Playing With Fire (26 page)

“There’s nothing here,” I said, disappointed.

Rome’s face scrunched as he studied the walls. He appeared curious, disbelieving and shocked at the same time. “No, there’s something. I thought it’d be easy to find him since he’s only one man, and old at that, but he’s a wily thing. The present is hidden. Belle. Use your powers.”

“What? Why?”

“Use your powers, baby. Please.”

“Uh, sure. Okay.” I didn’t understand, but there wasn’t time to argue. Tanner reached out and linked our fingers, offering comfort. “Which one? Rain? Fire? Ice?”

“Someone please explain what’s going on,” Cody said, tossing up his arms. “Rome knows something I don’t, and I don’t like it.”

Holding out his arms toward the walls, Rome spun around. “The formula is here, in this room, waiting for Belle.” He stopped, facing us dead-on. “If ordinary people can’t see it, it must need some sort of catalyst to become visible.”

“And you think changing the weather is going to be that catalyst?” Skepticism tinged Cody’s voice. “That would mean Roberts wanted Belle to find the formula.”

“That’s right.” Rome nodded. “He does.”

“Why would he want to help her?” Cody asked.

“To make amends.” Rome’s blue gaze pierced me. “Try. For me.”

Anything for him. I closed my own eyes.
Concentrate, Belle.
Okay. What element would Dr. Roberts have been most likely to utilize? Not fire, surely. That would torch the place. Rain? Maybe. It was worth a try. I’d start with that.

Once again, I did not summon sadness. I summoned the power behind the emotion, remaining distant from it, simply drawing from my deepest reservoir and projecting out of my body. A clap of thunder echoed in the room, blending with the sound of the continuing storm outside. My lips curled in a proud grin. Having succeeded for a second time, I knew without a doubt that I’d been right.

“Ease up a little,” Tanner said. “It’s becoming very strong.”

Rome mentally reached out and captured some of its edge. Physically, he clasped my free hand in his. I immediately relaxed.

“Good, good,” Tanner said.

A trickle of rain began to fall inside the room. Fat droplets splashed my face and my already wet clothes.

“Shit,” Cody said, scrambling to the doorway, away from the rain. “Who would have thought?” he breathed, awed by his first viewing of my abilities. He shook his head in surprise. “With this power, she’d be able to kick my ass in a heartbeat. Water fries the hell out of me.”

Holding on to my optimism, I looked around the room. The rain continued to fall, but nothing became visible, no clue, no object.

“Rain isn’t the answer. Fine. But what next? He wouldn’t have wanted me to use fire,” I said, voicing my earlier thought. “Nothing could survive that.” I paused, frowning. “Or maybe that’s exactly what he wanted people to think.”

“We’ll save that for last.” Rome kissed the back of my hand. “What about wind? An increase in dust circulation or simple air pressure might work.”

Wind,
I mentally called, not changing the focus of my emotions. As before, I pulled from my reservoir. The wind answered immediately, chasing away the rain. Strong gusts swirled and churned, whipping my wet clothes around me. I shivered from the chill. The precarious floorboards shook and danced. Paint peeled from the walls.

Still nothing.

“Try snow,” Tanner shouted over the roar.

I shut off the wind and pictured a snowstorm. “Don’t filter,” I told Rome, pushing his presence from my mind. “Not yet. Let it rage for a bit.” The air chilled, and I shivered again, this one reverberating through my entire body. Huge white flakes fell from the ceiling. The wet floor froze into a sheet of ice. I’m pretty sure icicles dripped from my nose.

Several seconds ticked by. Wet as I was, the cold seemed unbearable. Shivers continued to rack me. My blood crystallized. The air began to solidify.

Rome cursed under his breath. “You’re going to have to set the place on fire, Belle. Don’t be afraid. We’ll get you out before the smoke hurts you.”

I was just about to summon the flames when the walls changed color, going from white to blue. As if by magic, words began to appear on them. Giddiness thrummed through me. “Rome, look. Look!”

“My God,” he breathed, his hot breath creating a mist. “He must have used some sort of chemical that reacts to cold.”

At least I wouldn’t have to burn the building down. “What does it say?” I asked, doing my best to maintain the level of chill.

“It says, ‘You’re being watched, and I’m sorry for that. Maybe the wood will make up for it.’” Tanner’s brow puckered. “We know we’re being watched, but what does he mean, the wood will make up for it?”

“Could there be a secret ingredient in the wood that will make me normal again?” I asked.

With the water frozen and no longer able to harm him, Cody stepped back into the room. He laughed and bent down. “Smart bastard. Look at this.” The chill had changed the wood panels, as well. Words covered them.

