant, steadying distraction, until Lio found his voice again.
They talked about the fire, after a few days. She asked, in a hushed whisper, if he wanted her to teach him how to light a match or a small flare, simple things any Burnish could do when unobserved by the guards. Lio shook his head.
“I’m never doing it again.” He could always feel the fire on the edges of his awareness, and he always quashed it brutally.
Esme nodded. “That’s not a bad attitude to have, in here,” she said, tone practical. “If they catch you flaring they’ll throw you in solitary to burn it off, and they generally don’t let you out until you’re seeing things.”
The camp is bad, but the other Burnish are kind to him. Esme teaches him the ways they help each other survive. He holds back the fire. It burns at the edges of his mind, seeming to whisper. He refuses to listen, forces it silent with all the willpower he has.
He’s never going to let it burn again.
***
Two guards come into the bunkroom while Lio and Esme are sitting on a bottom bunk, playing cards with a worn deck. One of the guards has a pair of freeze rings. Everyone in the bunkroom stands up and snaps to attention, the way they’ve been trained. The guards stop in front of Lio and Esme.
“This one,” one of the guards says, and points, unbelievably, to Lio. The second guard gestures for him to put his hands out, holding out the freeze rings.
“What…” Lio says.
“You’re wanted for questioning,” the first guard says.
“What about? I haven’t done anything!” Lio looks around frantically, but there’s no one who can help.
“Not my problem,” the guard says, shrugging. “Hands out.”
“Now hold on…” Esme says.
Without hesitation, the guard backhands her across the face. She falls to the floor. She struggles to her knees as the guard casually draws his freeze gun and points it at her.
“Don’t get up,” he drawls. He turns to Lio. “You gonna come quietly or do I have to put your friend here on ice for a couple days?”
Lio holds out his hands. The second guard snaps the freeze rings onto them, then gestures for him to follow. Esme has a split lip; she’s bleeding, staring at the floor.
Lio goes.
***
The guards shove him into a small room, empty of furniture except for one incongruous office chair. There’s a man sitting in the chair, back to the door. He swivels, slowly, to face Lio, who has staggered to a halt a few steps into the room.
It’s him.
“Hello again, pretty thing,” the man says. “How you holdin’ up in here?”
“Nnnn,” Lio wheezes, terrified.
“What’s the matter?” the man asks, voice saccharine. “Aren’t you glad I care enough to come see you?”
Later, curled in his bunk, Lio is ashamed how little it took to make him answer “Yes.”
***
The next time he gets put in freeze rings, he knows what’s going to happen. He starts to shake as the guards, a different set this time, march him into the building, down the hall, and into the same room. Leave him with the same man.
Lio shakes as the man tilts his chin up, shakes as the man leans in. A second before it happens, Lio realizes he’s about to be kissed by his rapist. The surge of disgust that fills him shocks him into flinching back, a hoarse “No!” tearing itself from his throat.
“Oh,” the man says, “you don’t want me to be nice? Fine.” And he punches Lio in the gut.
The breath leaves Lio in a rush and he falls to his hands and knees, catching himself awkwardly on the bulky freeze rings. Before he can move, hands are wrapped around his throat from behind, squeezing with so much force that Lio feels something snap.
“I could kill you right now, you little shit. Just choke you to death with my bare hands. No one would care. No one would miss you. You’re lucky I like using you, pretty thing. Say thank you.”
Lio is having a hard time breathing. “Thank you,” he wheezes desperately, but the hands around his throat don’t loosen. This is going to keep happening until he dies. No one is going to help him.
There’s only the fire.
It’s a soft flicker at the edges of his consciousness. He feels its longing. Its empty hunger. Its need.
He’s so afraid of it. But there are worse things to be afraid of, now.
Help me, he thinks, and reaches out to it. Please.
