Rouge (17 page)

“Did you say you had
something to ask me?”

Eli was quiet on the other
end for a moment, and fear ran through Hunter. Had she upset him already?

“I did, um...” His voice
broke and he cleared his throat. “Would you
er
... I
mean if you’re feeling better… would you like to go out with me tonight?”

Only one thing stopped
Hunter from saying yes immediately: Was she ready? She wanted more than anything
to go on a date with Eli, to escape the past few days and feel normal for a
change.

But she couldn’t. She wasn’t
normal. And she cared too much about Eli to put him in harm’s way, even if it
killed her to say no to him.

“Oh Eli, I’d love to but… I
just don’t think I’m well enough yet,” she lied, hopefully to make him feel
better.
Another lie. And this is just the beginning of the mountain of lies
I’ll be telling him for the rest of my life.

“It’s fine, I understand. I
hope you feel better.”

It only occurred to Hunter
then as she said goodbye to Eli and slumped back to her bedroom that it
wouldn’t be right for her to be with Eli. She couldn’t have a relationship with
someone who didn’t know the battle that raged inside her.
These things
always end bad in the movies,
she told herself.
I’m not going to spend
my life lying to those I love like I’m freaking Superman or something.

But it was too late. She
already had feelings for Eli. It wasn’t fair that she had to live her life
alone just to keep people safe. What had she done to deserve that?

She thought of the alley and
suddenly she was crying. Tears of rage spilled from her eyes and she snatched a
pillow from her bed and threw it across the room, setting it on fire as it
soared through the air. The fire caught onto her curtain and it lit up like
gasoline. Hunter panicked and forced herself to concentrate. Diminishing the
fire was much harder than generating it, but she managed. Her curtains were not
maroon anymore, but a charcoal black.

Learn to control it,
she thought, and it was the only thought
that gave her hope. It would take more time than she realized, but she had
Joshua. The few days in the hotel room were good for her to explore her powers,
to get a grip on the knowledge that she was a mutant and so was her mother, and
to forget the homeless man whose life she’d ended. Now it was time to train.

True to his word, Joshua came home early
that night just after Hunter called in sick for work.

“I’m glad you’re not going
tonight,” said Joshua while they cooked dinner in the kitchen together on the
new stove. “It’s not wise.”

“I want to though. I need
some semblance of a normalcy in my life.”

“You will Hunter, you just
have to be careful for now. Your powers are new to you. You’ll get there
eventually.”

She threw onions into the
pan and a teaspoon of garlic, watching as it sizzled violently. “I still don’t
understand where this rock came from.”

“That is a mystery I’ve been
pondering over for a very long time.”

“Do you have a name for it?”

Joshua wiped his hands on a
towel and frowned. “What, the stone? No. I never thought to name it.”

“Well, you discovered it.
What would you name it?”

Joshua’s mouth broke into a
smile, reminiscent of the glory days. “Leo would be better at this than I. He’d
call it… I don’t know,
Magnito
or something.”

“
Magnito
?”
she snorted. “That’s original. Well okay… what are some of the volcanic rock
types?”

“There’s hundreds. They’re
either igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic.”

“You said it’s igneous,
right?”

Joshua pulled out a salad
bowl and nodded. “Correct. But it appears almost artificial, like it’s a fake
igneous stone.”

Hunter stopped cutting and
tipped her head to the side. “So we should call it…
Figneous
?”

Joshua scowled. “That just
sounds stupid.”

“Hey I don’t see you coming
up with any bright ideas.” She popped a piece of cucumber in her mouth.

“What about
Joshu-ite
?” His eyes glowed with pride and Hunter almost
choked on her cucumber. “What? It has a ring to it, you must admit.”

Hunter’s eyes were watering
as she laughed at the child-like smile on his face. “Get real – Joshua. It has
to actually
mean
something.”

He grumbled under his breath
that David Attenborough had a dinosaur named after him as he washed the lettuce
in the sink.

“Seriously though,” said
Hunter, “it looks like some sort of basalt stone from the outside right?”

“Yes,” he said, “and inside
it’s a living liquid with the tendency to possess people and erupt near extreme
heat.”

“So basically it’s a black
evil rock?”

“Yes. Basically.”

“What about ‘Ravenadium’?”

He made a sour face.
“Ravenadium? It’s not a chemical.”

“Yeah, but it sounds
badass,” Hunter grinned. “And it goes with the raven-black exterior. I think
it’s catchy.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “Good.
Now that that completely unimportant matter has been settled, can you continue
asking questions before Christmas comes?”

Smiling to herself, Hunter
slid the slices of chicken off the board into the pan. “Okay. What stopped you
from giving yourself my abilities?”

Joshua’s hand holding his
water glass froze on its way to his mouth. A glint of something she couldn’t
put her finger on flashed briefly across his face, but then it was gone and he
was smiling.

“It’s impossible to
re-create what you have Hunter. The
Ravenadium
your father and I found
is so rare, only the two of us knew where to find it. As for Feucotetanus, that
drug no longer exists.”

“How?”

“I destroyed every known
manufacturer who produced it,” he said simply. “Those Swedish bastards never
saw it coming.”

“You did what?”

“I did what I had to do to
protect your secret. It was a dangerous substance that those idiots were
messing about with. They should be thanking me.”

Hunter raised an eyebrow at
him. “So there’s... there’s no one else out there like me?”

Joshua laughed. “Hunter,
your powers were genetically implanted in you through the act of coitus, after
your mother was mistakenly infected with an extinct drug and one of the rarest
volcanic substances I’ve ever come across. I highly doubt, Hunter, that there
is anyone like
you
in this world.”