We all crowded around him. “It’s the formula,” Rome said, something unreadable in his tone. Happiness? Resignation? A combination of both? “Maybe we can make our own batch and find an antidote for Belle.”

Though I’d been unsure earlier today, yesterday, about giving up my powers now that I was coming to wield them properly, I realized then that I
needed
to give them up. I needed an antidote. Rome would be off the hook with John, my dad would be safe and I wouldn’t be chased anymore.

It was funny, in a horrible way. If we were able to make an antidote, I would most likely lose my powers and Rome within the same week. Hide Sunny. Kiss Rome goodbye. Take antidote. Yin and yang: a bad for a good. Wasn’t that how things usually balanced out?

“Let’s pull up every floorboard.” I bent down and lifted two, the wood heavy in my hands. “We’ll take them with us.”

“Shit,” I heard Rome mutter. I paused and looked up. He’d stood and was now studying the wall and rubbing a small black dot. “Another camera.”

“We’re getting good at this clandestine crap,” Tanner said as he blithely gathered more boards.

“No, we’re not.” Rome faced us, his features pained, tortured. “We just walked into a trap.”

“Yes, you did.” The amused voice floated from the doorway. “You can drop the boards. We’ll take care of them now.”

T
HE ARMED MEN
I’d expected when we’d first entered the building suddenly flooded the room, weapons cocked and ready. Vincent was, of course, shockingly beautiful to gaze upon, as always. Young, too, for such an asshole.

He was tall and lean, and his angelic features rivaled Cody’s. Only his eyes gave away his despicable nature. They lacked any kind of emotion, making his physical beauty haunting and eerie.

“It certainly took you long enough to come here,” he said with a humorless grin. Without another word, he stretched out his arm and shot Rome. I covered my mouth with shaky hands, gazing wide-eyed at the only man I’d ever loved. He was still standing. I didn’t see any blood, only a red dart in his neck. Motions jerky, he plucked it out and tossed it onto the ground. He wavered on his feet.

I summoned fire, letting flames spark from my hands. I didn’t point my fingertips at the bad guys, however, not yet. I pointed them at the floorboards. I wanted the formula, but even more, I wanted to prevent Vincent from having it. He would not win. He would not gift himself with these powers.

The flames hit the wood and sprang to instant life, melting the layer of ice, spreading, raging. Someone screeched. Cody used the distraction to race to an outlet, sparking and disappearing inside it within seconds. No one seemed to notice his vanishing act. Rome stumbled forward, trying to morph. Small patches of fur sprouted from his skin.

“Put out the fire, Belle,” Vincent said, monotone. “Or I’ll kill your father.” Just then, my dad was shoved inside the room, Lexis right behind him. My dad’s features were pale and his cheeks were hollow. His clothes were wrinkled and dirty, but there were no signs of injury.

“Belle, sweetie,” he said, apologetic. Scared.

I paused. Rome paused, all hints of his cat self receding. “Dad, don’t move,” I said, trying to tamp down my panic. I couldn’t let him worry. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

Rome’s knees buckled and he slammed onto the floor. I gasped and bent down.

“Don’t even think about helping him,” Vincent told me. “Just stop the fire.”

Despite the intense heat, breath froze in my throat. I straightened.
Rain,
I mentally called.
Rain, come to me now.
My fingers cooled, but nothing else happened. Fear and fury were overriding everything else, making it impossible to draw from my reservoir of emotions. They were trying to consume me, to bring ice and more fire, a combination that produced no results. I needed rain, damn it.

Rain!
Tears filled my eyes and spilled onto my cheeks. I stared at my dad. He looked confused, withered. “Rain,” I screamed, desperation riding my shoulders. I reached so deeply inside myself it caused true, physical pain. My stomach cramped. “I command you to fall.” Slowly, tiny drops descended. I squeezed my eyes shut, ordering the droplets to thicken and multiply. They obeyed, liquid splashing over my face.

The fire sizzled, crackled and finally surrendered. Thick black smoke curled in the air, tickling my throat. I coughed.

“There. The formula is still intact.” Satisfied, Vincent nodded.

I coughed again, unable to stop. “Belle,” my dad said. I was unable to respond.

“I’m so sorry,” Lexis cried. “I should have known they were coming, but they had some sort of mind shield. I’m sorry. So sorry.”

“Lock everyone up.” Vincent motioned to our group with a wave of his fingers. “I’ll need them later. And keep a gun on the old man’s temple, just in case Belle decides to start another fire.” His chin canted to the side and he glanced down at Rome. “If Agent Masters sprouts a single patch of fur, kill him. Since I’m now the proud owner of the psychic
and
the formula’s carrier, I don’t really need him anymore. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” several of the guards said in unison.

