Ember

 

That morning started out like any other. I woke up before everyone else and made my way sleepily into the front of the tiny trailer that I shared with my mother and my rowdy three brothers. It was still a little dark outside, the sun barely even peeking over the horizon. I was the only one in my family that was a morning person. I could wake up before the sun and stay up long after it had gone down. It made solitary mornings possible, though there was little comfort in the solitude.

 

The dining room table was covered in bills—past due notices on the utilities, cards that my mother had taken out in the hopes of paying for things that we needed, doctor bills for my mother.

 

The list went on.

 

And on ...

 

I made my coffee as usual, running my fingers over the envelopes stuffed full of letters from people telling us what we owed them and knowing that neither myself nor my mother had the money to pay them—at least not as swiftly as the bill collectors would like. There were simply too many expenses and they just kept getting more and more extreme as time went on.

 

I sighed. I would need to leave soon—pretend like I was going to class when in reality ...

 

My stomach clenched a little nervously. A stripper. I was going to audition to be a stripper. My friend, Melany, had brought up the idea to me when I’d had to drop out of school. I simply could keep up with the expenses for it and neither could my mother and father.

 

“Strippers make, like, so much money!” she exclaimed. “You’ll be able to work and save a bunch—enough even to help out with your family or even go back to school!”

 

It was a lofty idea, and I didn’t know how accurate that was actually going to be. Eyeing all the bills on the table, however, I knew that this wasn’t something that I was going to be able to back out on. Mom didn’t make much more than pennies, it felt, cleaning people’s houses. Dad didn’t work and was never around as it was, anyway.

 

I finished my coffee and got ready before any of my siblings woke up. It was easy to leave without waking anyone up; being the only girl, I got the second bedroom all to myself. There were perks to being female.

 

I was out as the sun was just rising, in time to make it to the bus stop not too far from our little home. It was early on a Saturday morning; people weren’t out and about yet, so I had the shabby little shop to myself. It gave me time to get my head together; I was so nervous. My heart pounded in my chest.

 

Would I be good enough? I was athletic, sure. Always in good shape, and I had always had good rhythm but this was ... so different. This was dancing and taking off clothes and while I wasn’t shy, it wasn’t like I had stripped before, either.

 

I shook my head, getting on the bus. Now wasn’t the time to back down or have regrets.

 

The ride across town wasn’t very long, and it was nice and quiet since there was only one other person on the bus with me, and they had headphones shoved into their ears and a hoodie drawn high up over their head. I didn’t even see what the person looked like.

 

When I got off the bus, I still had a couple of blocks to go. I wished that I had something warmer to wear—it was chillier than I thought it was going to be, but that was my fault, I supposed. I hugged my body, trying to keep in the warmth.

 

I didn’t notice the group of people until they were calling out to me.

 

“Hey! Hey you! With the fire hair!”

 

My brows furrowed as I turned around. It wasn’t a comment that I wasn’t used to; my hair was a shade of red that a lot of people referred to as flames. Bright and deep and wildly curly—untamable just like fire.

 

The women stood around a little makeshift fire pit down an alley that I had almost passed. That in itself was kind of suspicious. Living near the city had taught me not to trust strange people down weird alleyways calling out to you. That tended to get you robbed, or worse.

 

“Um ... Yeah?” I kept my eyes on them, my eyes falling to the woman in the middle. She was impossibly pretty with thick black hair and wide green eyes. There were two other women with her, spinning what looked like ... wires or strings or something with balls of fire at the ends. They had music playing.

 

Definitely weirdos.

 

The main woman waved me over.

 

“Hey. Fire hair. That shade natural?” she asked me curiously.

 

“... Yes ...?”

 

She laughed.

 

“I told you, Delilah. You can’t get hair that shade of fire out of a bottle. You have a name, Fire Hair?”

 

This was getting weirder and weirder.

 

“It’s Ember.”

 

The woman laughed again, looking over to the girl that she had called Delilah. She continued twirling her fire, dancing around, moving her body in sensual rolls. It was almost mesmerizing, but I wasn’t given a lot of time to admire.

 

“Even your name fits. That’s amazing. Your mama name you that on purpose?”

 

I nodded. “Yeah.”

 

She eyed me up and down, like she was trying to figure something out. I was getting more and more nervous. What was the likelihood that I had stumbled on some sort of alleyway human trafficker or organ pawner or something?

 

“Say, Ember, where are you going this early in the morning? Nothing good here is open this early.”

 

“Um ...” I started to back away a little.

 

“Oh, no, no, don’t leave! I promise I’m not weird.”

 

Right.

 

“I have a work interview,” I said, figuring that would answer her fine without copping to the fact that my ‘interview’ was for ... a strip club. My precaution didn’t do too much, however; the woman raised a brow.

 

“You’re going down to the club, aren’t you? They’re the only people that ever have ‘interviews’ this early so they can roll in new girls for the evening shifts ...” I blushed. I didn’t want to admit to her that that’s was what was going on.

 

“Oh, pretty thing, don’t be shy!” she said. She waved me over. “Come here, would you?”

 

I was hesitant. I didn’t know this woman. I didn’t know what she wanted. I had an interview. Audition. Whatever. I shouldn’t be here ...

 

There was something compelling, though, about the sincere way that she beckoned me over. About the fire that blazed in the pit with her and her comrades. About the way that the two other women just kept dancing and dancing with their fire.

 

It was like my feet just carried me over there of their own volition. I couldn’t stop it. I walked up to the woman, compelled and nervous but not running away.

 

“You have such pretty fiery hair,” she said. “Delilah.” The woman waved her over.

 

Delilah stopped her dancing and walked over to us. She tilted her head at me in interest before she looked to the other woman.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Doesn’t she look like she should be handling fire and not dancing for a bunch of gross, gropey men?” the woman said, a conspiring smile on her face. “That complexion, that hair, the shyness—but I bet there’s something more under all that, too, isn’t there, Ember?”

 

“Um ... not really ... no ...” This was all so sudden. I didn’t know what to think, but I didn’t tell the woman to back off when she took the flames from Delilah and got in my space to hand them over to me. I took them, bewildered, wondering what on earth this woman was doing. She stared at me again with that calculating look, as though she were measuring me up, sizing my worth.

 

“God, look at her ... Just waiting to catch fire ...” She smiled. “My name’s Wanda. The other girl over there is Chloe. I think I have something better suited for you than dancing in a club, Fire Hair.”