Rouge (27 page)

Hunter ripped the hand away
and turned to see Eli. His curly blonde hair was damp from sweat and his green
eyes lit up like stop lights, a lopsided and beautifully dorky smile on his
face.

Without thinking, Hunter
threw her arms around Eli and pressed her lips to his. He froze in shock, then
relaxed into her touch, his mouth moving on hers, eager to be close to her. She
didn’t feel the fire rage inside her, and maybe that was because the kiss was
so unexpected that it didn’t have time to respond until she was knotting her
fingers in his hair and he was gently tracing his hand down the very center of
her back, the touch making her quake at the knees.

They pulled away at exactly
the same time and Eli gently twirled a stray lock of her red hair away from her
eyes, tucking it behind her ear.

“God I’ve missed the color
of your hair,” he whispered.

Hunter laughed. “Eli, it’s
been three days. I was away from you longer when I had laryngitis.”

“I know,” he said, his eyes
scanning her face as though fearing he would lose the clear image in his
memory. “But it felt like months.”

She wished she could explain
everything that had happened to her in the past thirty-six hours. Even though
her secret was slowly seeping out into the public, she still felt completely
alone, as though she were hiking up a hill surrounded by people with a large
sack of rocks and no one would help her lift it.
Eli would happily carry the
sack for me,
she thought.
But was it worth him getting hurt for it?

Hunter put a hand to Eli’s
cheek. “I’m so sorry for skipping out on you the other night Eli, I... there
have been things in my life lately that are changing me. I can’t handle it, but
I don’t want to burden anyone. And I know I said some things the other night-”
she stared ashamedly at their shoes, “some of it was true and some of it not.
But I want you to know that you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
No matter how horrible a person I am, I don’t want to lose you.”

Eli’s whole body seemed to
sigh in relief. He lifted her chin gently, a lock of curls hanging over his
glasses. “Is that all? I thought maybe I’d done something to-”

“Eli.” She brushed the curl
away from his glasses and looked deep into the tortoise shell eyes. “You are
the one good thing in my life at the moment. Nothing you do will ever change that.”

His eyes lit up like glowing
stars, and his arms wrapped around her again, tight as though he didn’t want to
let her go. She wished he wouldn’t. His forehead pressed against hers. They
were so close, she could feel his breath tickling her nose. His face was so
full of love that her heart ached. How did she have someone so perfect in her
life when she had done such terrible things in her past?

“Hunter there’s something I
want to ask you,” he began softly.

A loud whistle broke their
moment and Eli’s head whipped to the side. He peered through the crack in the
bleachers at the football pitch.

“What?” she asked.

He turned back to her with a
shy smile. “Um... it’s just...”

“Eli please,” she begged,
the suspense eating away at her like a worm inside an apple.
He knows
something. He’s going to ask about the fire in his bedroom. 

Eli let out a long breath of
air. “I should be so good at this now. Um...” Pausing, Eli looked up and then
back down at her and pushed through the nerves. “Hunter Harrison. Would you do
me the honor of being my date to the prom?”

Hunter’s heart leapt from
her chest and soared right out of the top of her head. After everything that
had happened to her this year, she’d completely forgotten about the most
important event of a senior’s life, aside from graduating. And here Eli was,
asking her to accompany him, even though she’d stomped on his heart merely two
nights ago.

Hunter took his face between
her hands again, stroking the stubble that lined his jaw and joined his dirty
blonde hair. “Yes,” she said with a smile. “Of course I’ll go with you.”

Eli’s mouth twisted into a
crooked smile that melted her heart. “Thank God. Honestly, asking you out gets
scarier as we go.”

Hunter chuckled. “Well I
hope you have plenty more opportunities to practice.”

“Me too,” he said and pecked
her gently on the cheek. “Now I’d better get to class before the coach whips me
bloody.”

“I can’t believe,” said Miss Smart as
she shook her head slowly, “that after all this time I spent searching for an
answer, it was sitting right in front of me every day in my lessons.”

Hunter shrugged and stabbed
her plastic fork into her take-out box. “Believe me, I still don’t have all the
answers, and I’m the one with the powers.”

Miss Smart winced as she raised
herself higher on the pillow of her hospital bed. Despite the medication and
constant rest, Hunter noticed little improvement in her teacher’s health over
the next few days. The nurses were sketchy on the details, assuring her that
the burns were healing well. But Miss Smart grew weaker and wearier every day
Hunter visited.

While she sat beside her bed
three days after the fire with the afternoon sun shining in on the two of them,
Hunter explained everything she knew, right from her conception to Joshua’s
knowledge and involvement in the destruction of Feucotetanus. And though it
excited Miss Smart, there was still something very amiss with her health.

“It just makes so much sense
now.” Miss Smart slurped a noodle into her mouth, her enthusiasm somewhat
weary, but still evident in the sparkle of her eyes. “I researched this drug
for so many years Hunter. I could never get my hands on a sample, of course,
but I knew the formula. I tried to recreate it. It never had the same effect as
it had on you. And this volcanic stone… Ravenadium… you really believe it’s
alien?”

“I don’t know for sure,”
said Hunter. “Joshua and my dad found it in a mountain in Cuba. It reacted to
the drug, like a trigger system. Except the drug is what makes it come alive
and burn. That’s how I got the power to create fire from my body. Ravenadium is
in my blood.”

“That’s incredible.” She
placed the Styrofoam cup back on the tray with quivering hands. She’d barely
touched it. “This changes so much Hunter. I bet Joshua went crazy when he
discovered this.”

