Steps Around Love

chapter 1

“Tazia, cielito, stop fussing, you look beautiful.”

Taz dropped her hand from her head with as forceful of a huff as she could manage in the ridiculous dress her mother and aunt had coerced her into. All lace and poof, it suited her nearly as well as the teased hair and eye-drooping

makeup they'd assaulted her with. “I look like you could slice and serve me as a wedding cake, mamá.”

“You look like a young lady,” her mama said. “As well you should, for your quinceañera. You’re fifteen now – a woman grown. Time to stop being such a muchachota. You’ll never catch a man’s eye climbing trees and picking

fights like you do.”

“One day,” Taz said. “That’s all I promised.”

Her mama sighed. “Dios muerto, my daughter, what am I to do with you?” She lifted the curtain, ever so slightly. “Have you at least decided which chambelán will have the honour of the first dance with you?” Taz followed her mother to the window. “Maravilloso,” she whispered despite herself. The yard was unrecognizable, her aunt and cousins having turned it from chickens and grass to a twinkling wonderland – fairy lights and flowers, guests in all their finery, the band setting up in

the corner, and a cake almost as large and decorated as her dress. She’d been dreading this day for months – a quinceañera was a girl’s coming out party, and there was nothing Taz hated more than being the centre of attention.Especially in an outfit like this. The archaic-style mass had

been bad enough, sitting up at the altar on display for everyone to see – but now she had to go out and face them, talk to people, smile… and dance.

“I don’t know, mama,” Taz said. “I don’t want to dance with any of them.” Her chambelanes, or escorts, were a motley collection of awkward youths, pimply and barely moustached, and most of them her cousins.

Her mama tutted and opened her mouth, but just then there was a wicked crashing sound, far away but close enough to shake the windows of their tiny house. Her mama looked up worriedly. “I didn’t think it was meant to rain today.”

One of Taz’s older cousins poked her head in the door. “It’s time, Tazia! Everyone is waiting for you!”

Taz froze and cast a glance back at the safety of herbedroom, but her mama took her by the arms and marched her forward, but gently. “I’m proud of you, hijita mia.”

There was applause as she exited the house, and Taz wanted nothing more than to die, or maybe have the earth just open up and swallow her. Perhaps a hoard of ravaging robots could conveniently stage an attack on their village

right at that very moment -

A second crash, closer, caused a falter in the applause, and Taz saw her mama look up at the unclouded, starry sky with worry. A third, and then a brilliant flash, and Taz was no longer on her feet but soaring through the air. For a second she felt nothing but exhilaration. Fear overcame her

just before she hit the ground.

Unable to breathe, unable to move, Taz tried to open her eyes and found them burning from the smoke filling the air around her. Shutting them quickly, she listened instead. Screams, and more explosions. A dreadful ripping of something that wasn’t cloth, and then the sound that struck fear and hatred into the hearts of every human still living on