He’s been holding it down so hard for so long that he can almost feel the flicker flinch away from him. The man finally lets go of his throat and Lio sucks in a deep, painful breath as the hands on him move to tugging down his pants, spreading him open. The man spits on him, disdainful, rubs the wet mucus into the cleft of his ass. Rough fingers prod at him, a perfunctory imitation of preparation. The fingers leave him and Lio hears the jingle of a belt buckle unfastening.
Help me, Lio thinks, and I’ll let you burn.
The fire reaches out a thin filament, wavering in his mind.
Please, Lio thinks.
Wordless, eager joy fills his head as the fire rushes to consume him.
Lio lets the fire into his body in the same instant the man pushes into him, the first a rush of sudden freedom, the second a searing pain. Lio makes a noise he’d be ashamed of under normal circumstances. The man heaves against his back.
“Someday I’ll get bored with you,” the man grunts. “But not today. You’re lucky, you…”
The freeze rings explode.
The man swears and flinches as shrapnel scatters, pinging off the walls of the room. He tears himself out of Lio’s body and Lio sprawls forward onto his face.
Lio pushes himself up on his freed hands. They’re wreathed in neon flame. He watches as it crawls up his arms. Then he struggles to his feet and turns, the fire licking at his shoulders, running down his back, reaching into the places where he’s hurt and soothing him, filling him with a heady euphoria.
What had he been afraid of? It feels good to burn.
The man stumbles back, face twisted, pants still down around his knees. He fumbles for his freeze gun and pulls it awkwardly out of its holster, falling backward onto his bare ass as he does. Lio would laugh at him if his throat wasn’t full of fire.
The man points the gun at Lio. He fires, once, twice, three times in quick succession.
Lio bats away the ice bullets like flies.
“No,” Lio says, and reaches out with his flames.
The man shrieks when they touch him. He writhes on the floor.
Lio burns him to ash and bones. Then he burns the bones. And then he keeps burning, and burning, until the walls and the barbed wire and the guard towers are gone, until there’s nothing left on that patch of barren desert ground to keep him or anyone else caged.
***
He doesn’t kill anyone, after that. He tries to make sure his people don’t, either. They can make their own choices, but Lio doesn’t want anyone else to have to hear screaming in their dreams. He lets the fire take whatever else it wants, though. He learns to satisfy it. He learns to wield it. He learns to love it.
When Freeze Force takes Meis and Gueira, he loses control. As soon as he manages to overpower the absolute zero bullet, he rampages. He almost kills again. It takes a shock to his system to snap him out of it.
A shock to his system named Galo Thymos.
It’s unbelievable, the things he lets Galo talk him into.
***
“I want to make you feel so good,” Galo murmurs in his ear. “Pretty little firebug. Will you let me?”
Lio’s breath catches in his throat. He stiffens. Galo’s hands stop their gentle wandering on his back.
“Lio?” Galo says.
“Don’t call me pretty,” Lio says.
“Okay,” Galo says, though he sounds confused. “Can I call you other stuff though? Like, brave and gorgeous and awesome? Because you are.”
Lio, to his own chagrin, abruptly starts to cry.
This was a mistake. A mistake. He’s let it go too far, soothed by Galo’s boundless sincerity, his careful, questioning touches and his soft, grateful kisses. He’s let it go all the way up the stairs to Galo’s apartment, all the way down his hallway and into his bed.
“Lio, Lio,” Galo says, voice uncertain and concerned. Lio sobs hard, once, then bites it off. He pushes Galo away, and Galo lets him, brow furrowed.
“You don’t want me,” Lio says. “I’m not who you think I am.”
Galo’s brow furrows further.
“Of course I want you. You’re the world’s number one freedom fighter, you’re amazing.”
Lio laughs wetly into his sleeve.
“You don’t know,” Lio says.
“I don’t?”
Lio wipes his eyes and looks at Galo across the bed. His innocent, gormless face, lined with worry.
They’ve been living in two different worlds. Galo’s is one of bright, clean lines between good and evil. Lio’s is the muddy gray of ashes. Lio has killed. Accidentally and on purpose. He’s been raped and brutalized. He’s a different kind of creature entirely from Galo. For Lio to think, even for a second, that he deserves this… it’s weak. Selfish.