Hunter snorted a laugh.
“Something like that. He’s been training me almost every day since I found out
what I could do. The Ravenadium has some sort of controlling effect on me. It
reacts upon my emotions, and sometimes it gets out of control.”

“So this substance has a
mind of its own, does it?”

Hunter smiled and put down
her empty soup cup. “I just can’t figure out where it came from. Joshua has
been searching for answers for so long, and he’s found nothing. But I know that
it’s feeding off my anger and my fear and even my passion. All these emotions
are what makes it stronger. I’m scared that when Eli and I… when the time comes
and we want to…”

Miss Smart gave her an
encouraging smile. “I understand. I would be cautious, Hunter. It seems like
this substance that’s controlling you has a great attachment to your feelings.
They’re a trigger for it. Make sure you know how to hold it in your grasp
before you fully give yourself to him.”

“I’m stronger now,” she said
confidently. “I’m better at controlling it. There’ve been a few mishaps along
the way, but it’s easier now.”

Miss Smart peered at her
through her red-brown eyes. “Were you scared coming into the lab to save me
Hunter?”

“No. I used to wonder what
it would be like to be in a situation where I’d have to use my powers to save
someone. Joshua drilled it into me to never let my guard down, but I was given
these powers for a purpose. I decided to use it for good.”

Miss Smart reached out and
squeezed Hunter’s hand gently. “Wise choice, Hunter. Your powers don’t have to
be a burden. But after everything you’ve told me, you still need to be careful
of how you use them.” Her eyes darkened suddenly. “You might think that you’re
ready, that the fire is contained, but this
thing
has been crawling
around in your soul since the day you were conceived in that fire. For eighteen
years it has latched itself to you. It’s not about to stay down without a
fight.”

Hunter’s tired mind began to
race with fear.
Can’t she just thank me and tell me something hopeful?

“I won’t lose control. This
Ravenadium isn’t the boss of me.”

Miss Smart looked doubtful.
“If you
do
lose control, Hunter, you won’t be able to stop it from
spreading.”

“Spreading? Spreading
where?”

“Into-” Miss Smart started
coughing again and Hunter reached out to grip her hand for support. The cough
was so severe that after a moment, her hand came away from her mouth and pulled
a string of blood from her lips. Hunter stared at it, her stomach twisting, and
ran to call a nurse. She returned with Miss Smart’s usual orderly – a pudgy
black woman with kind eyes. Nurse Valerie tried to calm the woman down and ease
her coughing fit with small sips of water, and eventually she turned to Hunter
and said, “Visiting hours are over, Hunter.”

Hunter nodded sharply,
collecting her bag and waving goodbye to Miss Smart who had her face buried in
her hands as she retched violently. Feeling instantly ill, Hunter hurried out
the door, the sounds of vomiting still echoing in her ears.

The hospital ceiling was pale gray, just
like the rest of the room. Just like the rest of the building, in fact. Jenny
Smart was sick of it. She’d been there only three days and already she wanted
to leave.

Jenny let out a long sigh
and let her eyes roam the dim, empty hospital room. Water dripped into the tiny
sink in the corner of the room where packets of plastic gloves were stashed. In
the distance she could hear trollies rolling through the corridors and padded
feet on the linoleum floors. There were soft voices from the receptionist desk
a few doors down. It was late, and there were hardly any workers around.
Valerie had said goodbye for the night, and she was alone.

Alone. It had become her
life since she graduated college and became a teacher. Her work consumed her
during the day, and then she caught the subway to her empty apartment in a
building filled with grumpy tenants and busy families with loud, screaming
kids. It was a wonder she got any of her marking done. Then she curled up with
a book on the couch and tried to ignore the thumps from her roof or the arguing
of her newlywed neighbors. When she finally crawled into bed, she stared at the
empty pillow beside her and always felt an ache in her chest. Alone.

At least it wouldn’t be for
much longer. It had been a long time coming anyway. The smoke from the fire
that infected her lungs only sped up the process. For that, she was grateful.
She couldn’t imagine living for so long in such a dull, depressing, sick place
like this.

She was grateful for Hunter.
Apart from her mother – who lived in the Hamptons and sent the flowers before
coming down days after the accident – the young girl was her only friend. Jenny
wasn’t one to go out on the town with a bunch of girls or hit up bars and chat
to burly men clasping pints of beer and hoping to ‘get some’. She was a science
teacher, nothing special.

And now her theories were
becoming a reality right before her eyes.
Perfect timing,
she thought
sarcastically.
And what happens now, Jen?
She gazed at the ceiling,
feeling ill and weak and altogether furious with her body.
What can you
possibly do with the biggest scientific discovery of the century while confined
to a hospital bed?

She already knew the answer
to that. Nothing. There would be no point. Her time was coming. It had been for
a while now.

Jenny felt unpleasantly cold
in her hospital bed. She drew the itchy blue hospital blanket further up her
neck and felt a shiver go through her. Usually the hospital was perfectly
comfortable, but tonight it was extra chilly.

God I hate the cold,
she thought as she painfully turned over
on her right and stared at the bedside table. Next to the pile of books people
had kindly delivered was a glass of water. Frowning, she peered through the
silver glow from the streetlight outside. There was no condensation on the
glass, but the water was a foggy gray as if it had been frozen solid. She
reached over and touched the glass.

It felt like ice and hardly
rippled.

Miss Smart’s raspy breath
came out in puffs of air and she peered around the room again. The curtain was
drawn across the opposite bed, but she knew for a fact there was no one in it.
Had another patient come in while she was sleeping earlier? Miss Smart would
have awoken. She was a very light sleeper, especially in a foreign place.