I expect a snarling retort from Andrew or at least some kind of protest but again just like at the apartment's quiet stairway and straight forward concrete walkway, he refuses to argue, just turns in the direction where Ronnie had disappeared. The morning cries with a new life that brings the grey shapes of city pigeons swirling down on wings that beat the soft gust of chilly wind. Their talons are silent and swift as they land on the silver wires above connecting to the flanking buildings.

I huff my breath and push on toward the sun lifting in the sky, shimmering colors of red, orange, and stretches of pink striking the taller windows revealing empty rooms of black and grey. Large white sheets cover big and small furniture alike standing tall on grey dusted floors of hazelwood cracked with age. All forms of life are void from the rooms even with the sunshine lending its massive glint through the room, maybe a few mice and insects hide in holes but other than that I want to shiver at the thought of entering.

"A dream?" I barely catch on to the gasping of Andrew, his words slicing through the soft silence that had plunged us into a strange unverified misunderstanding. I am left asking myself if he's talking to the voice in his head that gives him a soul that builds a brick wall where his choices normally stand or if it's actually me.

"I know it had to be a dream, but the type that has a meaning but you just don't understand the meaning until it hits." I say with an empty, soulless tone.

Andrew dryly laughed the idea away, "Then what's the point? I would rather have a surprise with no warning than a warning with a surprise."

"Why do you even do this is all you have in mind to do is patronize me over and over?" I interrupt him from saying anything else that will simply throw me flat on my face again, right back in the hands of the monster with a name that no even the most careless man wants to hear- misunderstanding.

Andrew doesn't answer, just lifts his eyes to the heavenly blue sky dipped with a bottom fading down the smokey grey buildings in red and an almost transparent shade of gold giving way to light blue hiding behind the last of the night. Black feathers catch the wind, drifting back and forth under the push of the wind. Smaller birds take flight at the sight of him, squawking and screeching with earsplitting cries.

Ronnie doesn't take notice of them, rather floats over us and ducks back down the alley where Andrew turns with me right on hills after two quick bounds that had once kept us separated from each other. I feel something push me back and the frustrated and terrified scream of Andrew who stood as still as a statue, panting.

His eyes don't have to tell me that something is wrong, in almost an instant he drops down to his knees, pressing knees smugly down to a wedged crack in the ground. His hands turn red at the pressure that holds to the crack that makes the mouth of a yawning hole in the ground. The words that had once been the spark of either an argument or sarcastic conversation leave me and are replaced by a drop of my heart.

The urge to scream my father's name into the giant whole rushing with water is overwelling but the back of my throat runs dry as if it was stuffed with sand and pointy rocks. Andrew's hair is slick with sweat that falls from the thick mess and into his face as a spray of sour water drenched in a mucky brown. His huffs turn into coughs that draw spit and blood' exhaustion leaving him wordless.

The world below feels so far away, feet below giving way to crashing waves going in a one-way direction dropping below the base of the steep cement platform. I leaned into Andrew, his shaking pale form still lost for words. I could figure that the same fear that was rushing through his mind was matching mind, we just couldn't stomach putting them out and creating jinxes.

"Jay?" His voice holds an echo that makes me want to sink down ant size and disappear in the stones at the cracks. The ground creaks at our unbalanced weight pushing down on the shallows but even the danger can keep us from searching for the fabric of a trench coat or voice that is too familiar. Nothing happens, just the whooshing of water licking at the tall beige walls and sandy-colored cement shelf. Drips and echos don't stop and tell us that my father didn't fall, instead, they just become louder.

Something wet and hot burns at the lid of my eyes. I don't want to think that they are tears but before I can confirm what they are, a few fall into the torrents below, mixing in the water and disappearing forever.

I want to cover my ears from the howling currents feet below but my arms cramped, weakened by wearyiness. Andrew pulled himself away from the hole, paying a glimpses to the cracks spiraling out from the cement in dark black veins.

