Chapter 4 - Hot Ashes

Cinder was woken up on a bench inside a bus station by someone looming over her, shining a light in her eye. Blinking furiously, she grimaced and muttered something incoherent.

"Miss, this is a public space. You can't sleep here," an authoritative voice boomed, shaking her consciousness. He needs to stop waving that damn light in my eyes, she thought rudely. "You need to get up, ma'am."

"I'll move in a minute," Cinder grumbled. "I just arrived after working all night and thought I could use a quick nap." When she got used to the lighting, she noticed that a cop was staring down at her dubiously.

"It's 12:30pm," the cop stated, looking rather unpleased.

Knitting her brows together, Cinder rolled on the bench and peered at a clock on the opposite wall. It was 12:34pm, actually, but she decided not to argue. Thankfully she wasn't drunk or she'd be in bigger trouble.

"Sorry, officer," she apologized, stretching. "Must have been out longer than I thought. I'll leave as soon as I can."

"Take your time, miss." The officer looked concerned. "Do you need a ride home?"

"No, I can walk," Cinder bit back a retort.

"Would you like me to call your parents?"

"No, I'll be fine, really." With that, the officer nodded and walked away. Cinder almost laughed. Her parents were long dead, hundreds-of-years-ago dead, as far as she was concerned. In fact, she never remembered her parents. Even for all that it was worth, Pitch hardly counted. She didn't even want to start thinking about whatever "home" meant...

That brought her to another problem. Cinder needed another place to live, and with that she needed a job. She sat up and patted down her hair, which was rough and frizzy from being kept under a hooded cloak the entire night. Pitch's job had been frustratingly easy, but what had really annoyed her was that she had to remain unseen. It was always funny to watch adults and kids stare up in the sky in disbelief, seeing a girl just floating there. But no, Pitch didn't want Cinder to have fun. That would be too risky. In hindsight, however, Cinder thought it was probably a good idea. That other flying idiot almost ruined everything.

At first, Cinder thought she had been seeing things. It was a weird twist on her point of view, to see someone else flying, but she decided to watch what he did instead. The flying boy was hard to distinguish in the night because his hair and skin was a snowy white and his dark blue sweatshirt had blended into the night. What was more intriguing, however, was the staff that the boy held. Although she was too far up in the sky to understand it exactly, it sent chills through her skin. Not real chills that someone gets when they become cold, no, but something more eerie. Then the boy disappeared into the burning building like a moron. Cinder was about to leave the site when she saw that the boy came out the other side of the building. Incredulous, Cinder warmed up her palm. This white-haired idiot was trying to destroy her job. Pitch would be furious. But by the time she shot the ball of fire that lit in her hand, he saw her and dodged. After that, she flew to the farthest ground she could and hit the ground running. If he followed her, she didn't want to stick out.

The boy had looked at her. And she had looked back at him. If the hood had not been hiding her face, Cinder feared it would have been over for her. Immortality can only go so far, and that boy looked furious enough to take it away from her. His eyes were the worst, though. They bore into her without actually seeing her, and it made her feel uncomfortable. It nagged at the back of her mind that something was off about them. They were too blue. It was as if they were not natural, as if they weren't the right color. Then again, flying wasn't a natural human function, either.

Bringing herself back to the present, Cinder stood up and stretched again. Her backpack leaned against the wall on the side of the bench, untouched. She looked around and found the local newspaper on a rack near the ticket counter. As she picked it up, the woman at the ticket counter spoke, startling her.

"You need to pay for that, miss."

Recovering quickly, she replied, "I'm just looking, it's not going anywhere."

The ticket counter women rolled her eyes as if she wasn't paid enough to deal with this, which she probably wasn't. Cinder brought the paper back to the bench and leafed through it until she found the classifieds. She couldn't work at the ticket counter, it required too much information that she didn't have. This was the most frustrating part about immortality. She had to keep changing her IDs, including her Social Security card and her driver's license (learning to drive was too hard, so this was usually forged, anyway) every ten or so years because she never aged. Eventually she gave up and settled for under-the-table jobs. Unfortunately, newspapers were a poor way of finding those kinds of jobs, but it did give her ideas occasionally.

