“She’s flashing,” I heard Barnabas say, and his hand clamped over my arm, keeping me from running forward as the girl whose mind I was in bolted.

In my vision, I ran through the cars, dodging firefighters trying to stop me, the blue haze rising from people like a fog. In reality, I felt my heart pound as I locked my knees and swayed so I wouldn’t run as well. I left Johnny alone. He was asleep. I waited until he was asleep after Mom left for work. Oh, God. Mom is going to kill me when she finds out! I don’t understand. How can there be a fire?!

“Johnny!” I whispered as the girl screamed, then jumped when a heavy hand clamped onto my arm, and both the girl and I turned.

I blinked, wavering when I saw Barnabas behind the frightening image of a fireman in full gear, his breath hissing as he tried to keep me from going in. The crowd in the bleachers was standing, cheering on the last of the runners fighting it out. In my vision, the fire screamed, a surreal counterpoint to the terror filling me. Barnabas’s hand was on my arm, and he peered at me in sympathy.

“Johnny is in there!” I said, and the fireman stared, his expression hidden behind the face mask. “Let me go. Let me go! I have to get in there!”

As one, the girl and I twisted in Barnabas’s/the fireman’s grip, and as one, we were hoisted into their arms. I tried not to fight, knowing it wasn’t real, but the girl’s terror was mine.

I had no heart to beat in my solid, make-believe body, but memory is a funny thing, and I felt the echo of a pulse as Barnabas carried me, taking the jarring steps down the bleachers and to the cooler shade below. The night bathed my heated cheeks, scorched by sun and fire as Barnabas set me on the ground, and the blue haze that clouded the image of the distant future billowed from the fireman, but not the angel. “I’m sorry,” both Barnabas and the fireman said, for two different reasons.