“The rest of you gather up the floorboards and take them to the lab.”

Men grabbed Tanner, Lexis and my dad. I started to reach for him, but dropped my arm to my side. I didn’t want him playing the hero and trying to come to me.
Just do what they say,
I told him with my eyes. The rest of the guards hauled Rome to his feet and held him up. I continued to cough, more afraid in that moment than I’d ever been in my life.

“Please,” I managed to gasp. “Take the…gun off…my…dad. I’ll be good.”

One of the men latched on to my upper arm, but Vincent shook his head and I was released. “I’ll take care of her myself,” he said.

I watched, helpless, as my unconscious lover, my dad and my friends were escorted away from me. Anger and fear continued their wild course inside me, and I barely managed to control them. I wanted to scream, to rant, to rail, to cry. To kill.

“This way, Belle.” Vincent hauled me out of the room and ushered me down the hall, away from the smoke. The farther we traveled, the more my coughs subsided.

“Where are we going?” I asked, my throat raw.

“The lab is underground.” He answered without hesitation, because he believed, I’m sure, I would never be able to escape and use the information against him. A chilling thought. “I want to get the preliminary data on you—which I should have had days ago.”

Did he have a heart? A smidge of compassion? I guessed I’d soon found out. “Let my dad go, and I’ll do whatever you want. I swear.”

“You’ll do whatever I want, anyway.”

“He’s sick. His heart is weak and he needs his medication.”

“You be good and cooperate, and I’ll make sure he gets his meds. Misbehave and I let him die. How do you like that for a bargain?”

About as much as I liked him, the bastard. The man was as cold and unfeeling as his eyes proclaimed. If I ever had the opportunity, I was pretty sure I would kill him and not experience an ounce of guilt. I might even dance on his grave. “What are you going to do with me?”

We had reached the end of the hall, and he pressed a series of buttons. Elevator doors slid open. He pushed me inside, following close on my heels. “I can’t wait to see everything you can do.” He opened a panel on the wall and held out his hand for a scan. A blue light glowed between his fingers, and the elevator began a smooth downward glide. “We gave the formula to some others, but they died. Hopefully, once we’ve studied you, we’ll be able to discover why you didn’t.”

I tried not to grimace. He painted a gruesome, painful picture. Maybe—maybe I should try to kill him now. Freeze him, smoke him, anything to stop him.

Will you be able to save the others in time? If you can’t…

Fear held me immobile. Then the opportunity passed and the elevator doors opened, revealing a room bursting with equipment, people in lab coats and cages filled with animals. And humans. I gasped.
Humans
were locked in cages, and they were in bad shape. Some had missing limbs, with wires hanging from sockets. Others had metal plates in place of skin. All of them were bloody and ragged. They all watched me with pity, as if they knew what was about to happen to me.

“What did you do to them?” I said, unable to keep the horror from my voice.

He shrugged, unconcerned. “I’m in a competitive business. If I don’t have the strongest, most powerful agents, customers will go to someone else. Customers will pay someone else to protect them or find a missing item. Customers will pay someone else to kill their enemies. One day the people in those cages will have supernaturally strong robotic limbs and indestructible skin. They’ll thank me.”

“And you don’t care that you’re hurting them?”

“No.”

I scanned the rest of the lab, trying not to look at the cages. Toward the back, I saw my friends and family locked inside a glass cell. I gulped hard and stumbled. Vincent righted me. Even from this distance, I could see that my dad shook with fear. Lexis had her arm around him, offering what comfort she could. Tanner radiated hatred and fear, and glared at everyone who approached him. Rome was propped against the wall, slumped and weakened by the tranquilizer. His expression held no emotion.

How long would they be allowed to live? Damn it! I had to save them.

Vincent thrust me at an older woman who looked as prim and proper as a librarian. “Strap her down,” he said, eyes alight with eagerness—the first real emotion he’d displayed. “And take some blood.”

“How much?” Her fingers curled around my arm in a viselike grip.

“Whatever you need. I want to know what’s in her blood that isn’t in anyone else’s.”

“You don’t need my blood. You have the formula now,” I protested.

“You survived. I want to know how.”

“I survived because the formula was perfected!” I pressed my lips together. I hadn’t meant to admit that out loud. I didn’t want to help Vincent in any way, but the words had spilled from me of their own accord, unstoppable.

You can’t lie to Vincent,
Rome had once told me. Holy hell, I was in trouble.

“We’ll see for ourselves,” Vincent said. “I’m going to conduct my own tests. And believe me, they’ll be like nothing you’ve ever experienced. Let me know if she gives you any trouble,” he added to the evil-looking lab tech. Having pronounced my sentence, he sauntered away.