Skimming through the end of the page, she almost gave up until she saw "house-sitter: includes a room to stay" pop out. At this point, she didn't really care what job she took, but this one gave her a place to stay as well; two birds with one stone. There was no way that she was going to pass up this one.

After she dialed the number on the phone in the station, she fingered the ring on her left hand anxiously. It was a silver piece, and trapped in the center was a blue opal. It shone and spots of green and electric blue that speckled the stone constantly shifted underneath the heart shaped facet. She didn't know where it came from, but it wasn't like she could just get rid of it. Sure, it was amazingly pretty, but it would never come off. Try as she might, the piece was stuck around her ring finger, although her fingers had never grown. Something was keeping it there, but she couldn't understand what.

Then a voice crackled on the phone. "Hello?"

"Hi," Cinder spoke with her sweetest, most innocent voice she could muster, "I'm calling about your ad in the paper? You said you needed a house-sitter?"

"Oh, yes," the woman sounded relieved. "Yes, of course. And you are?"

"I'm Cinder," she replied. "Cinder McAllister," she made up on the spot. Every few years she had to change it so that the authorities wouldn't look for her when she disappeared. They usually didn't notice, though, because Cinder made sure no one got too close. But it was always nice to have a backup plan.

"Mhm," the woman must have been scribbling the name down. Hopefully she didn't try to look Cinder up, because she wouldn't find anything. "So Cindy─"

"Cinder," she corrected the woman on the phone.

"I'm sorry?"

"Cinder, C-I-N-D-E-R. Like ashes."

"Oh, I'm sorry," the voice was exhausted. "I've been up so late working that I'm just a little too tired. I really do need the help around here."

"No," Cinder assured her, "no, that's fine. A lot of people don't get it right the first time." Even Cinder had issues with her name.

"Oh, well," the woman paused, "it's a nice name. Anyway, if there's a day that you could come by and see the house, that'd be wonderful."

"I can come by right now if you're not busy," Cinder offered, knowing she didn't have anywhere else to be at the moment.

"Oh, could you?" the woman's voice was hopeful. "Thank you so much."

They spoke for a few more minutes with Cinder relaying all of her relevant information. After the woman gave Cinder the directions, Cinder hung up and walked back to the bench. She picked up her backpack and headed outside the station. She needed some fresh air. She hadn't wanted to relay the story behind her name, but that didn't stop the memories from flooding back into her consciousness.

She woke up sputtering and coughing, wheezing and groaning in pain. She couldn't move. As much as she tried, she was stuck. Every movement sent another wave of pain through whatever she could feel of her body left. Her vision was blurry and shaky; her hearing was replaced with crackling noises and static. When she tried to set herself up on her elbows, something snapped and she fell back down. She wasn't able to scream, hadn't been for awhile now. From what she could tell, she was trapped underneath charred logs. However, her body looked much the same way, black and smoldering. The smell of burning flesh infiltrated her senses and made her sick. Had she been in a fire? How long had she been here? She wasn't sure, but she knew she wasn't supposed to be alive.

Or maybe this was what death was?

Unless her vision was failing her, which it was, she swore she saw someone just past the tree line. Her first attempt to speak ended in a fit of coughing and other grotesque noises.

"Help... me..." she stuttered feebly, "please, help..."

Much to her dimmed surprise, the figure stopped. But it was still too far away, she feared.

"I'm... trapped, burnt..." this last effort sent her into another outburst of pain.

Her memory failed her here, but she knew the figure had come to help because next time she awoke, she was being carried. The new position, free from the weight above her, almost felt good. She tried to stretch or move in some way, and a new pain sent her into shock and a small gasp escaped her dry lips.

"Ouch," she whimpered.

"Shh, keep quiet," the figure whispered harshly. "You'll be fine in a few minutes."

She wasn't sure what that meant. Wasn't she burned completely, from head to toe? She could hardly speak or move, what else could she ever be good for in this state?