“I have to go,” Lio says hopelessly, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
“Lio, wait,” Galo says. “Stay with me. Please don’t leave.” There’s hurt in his voice. Lio hesitates, torn.
“We don’t have to do anything,” Galo says in a rush. “I’m sorry, I was going too fast, I… I wanted to make you feel good. I just really like you. I want you to stay.”
Lio snorts inelegantly. “You really like me?” He hates the mocking tone in his voice. “You barely know me. You wouldn’t say that if you knew the things I’ve done.”
Galo shifts, sitting up cross-legged in the bed. His eyes are intent on Lio’s. They hold him in place.
“Lio,” Galo says, uncharacteristically serious, “maybe I know more than you think.”
“...What?” Lio says.
“I looked you up. In the database. The records Freeze Force kept aren’t great, but there’s a Lio Fotia in them.”
“What,” Lio says again, stupidly.
“You were in Purchase. The camp that burned to the ground. I’m dumb, but I’m not that dumb. There’s only one Burnish I know of strong enough to do something like that.”
“Oh,” Lio says.
“It was a really, really big fire. It’s kind of amazing only one person died,” Galo says, very carefully.
“I left… an escape route,” Lio says, heart in his throat.
“Of course you did,” Galo says. “Burnish don’t kill without reason.” The echo of Lio’s own words hits Lio in the chest. “So,” Galo continues, a surprisingly fierce, dark, stubborn look clouding his face, “I bet you had a reason.”
“...Yes,” Lio says, looking away.
There’s a long, heavy silence.
“You know why I didn’t kill Kray when I got the drop on him?” Galo asks. Lio looks up at him, startled.
“I save lives,” Galo says. “That’s my job. You saw it. When we were Galo de Lion. If there’s even a slim chance I can save someone, I’ll try. But one thing they hammered into us at the firefighting academy was, sometimes you lose people. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do. And sometimes…” He meets Lio’s eyes. “Sometimes you have to make a choice and save yourself.”
Lio is crying again, tears leaking down his cheeks. Galo is still staring into his eyes, utterly open, completely certain.
“I’m glad you’re here, Lio Fotia,” Galo says.
Lio can’t meet that level gaze anymore. He buries his face in his hands and allows himself a few hitching sobs.
“I hope you’ll stay,” Galo says. There’s something in his voice; he’s not just talking about staying the night. Lio raises his face from his hands, both wet with tears.
“Galo Thymos,” he says hoarsely, “you’re an idiot.”
Galo shrugs. “Yeah,” he says. “But you like my dumb ideas, right?” Then he tentatively reaches out a hand. Lio reaches out his own hand to meet it, pressing their palms together.
Galo’s hand is so much bigger than his. His fingers overlap Lio’s by a solid half-inch. He’s so much stronger than Lio, now. It’s a dangerous choice, to trust.
“Can we just…” Lio starts, then falters. Then he screws up his courage and asks. For the child he was, for the man he’s become. For the person he could be.
“Can you just hold me?” he asks Galo.
“For sure,” Galo says without hesitation. “Whatever you want, firebug.”
Lio weaves his fingers between Galo’s, closes his hand around Galo’s larger one. In their joined hands, he catches a glimpse of a future that isn’t ashes for the first time in a long while.
“Okay,” Lio whispers. “I’ll stay.”
***
Lio stays. For weeks, he stays. Galo gentles him after nightmares, makes him laugh harder than he has in years, helps him discover, carefully, the ways he likes to be touched.
For months, he stays. Through the rebuilding of Promepolis, the reshuffling of the government, the establishment of a Burnish district on the terraformed ruins of the Parnassus. He sees his people safe there—or at least as safe as anyone can be in a dangerous, uncertain world.
For years, he stays. And every day, it gets a little easier to believe he deserves it.