Where was he going at this early morning hour, Carlos?
Why was it such a big deal for his mother to let him take his father's bike? What does it feel like to split the wind on the same road ranger your old man used for most of his life? A father who died to bring you into the country?
America, Home of the free. America, land of the brave.
Is that what this place is? If so why does it feel like the ground is about to crumble beneath him opening up the very Hell mouth his obuella has warned him about so very much? Could it be him? Is the evil inside him like that book says? Or is it possibly that his intuition is right? Are there people hidden underneath this cracked concrete cascada?
Maybe but not here. Not in little ol' Minnesota, surely.
So where was he going?
Carlos likes to escape. Spend hours alone to process his thoughts and usually that's what he'd do right now. The suns just waking up and that's his invitation to run. Run to the secrets he keeps from even himself until it's time to open them again.
Today... today was different.
He was looking for something. What? How the hell should he know. When he gets these feelings it's usually for a reason.
Sometimes it's just gas because Auntie Roola likes to cook everything in three layers of ghost pepper and a mountain of cheese. Carlos' cooking was refined, simple, a small kick for enthusiasm and a backing of patience. The longer it takes to make the more he can conjure.
Sometimes it's the music in his head. The melody takes him on a journey and he ends up helping someone in need of simple service; flat tire at a gas station, collapsed trailer on moving days, a missing dog trapped out by the valley. No matter where he was or when he managed to get caught up in these situations and until he moved to America he was on foot.
Now he had the two wheeled death trap his father used to get everywhere until he managed to get the rest of his family across the border.
He veers down a random road off the side of the highway hidden by a thick wall of evergreens that shadow him enough to block out what traces of the sun were beginning to show.
Up a gravel drive, around a bend, back out onto a deserted two lane stretching left or right labeled '606' in which he chose to go right. He keeps going until there's no where else to go. A path blocked by a downed tree that was so rotten it must have been there for some time. Riddled with termites and broken branches that seemed to all be pointing in one direction.
The song he's listening to has been on repeat the entire drive. A new melody that's taken him in it's clutches like an iron gate and by listening over and over he'll eventually pick the lock and escape. Here. In this moment. Something's different. A noise, has it always been in the ear buds? A noise, but it doesn't fit. A noise, he may had just blocked out as he drifted into a haze of thoughts?
Slowly, he pulls the left one free.
First there's silence. Then, a sharp cry as if a wounded animal was calling out to him but animals (as far as he knows) don't speak English. No, this was a person. That person was begging God for death.
"Ple-he-he-he-ease!" A gasp of air as the flames illuminated his pale face in the agony of the situation.
Carlos barrels through the trees to see the chaos blooming like a field of Canna blowing fervently in the scream of the morning wind. Instead of petals it was living heat, instead of green stems it was the frame of the front half of a car, instead of beauty he was witnessing destruction.
On his stomach, clawing at the ground to escape his inevitable death, Logan Mitchell pulled in another wheezy breath of agony. Blood covers half his face, one hand is completely charred, fingernails are sticking up in the mud he digs through that must have been uprooted from the nerves in his determination. The lower half of his body is buried beneath the driver's side door.
He doesn't see Carlos. He can't see anything. All he sees is the blue haze of the morning that he's preparing to cling to in his final moments when Carlos does what he was brought here to do.
With all of his might the boy braces against metal hot enough to brand his palms. Carlos ignores the pain. He's running out of time, if he doesn't get this kid out of here soon they'll both be caught in the explosion. The smell of gas is everywhere.
Logan still has not noticed the presence of this stranger nor has he noticed the weight being lifted off of him. His left leg is completely numb and the right one blisters from the fire. Then he hears it, the scream of his rescuer.
Carlos gives an animalistic howl as he throws the car over on it's side. There's a gust of hot wind that blows up against him and he sheilds his face from the burning embers of peeling paint before looking down at the beat up face looking right back at him.
He bends over and locks onto the damaged body of a kid giving up on life to drag Logan away from the site of the incident. Away from the clearing. Away from the embankment his car had rolled down. Away from the angel of death who stood by peacefully waiting only to be let down by Carlos' impeccable timing.
The two of them crash down on the concrete before the fallen tree.
Logan rolls over on his back twitching but alive and grateful. He gasps for air as he looks around at the colors of the forest. Eyes that pan over to a boy doubled over in pain that he has never met until this moment, "You..." another violent twitch, "You saved my life."
Carlos' big eyes return the gaze.
He swallows hard, then says, "I heard you scream and everything became red."