A new shock made her cry out weakly. She must have blacked out again. Her vision twisting again, she was able to make out that she had been settled onto a snow bank. The snow melted into her back, which was both a pleasant and horrifying sensation. She would have cried if she had had any water in her body at all.

She looked around for her savior, but he wasn't anywhere close. Her hearing had cleared somewhat, though, and she thought she heard someone close by, talking urgently.

"Save her!" she heard him yell clearly. "I know that you can!"

Then he paused, as if listening to someone else.

"But she can see me," he offered in answer. "She's the only one after you sent those damn Guardians who can see me! She can't die! I've waited for this for too long!"

Guardians... she thought. Another pause occurred as she strained to hear who he was talking to.

"One companion in this lonely world is all I ask for!"

Confused, the girl tried to sit up. To her amazement, it only hurt enough to make her grunt miserably. Still enough to kill her, probably, but she didn't care.

"If you won't, then I will!" And that's when he turned to her.

Fear raced through her heart, which she was surprised to find still beating. His eyes were an intense and insane yellow, and they were trained on her. She tried to get up and run. The antagonizing pain was so great that she could not stand, but she managed a crawl and whimpered hastily. Then suddenly, something made a sickening sound inside her, and she fell to the ground once again. The blackness in the edges of her vision grew until she saw nothing more.

x

The girl woke up with a start, gasping for breath. Then she clamped her hand over her mouth, thinking she was going to cough violently. When she didn't, she looked at her hands. Her eyes widened in disbelief at the pale, unearthly skin. There were no burn marks. Anxiously, she checked over the rest of her body, looking at her arms, legs, stomach, and finally─

She stopped completely. There was a large, black scar where her chest was expanding and deflating with each frantic breath she took. Touching it sensitively, she couldn't be entirely sure what it meant.

"You shouldn't touch that, it may still be sensitive."

The girl yanked her hand away and shrieked, backing up towards the wall. That's when she saw that she was on a bed inside a cabin. The walls were a smooth oak, and the bed she was sure had about a thousand blankets on it.

"Who are you? Where am I? What did you do to me?" The girl asked rapid fire questions without taking a break, and she was soon out of breath. She was amazed again at the fact that she was able to talk without croaking horribly.

"Calm down," the man said. His skin was an ashen gray, and he was in a gray robe of sorts. His black hair was smoothed back to expose his forehead, creased in concentration. Then there were his eyes: a bright, knowledgeable yellow that made her question his motives.

"What do you remember, child? Do you have a name?"

The girl was about to speak, but she stopped herself. Searching her brain furiously, she found she could not answer his questions. She had no idea who she was. Even a name was hard to extract, let alone what had happened to her. She didn't remember anything before waking up under the burned logs.

"I don't know," she finally succumbed.

"In that case," he began quietly. "I'll call you 'Cinder.'"

"Cinder..." she played with the word a few times. It sounded right. Almost anything would have, at this point.

"Yes," the man soothed, "there you go."

Cinder looked at the man with expectant eyes.

"Ah, yes," the man was reminded. "My apologies, I am Pitch."

"Pitch," Cinder repeated.

"Is repeating words all you can do?" Pitch asked.

In a quick flare of anger, she glared at him. But then she realized just how heated her body was. It was as if he had sealed the fire inside of her, and she was nothing but a walking furnace. Her limbs were infused with hot blood that pulsed loudly inside her head.

"What's happening to me?"

"Hmm, looks like I couldn't make it think, what a shame." The man turned around and tapped his forehead dramatically. Cinder got the feeling he was just playing with her.

"Tell me," Cinder growled, "now." Her anger flared again and she looked down at her hands that gripped the blankets tightly. In shock, she saw that the blankets were burned where she had gripped them. She gasped and wrapped her arms around her knees in defense.

Pitch looked over his shoulder and smiled. "I see you've found an answer."

"I'm a monster," she whispered faintly.

"A monster?!" the man boomed back at her, making her cower. "No," his voice calmed down strangely, "you are not a monster. I gave you another chance to be free. If that sounds monstrous, then perhaps─"

"Wait, 'another chance'?" Cinder interrupted, "Did I die?"

Pitch grinned devilishly. "Precisely, young child."