Ding, Ding.
Let the torture of Belle begin.

W
HAT FOLLOWED WERE
endless hours of poking and prodding, and it hurt like hell. I felt drained, but at last Martha, my prim and proper tormentor, finally decided to let me rest. She wanted me fresh for tomorrow’s torment, I suppose, when the initial test results would come in. These scientists were, in my expert opinion, concerned only with their experiments. Mercy, compassion and morality played no part in their actions.

Wanna bet tomorrow’s adventure would make today’s seem like a five-star vacation?

I lay on a cot, inside my own glass cell, and stared at the monitor on the far wall. To keep me docile, Vincent wanted me to see my dad and my friends and know that at any moment their lives could end. Though sleep beckoned me sweetly, I remained awake. And though my bruises begged me to sink into oblivion, I watched the screen, unable to glance away.

How could I save everyone? What could I do? Helplessness bombarded me, taunted me. Where was my hope now? Lost, my tired mind supplied, with all the blood that had been taken.

Rome suddenly stepped into the center of the screen, staring into the camera expectantly. In that moment, it was as if our gazes locked on to each other. He blinked. Surprised, I sat up and studied him. Was he trying to tell me something? He blinked again.

Damn it, what did he want me to do? What
could
I do?
Think, Belle, think.
I couldn’t start a fire. There were sprinklers above me that would douse the flames instantly. I’d be stopped and my loved ones would then be punished for my escape attempt.

If Cody were here, I could—My eyes widened. Cody! I’d forgotten about him. I pressed my lips together to prevent a victory shout. Streams of hope hit me. Cody might still be in the electrical system.

Vincent had turned on a secondary power source that didn’t rely on electricity, yet Cody didn’t need to physically touch the power. He could create his own from the wires, as I’d seen during the car chase. And maybe, just maybe, he’d gone for help.

If I could get back into the lab and draw Cody to me, he and I could incapacitate the guards. I looked out. Night must have fallen because fewer people were around.
Now is the time.
I pushed myself to my feet. Cameras followed my every move.

I paced, allowing my gaze to circle the room, searching. My cot was anchored to the floor. The walls were thick glass. The floor was concrete. The only door (that I knew of) was the kind that slid open when it had the proper sensor. I’d never be able to pry it open.

How was I going to get out? I kept pacing. If I attempted to melt the door sensor, I might jam the door in place, closed permanently. If I froze the glass—Wait. Wait!

A memory flashed through my mind. Weeks ago, I had decided to go on a vegetable diet. Not that it lasted. Anyway, I cooked said vegetables in the microwave. In a glass bowl. When I’d taken it out and seen the mushy results, I had lost my appetite, but placed the bowl in the refrigerator just in case I changed my mind later. The hot-cold change of temperature had caused the bowl to crack in half.

I could do that now, to the wall. Heat it, cool it, crack it, then kick my way free. I would have to move and act quickly lest someone realize what I was doing, and stop me. Plus, I’d have to be careful not to use too much heat and activate the sprinklers.

I stared into the laboratory and met the gaze of several scientists. I flipped them off. They frowned and scribbled in their notebooks. What were they writing? “Subject displaying unhealthy sassiness?”

Could I heat the air without causing any actual flames? Without Tanner here to tell me when I was becoming too violent, and without Rome here to filter, that seemed like an impossible task.

I didn’t care. I had to try.

Still pacing, I dug deep into my emotions. I summoned desire, desire for Rome that was buried in my every cell. Drew on it. I let thoughts and images of Rome consume me. Rome—naked. Me—naked. Rome kissing his way down my body. Stopping to lave between my legs.

My body heated, my eyes heated. The air heated.

After Rome tasted me, I’d kiss my way down his body. I’d take him in my mouth. I’d suck him. He’d moan, shout my name.

Both the air and I sizzled, rising another degree.

Tiny flames nipped at my fingertips. I hid my hands behind my back and faced the wall, gaze focused on the glass. My nipples were hard, my knees shaking.

Rome—telling me he loved me.

A tremor stole over me. The warmth from my eyes intensified, hitting the wall. It began to heat, a fine steam covering the corners.
Freeze it,
my mind shouted.
Freeze it now.
I switched the direction of my emotions, still remaining deep within myself. The heat from my eyes chilled, getting colder, colder still. The steam hardened into frost.

A loud crack echoed through the cell.

Like a spiderweb, the crack spread over the glass. On a wave of victory, I raced to the wall and kicked. My foot made contact, and the glass shattered around me, sharp, tiny diamonds. Panicked voices greeted my ears as I rushed into the lab.