"This shallow caven is fairly new. The cracks still haven't been dried from the sun nor the smaller rocks been cleared with the rain we've been having." Andrew's soft voice seems to calm me a little, persuasing me to think.

My eyes shut against, wishing that the flames in my dreams that had come from a foreign place inside my stomach would come back again. I can't even summon the bright orange and red glimmer without my mind rushing away.

"Uncle? Do you think-." I pause and turn to him, the whispy strains of hair plastered to his forehead glimmer in a sheet of sweat. His breathing turns heavy for a moment until he answers.

"No." He reached into his pocket, rambling around for a piece of gum to push in his mouth. He smacked the pale pink piece of double bubble with his tongue, letting out a sigh of relief.

"How so? Is it even possible to know if he was swept down into the underground sewers?" I blink up at him through the threads of sunlight touching my cheeks and warming the skin of my forehead.

Andrew ruffled his hair with his hand, twisting his fingers into the thick mounds of light brunette and gold hair. He offered my hand, pushing his palm in my lap with a dark black tattoo of a dragon winding up his wrist and elbow with claws pinpointed right at his veins.

"You've taken notice of the gum that I keep on me all the time, haven't you?"

"Have you noticed that I don't really keep up with the things that you do?" I mutter, hovering my hand above his open palm.

Andrew narrowed his eyes, a snarky smile forming on his lips envolped me with a soft sense of calm rushing underneath my skin and skull. His eyes seem to turn to a golden color as his chewing becomes more slowed and passed with his teeth digging deeper into the gum with aggression.

His sharp teeth tear through the pinkish skin of gum, grinding his teeth against each other with a pricking but yet terrible sound that makes me want to scream at him to stop. He doesn't and even if I had asked, I wholeheartedly doubt that he would have broke the strange act for the comfort of me.

Andrew snapped his head back, quitting his chewing before splitting a shredded piece of gum into the waters below us. The piece was so disfigured that I doubted that even it's own sticky and flexible form could have fixed the holes and knotted mess that was produced.

"Gum helps me concentrate on the power that the reserve kept from me, the one that was bent at the will of the ones who still belived in magic." Andrew dosn't allow the chance to insult his old extended family to slip away.

"What do you mean? We're only born with one or two powers and nothing more. Fireleaves are the only ones capable of learning more and Dad said that's what make them so reckless." I waited for a response, but he only shrugged his shoulders.

"Maybe so, but if it wasn't for me practicing focusing my thoughts we wouldn't be having this conversation. They saved my life." He said, his goofy attitude fading into a seriousness that barely showed.

"What can you do and how do you know that Dad is safe?"

"I hear events and accidents after they happen and rarely before. The environment holds memories that only the sharpest and focused mind can pick up on through hearing and feeling. Your grandmother could do it too, so I doubt it's a coincidence."

Before I can even come to terms with his words that still longer like fresh dew, my mind runs wild to the flames, dogs and beautiful man trapped behind a thick layer of glass, his gothic look holding a familiar place in my mind. Each lock of caressing black hair that curved down the man's broad chest brought more attention to his sad eyes of hunter green.

He wanted freedom and Georgy told me only I could figure out my purpose. For what, is still beyond me.

"In my dream I could control fire." I say bluntly, "But my power has always been electricity, taking the sparks out of sockets and giving power to lamps that had shortages."

Andrew nodded, "Dreams having correlation with real life has always been a thing of stories rather something that you could prove."

"But do you think that I have a second power? One I could unlock. Just for protection purposes?" The hope of gaining a new power and being stronger than the average fireleaf rises in my chest, lifting my heart. It feels selfish, returning to bite me with a embarrassment that burns my cheek.

A brisk and cold answer comes back, dropping my heart back down to the very pit of my stomach, "Not with your insanely strict father, especially if you like seeing me everyday."

A toothy grin grew when my sharp bark found him, "Not really. Some days you aren't all baskets of kittens and sunflowers."