"And... you saved me?" Cinder let go of her legs and stared at her hands. She didn't feel like she died, at least not at the present moment. She didn't look like she died either. The intense heat she felt inside her almost felt normal now, like it had always been a part of her.

"Yes, and I gave you those powers. Why don't you try them out?"

Cinder looked at him quizzically. When he waved her toward him, she carefully stood up from the bed. Her feet also felt on fire, and the ground she stepped on became scorched. She quickly retracted her foot and stared in horror at Pitch.

"It's okay," Pitch explained, "you'll get used to it. Come now."

Cinder tried again, holding her breath. To her surprise, the earth did not burn again when she put her foot down. She took another wobbly step, and another, and finally she was walking again. She grinned in satisfaction and looked up excitedly at the man who revived her.

"Thank you, Pitch," she whispered gratefully as she threw her arms around him, trying not to let the heat escape her.

Pitch stood stock still, unsure about the situation. "Of course," he cleared his throat, "there's the matter of the contract."

She backed away from him, puzzled. "Contract?"

"Well, I revived you, didn't I?" Pitch asked incredulously.

"Yeah, I guess," Cinder thought her way through what he was saying.

"Then let's make a deal." Pitch reached out his hand. After a few moments of hesitation, she took it.

Cinder was standing against the side of the bus station, wincing at the thoughts consuming her mind. Pitch offered Cinder an offer she couldn't refuse. Without a past, she didn't see another way to make a step in the world. If she became his agent, as he called it, he would grant her immortality. We'll keep each other alive, Cinder. His words rang in her mind over and was dubious at first, but after the first ten years of not aging, she began to believe him. Besides, he taught her how to make it in this world; how to control her powers of heat and fire. For that, she should have been eternally grateful. But now, after three hundred years, she just wanted to move on and live out the rest of forever in isolation. That was never going to happen, however, because people were always going to be able to see her.

That was the major difference between Pitch and herself. Everyone, from the old to the young, could see Cinder, but they could not see Pitch. When she discovered this, she realized just how unusual she was. She could never be alone again.

Sighing heavily, Cinder pushed herself off the wall, picked up her backpack, and headed down the street.

People turned to her almost immediately. Rude stares were caught by mothers who then, in turn, stared at her as well. Shifting her backpack uncomfortably, she kept her eyes looking straight ahead. She realized everyone was looking at her, and her panic started to rise again.

"Hey, miss! Wait up!" Cinder heard a voice behind her, getting closer. She slowed down and waited for the man's next words.

"You'll freeze to death if you walk outside in this much further," the man turned to face her. He was middle-aged and had dark brown hair peeking out of a cap. He wore a jacket that was large and thick. That's when it hit her.

She was not dressed for January.

Looking down, she sighed as she realized she was wearing a tank top and dark jeans. In hindsight, she probably should have bought a jacket before coming here. Not that it mattered. The cold was not something that occurred to her.

"I'll be fine, really," she tried to reason with the man, repeated her words.

"Impossible," the man explained. "It is fifteen degrees out. You'll die of hypothermia before you go much further."

Cinder knew that the man was over exaggerating, but she still didn't like the stares she was getting from everyone.

"Here's some money," he took her hand and put a twenty dollar bill in it. Thankfully, he was wearing gloves and couldn't sense the overwhelming heat that escaped from her palm. "There's a shop just around the corner. Please, take it."

Cinder bit her lip. She was running out of money. She could just take this and go on with her life. Then she reminded herself of the looks she was getting, and realized that she probably shouldn't stick out so easily.

"Thank you, sir," Cinder smiled warmly. "I'll get to that."

"Take care, miss," the man waved as he walked back the other way.

Sighing, she went to where the man had mentioned and bought a cheap, but warm-looking, sweater. Before leaving, she looked at herself one more time in the mirror. But she wasn't looking at the sweater. She concentrated on her eyes. They were not yellow. They were not changing. She sighed with relief and walked away, the green haze of her irises swirled around in content.

A/N: Hopefully this clues you in on some of the story behind Cinder. But it's more complicated than it seems ;) Please review and have a good day!