She stirred the chicken in
the sauce and watched it bubble. “Really? Joshua up until last week, I didn’t
even think people with super powers exist, and now I’m freaking pyrokinetic.”

To prove her point, she
picked up the pan, summoned the flame and lit the underside in a burst of fire,
as if her own hand were a stove top.

A frown creased Joshua’s
forehead. “You shouldn’t be doing that so casually,” he snapped. “You’re not
ready yet.”

“When will I be ready then?”

“When I say so.”

Hunter snorted as she
transferred the stew into two bowls filled with rice - one cold, the other
steaming - and they sat down to eat. “Are
you
going to teach me? Because
no offense, how are you supposed to know any more than I do about my powers?”

Joshua didn’t meet her gaze.
“You’d be surprised.”

Something in his tone made
her put her fork down and peer at him across the bench. “What does that mean?”

“I have more knowledge of
your powers than anyone else. After all, only I know about Ravenadium.” He
still spoke the name as if it were a nasty poisonous spider. “And Hunter, you
can’t have another soul on this earth know what you are. It’s too dangerous.”

“I’m aware of that,” she
muttered and stabbed at a piece of chicken, her throat becoming thick.

Joshua’s face led her to
believe he doubted it. “You’ll get through this Hunter,” he said. His icy blue
eyes were full of promise. “Should we start tomorrow?”

Her heart thumped nervously.
“Fine. Tomorrow it is. But tomorrow night I’ve got work, okay?”

“If we train all day, I’ll
let you work. But I’m not too sure about school yet.”

“What?” A piece of chicken
nearly flopped out of her mouth. “Since when do you get to decide whether I go
to school?”

“Since you killed someone.”

Hunter set his plate alight
and Joshua jumped back, toppling off his seat. “That. Wasn’t. Funny.”

“I’m sorry,” he said,
collecting himself and brushing flecks of sauce from his collar. “I guess it’s…
too soon.”

She stabbed at a hard piece
of carrot and muttered, “Way too soon.”

“And… exhale.”

Hunter breathed out slowly
through her mouth just as the spinning ball of flames in the palm of her hands
reduced to a flicker and blew out with the last breath of air that escaped from
her lips.

Joshua scribbled on his
clipboard. “Good,” he muttered and lifted the stopwatch. “Again.”

Hunter did as she was told,
even though she’d been doing it all weekend. So far he’d had her manipulate the
flames in her hand, but keep them controlled. He’d let her set objects on fire,
set herself on fire, and she’d even learnt how to heat liquids and solids with
her mind. Sometimes she grew frustrated and the flames exploded, nearly
singeing all of Joshua’s hair off his body and sending him diving for the fire
extinguisher, which he kept by his side the entire time.

Still, Joshua was careful
and patient and even if he only had her making balls of flames and lighting
candles, his mind was always ticking and it felt good to be herself around
someone, to not be so on edge.

Hunter had grown comfortable
with her powers over the course of the weekend. No longer did they frighten her
or make her hate herself. She could still feel the aching guilt over what she’d
done to the homeless man, but her wounds were healing, as wounds do over time.
Joshua had been more than a mentor to her, and the time they spent together had
brought them closer as friends as well.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Give me a minute, I’m
puffed.”

“Alright, take five. Then
we’ll start experimenting with the gravitational balance of the flames.”

Sighing, she lay back on the
steel table and closed her eyes, listening to Joshua riffle through his notes.
Sometimes Hunter felt as though her powers gave Joshua some sort of high. There
was always a glint of excitement in his icy-blue eyes, a glint that often
frightened her. She knew it was only the scientist in him. He became ecstatic
over her abilities and always pushed her to her limits. But as he grew closer
to her, he also grew distant, becoming obsessed. They hadn’t left the apartment
building either, and she wondered if they ever would.

“Joshua?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to school
tomorrow, right?”

He stopped scribbling
immediately. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“But I went to work last
night and that was fine. If I can go to work, I can go to school. It’s no
different.”

“It is. There are different
variables at school, Hunter.”

She sat up and crossed her
legs. “Like what?”

“Well, like your new friend
Eli, for example.”

“Do you really think I’d set
him on fire?” She laughed aloud. “I’ve learnt a lot about myself this weekend
Joshua, I know I’m stronger than that.”

“It’s too soon to tell, and
I’d rather not take that risk.”

“But what if-”

“End of discussion!” he
snapped and Hunter’s mouth shut sharply. Joshua pinched the bridge of his nose
and let out a long breath of air. “Can we go back to training now?” 

Hunter raised her hand and
produced fire again. She watched the ball of flames float like a holographic
globe of exothermic heat above her palm. The rippling sensation of fire
coursing through her veins was so familiar, it was like curling up beside a
warm fireplace. The more she used her powers, the more she noticed strange
things about her body, like the brightening of her veins. They glowed orange
when she summoned the fire. Her hair had brightened also - if that were even
possible - and she no longer grew cold so easily. She was allowing the flame to
come out of its shell, to roam freely in her body.

“I want you to try to float
the flame away from your hand,” said Joshua, peering over the top of the clip
board, his jaw stiff and his eyes alert.

“Like this-”

“Not towards me!” he cried,
for the ball had bounced off Hunter’s open palm and was bobbing towards Joshua.
He was sitting on his desk chair while Hunter sat cross-legged on one of the
steel tables. Joshua didn’t want her using her powers anywhere else but the
lab, and so they had holed up in room 57 for the entire weekend.