"And my heart is broken into shards, how could I ever go on knowing that I cause you so many troubles?" His laugh bounces off the tall cement walls and flimsy building windows.

"Does Dad know about your powers?"

"No and I hope it stays that way. I hear voices bouncing off these walls but they belong to two entirely different people. From the cheer in their voices, they escaped but it's a feeling that still hangs on to my skin that didn't feel right."

"Like?" I question.

"Cold and hot all at the same time. It makes my spine cringe at how intense the chill comes down on my body and my chest burns like fire is in my heart about to burst. It's so angry and vicious." He tightened his hand around mine.

"It it a emotion?"

He stood, gently pulling me away from the mouth of the cavern hole and avoiding the cracks that could be potential shallows waiting to gulp us through growing cracks. I followed without argument, lifting my feet on the stone and looking in the sky for a glimpse of Ronnie's onyx-colored body.

The buildings dip under the hill that leads down towards the other side of the hole, a mess of fallen trash and cracks decorating the ground like strange crowns and ornaments.

"Whoever the emotions belongs to was holding too much, so much that I imagine that they burst into a rage five seconds later."

"I'm still lost by a mile. Our abilities are special to us, in our blood and not in the mind." I sound like my father quoting out words straight from a giant book with words boldly exclaiming laws and rules.

Andrew seemed displeased with my conclusion to the statement, his voice cracking under the pressure of his own annoyance, "The only people who we are special to is the humans. Not even the person who placed those words in your mouth has enough pride to be anything more than a human for the human race."

"We are more than humans." The words fill the air like poison gas. It's thorny shock reaches the skin of Andrew, a snap of aggression rearing from him and crashing down.

"We never were better than mankind. They struggle like us and feel the same pain. With all the honesty in the world, sometimes I-." He paused, leaning against the building wall with an elbow pressed to the bricks.

I don't press the rest of the sentence out of Andrew, not that the itching feeling doesn't belongs a place of curiosity but because I can almost already feel the stubbornness growing.

We both stare at each other for a few drawn out moments, allowing them to hold on to his unfinished words. The strange gleam in his eyes drained away to a spray of red flush of his cheeks due to the warmth of the sun.

The clank of stone against metal breaks the silence, pulling us back to life, my sights on the break of the lifeless buildings stretching around the pit, holding strong despite the giant hole between them.

A voice, hushed with a heavy gasp for air yelled over the clanking words with no meaning. It's no anger twisted in the cry, just loud enough to hear but muffled between the crashing underfoot and cars filling the roads at the wake of dawn, some headed from late night shifts with other going in to fill their place.

The shouts are met with Andrew's curious yell back, bouncing off the brick buildings. "Hello?"

"Help! Please!" The pitiful voice belongs to a female, but the age is hard to pinpoint with the clumping of shoes against rugged cement. Her cry was high pitched but from the voice, I could guess her accent was a mix of southern and city, both warm and sharp-edged.

"Hold on, Miss." Andrew walked towards the voice, nearly forgetting the hole in front of him.

My fingers gripped his elbow, pushing nails into his rougher skin. He gasped, moving back as a medium-sized chunk of half dislodged gravel plunged below. The plucked object flew down the hole, knocking unto a rocky ledge jutting out of the inner walls before exploding into a shower of smaller stones that scattered in the mucky waves.

He fell speechless at thanks, rushing off to the sun rusted rails, turning a dusty auburn. Without thinking, his shoes were already swung over the railing, legs holding him up on a thick layer of brownish concrete inches above the hole. His weight fell on the smooth path, bounding forward without a pause to rest. I dare to grab onto the railing, peaking through the tall bar that towered me by an inch or two.  For a minute, I relive the day my parents and I arrive at our new apartment, sniffing the toxic New York City air with heavy snow falling like mini white blimps made of diamonds and ice.

My mother wanted to visit the pier a few miles away and after enough persuasion, Dad gave in, and in the darkness, a slightly glowing figure met us on the wooden plank with a handful of welcome balloons tied around his wrist. It was the first time I met the angelic man with pale skin and a mess of unruly brunette hair since childhood. Andrew. Not even the calm waves or balloons could break the argument brewed in less than a quick second.

I allow the memory to fade when my mother's face comes to mind. The empty feeling that comes with it is too much of a reminded that she left us, the reality that she wasn't strong enough to fight for her relationship with Dad or rebuild bridges burned with Andrew over an old loyalty feud that had already come to a dead end with no hope of reopening for her daughter's sake. It was too hard for her, so hard that an unanswered question of why could only be replaced with an empty heart and cold shoulder.

The voice breaks me from the past, filling my heart with a feeling of dread from the same stomach that feels worried for a stranger but bitter towards my own family. Only love for the person she was before she became the creature now. I'm not even sure if that person even exists anymore and even if she did, would it change the wrong that she did to me and Dad? No.

Finally, I solely direct my attention to Andrew, his arms extended as the steps come closer with a little rattle on thin concrete.  A shower of rocks hit the wall of the left, propelling themselves in awkward directions with tiny patters and gleams of grey and auburn in the sun's cutting stripes. Andrew ignores the few that touch his skin, leaving behind needle-sized marks of red.

A blur of colors darted out, old sneakers buried into the ground with each bound towards Andrew's arms, no intent to run in the opposite way from a stranger with extended arms. Her eyes told their own story, wide as if they could see attackers from every side of the alleyway, waiting to jump from window seals and the tops of dumpsters.

His elbows pierced the air, wrist flicking out as his hands grabbed the fluttering material of her sleeves ruddy with blood and clumps of grey dirt and grass stains. Marks of red stained her face, a cut dried with black and scarlet drawn from her lip and stopping right at her chin.

A gold highlight in her hair was a flurry in the black, touched by the yellow sunlight, giving it a likeness of jewelry. Her eyes shifted from dark brown to a deep black in the shadow. A muffled word leaves her as she loses balance and falls into Andrew's open arms.

He holds her, looking into the darkness where she'd come bursting like a dog off its leash. Nails dig into flesh, her sobs soft and full of unexplained pain or fear. I want to be responsible for some kind of aid, but I feel that my help is useless. Turning back was the best thing I did but beyond that, I hold no power.

"Come back!" The woman tore her face away from Andrew's shoulder, smeared makeup. Her clothes resemble rags, pulling my heartstrings to feel sympathy for her and her current condition.

"Dale?" Andrew pulled away from the young woman, dropping his clutch in nearly an instant. Her left hand still stays on his shoulder but her furrowed eyebrows accompanying a half-open mouth showed she was confused.

My legs nearly buckled underneath me at the voice of my father, no matter how angry and vicious it was. The hole no longer existed or Andrew and the poor woman still shivering beside Andrew who looked to her for an explanation.

The anger in his voice is strange, almost stagnant like thick mud clumping in the sun and slightly sluring each word. I squinted my eyes, pressing my fingers to the metal bars, allowing the sticky and cold rust to rest in my palm.

"Andrew?" The rage and heavy footsteps subsided, fading like a dying flame. The woman, who'd once been grappling out of fear took a step back on the cement path lining the wall. Her dark brown eyes stopped darting around with a few heavy breaths and a near mishap into the pit below.

She barely noticed me, looking directly in my face for a split second with lips pursed so hard that dried blood left marks on her naturally nude lips barely dusted with a lipstick color between violet and a bleeding fuchsia. Sweat mixed into her foundation, leaving marks of toffee flecks on her jaws and cheeks.

Her own skin color, a shade lighter than her makeup was hinted in a rosy red and pink on her forehead and chin. My mouth opened to call out a name that partially matched her face, two names that clashed into each other, one leaving my mouth and the other raging in my head.

"Georgeanna? You-." The girl looked back at me, her stare harsh to the skin. I took a step back, her glare matching a lifted lip in disgust. Her eye color seemed to shift yet again, turning black in perfect symmetry in a pool of redish white.