Rouge (15 page)

I can’t let them discover
her,
he thought and
skulled the glass of water, pouring another.
I won’t let them take her.

I promised.

Hunter moved like a ghost through the
hallway. Her eyes were dry from tears and the cold wind outside, her throat
hoarse and a sick feeling in her stomach. Maybe it was the jitters at being in
the dodgiest hotel in New York City. But she knew better. This was how it felt
to have someone’s blood on your hands.

The
room she chose was on the second floor and the highest point in the building.
As she checked each door for her room number, shouts from a couple of doors
down made her jump.

“Go
on, see what it’s like to live off your mother!” came a woman’s scream. “See if
I care!”

A
door was thrust open and Hunter froze as a man in an oversized jumper and dirty
jeans fell out of the doorway and hit the opposite wall.

“Fuck
you Annie!” he shouted and the door was slammed in his face. “You’ll come back
to me, I swear to God!” He wiped a line of spit from his mouth and muttered,
“little shit,” before turning to Hunter. “What you
lookin
’
at, Strawberry Shortcake?”

Hunter
looked away immediately, the hungry look in his eyes reminding her of the
scrawny man lying dead in the alleyway, and fumbled with the rusty silver key.
She burst into her room before he could shout at her some more, or before he
saw her cry.

The strange smell of rotten
carpet hit her directly in the face, the sense of ancient dust thick in the
air. Hunter fumbled with the light switch and a tiny bulb hanging on a frayed
cord lit up, giving the room an eerie golden glow. It was smaller than their
kitchen back at the apartment, with a single bed against the right wall, a
bathroom that hadn’t been cleaned, and a space for a kitchen consisting of a
single sink, a microwave and a fridge that came up to her hip. The window was
open and ugly orange curtains frayed at the edges hung tattered from the roof.

Hunter stood for a very long
time, staring at the room. But all she could see was the empty eyes of the
homeless man, his blood and singed clothes, his fear. She threw her overnight
bag on the bed and sat down, staring out the window at the black view of
another building with no lights on.

Hunter needed to hold
someone. She thought immediately of Eli, but then she forced him out of her
mind. How could she look at him again after what she’d done? She was a killer.
This power made her a murderer.

You were defending
yourself,
a voice reassured
her. It was a familiar voice, but now it seemed to have a mind of its own. She
knew it was the fire.
They would have raped you had you not done something.
They deserved every bit of the pain.

But what she did was far
worse than rape. No matter how vile that man was, he was still a person. He
might have had a family, kids, a life...

I killed someone. There’s
no excuse for that.

Those words repeated
themselves over and over in her mind. Hunter chose to have a shower, but even
if it washed away the smell of the greedy men, it didn’t wash away her guilt.
She cried until she had no tears left, and then she fell back on the squeaky
bed and dove directly into darkness.

Sleep was the best thing for Hunter.
Even if it was only a few hours, she awoke feeling like some semblance of
herself had returned.

I need coffee.
She hurried down to the front desk of
the hotel and asked for a coffee urn, some milk and sugar. After walking with
her head down back to her room - past the quiet hall where the drunk had
shouted at his wife last night - Hunter locked her door, poured herself some
coffee and settled down in the middle of her bed. From there, she watched her
reflection in the plain rectangular floor-length mirror on the opposite wall.
Her hair was a mess of frizzy curls and there was a look of sickness in the way
she sat. She was surprised that she didn’t have nightmares, but maybe the bags
under her eyes weren’t from lack of sleep, but from using her powers. She
glanced down at her bare legs and arms and noticed the faintest
tinge
of purple there too. They were bruises from the alley
men and proof of their attempted rape. Worst of all, they were proof that she
was a killer.

It couldn’t have been only
six hours ago that she had discovered Joshua’s secret lab. Suddenly, everything
she’d learned didn’t matter anymore. She no longer cared that her mother was
immune to fire, that she died giving birth to her and that Joshua had lied to
her all her life.

Memories of the alleyway
flooded into her and the fire began boiling beneath her skin. She still
remembered the dead man’s face and thoughts of him haunted her. Had someone
found his body? Did the beefy guy go back for him? Did anyone even care?

It didn’t matter. She had
killed someone. For that, she would never forgive herself. More importantly,
she would never forgive the fire within her.

Hunter dropped her head and
looked at her arms, where the faintest glow surged through her veins. She could
see the fire pumping in her blood like lava dribbling down a volcano. It was
still completely unbelievable that this fire came from inside a rock – a rock
Joshua seemed to think was not of this world – and leeched itself into her
mother’s skin, right when she was conceived.

How had I not known all
my life that my DNA was made up of part human, part volcanic magma?

As she sipped her coffee,
Hunter found herself thinking back to those times when strange things happened
and she was always there. Could those insignificant accidents really have
anything to do with her? She remembered when she had impressed a bunch of guys
in class a few years ago by holding her finger above a candle for more than ten
seconds. It was, in their words, ‘the coolest party trick ever’. At the time,
Hunter thought nothing of it, happy to amuse them.

I’ve been a part of you
your whole life,
said
the fire. Hunter gripped her mug tighter in her hand, refusing to listen to the
voice of murderer.

“That’s what you are,” she
whispered. “A killer conscience that I can’t control. How do I get you out of
me?”

 For some reason,
Hunter started to laugh. She found it so completely ridiculous that she was
sitting in an old hotel room wondering how she might be able to rip out a
supernatural fire that burned inside her body and only came out when she was
scared or angry. Hunter laughed so much on the bed that her coffee slopped onto
the covers, seeping greedily into the material next to many other stains that
she’d rather not think about.

You can’t, Hunter.
The sensation of warmth like dripping
honey through her body was something she would never get used to as the truth
of the fire’s words hit her hard.
I am more a part of you than even your
soul. Before you were born, I was there. Before you developed thoughts and
feelings and pain, I was there.

Fear gripped Hunter so
suddenly that she grabbed her forehead and squeezed her temples.

“I don’t want to listen to
you!” she shouted, rocking back and forth. “You’re a killer!”

You may be right,
it hissed.
But while I’m here,
attached to your soul, you might as well face it.

Hunter stared at her
reflection. All her life she had been an outcast. The poor orphan girl. The one
with the strange hair color. And then the school slut suddenly exiled from the
people she once called friends. Was this just preparation for the life she
faced as a murderous supernatural being with a fire attached to her soul? Was
that God’s plan?

If so, why would he give
me Eli? Why now, in the middle of all this hurt?

Hunter decided as she stared
at her battered reflection that this was not the person she wanted to be. Eli
arrived in her life at the worst possible time, but also the best.

“I need to control this
fire, right?” she asked herself, feeling foolish for speaking aloud. But it
helped to hear the words in her own mind. “I need to keep my soul alive. What
better reason than to protect the first person I’ve ever met that I truly care
about?”

I will always be here,
Hunter. You can’t get rid of me.

“No, but I can stop you from
screwing up my life. Starting now.”

And so Hunter decided, then
and there, that she wouldn’t leave the hotel until she had moved on from the
horrible alleyway incident and obtained a firm grip over her powers. On the
three occasions that the fire had come out, she had no way of stopping it and
her emotions were at their peak. She never wanted to experience the terror of
what had been unleashed last night in the alley. The memory itself was still
fragile.

Hunter stared at the ribbons
of steam slithering from her half-empty coffee mug and felt the heat ripple
into her fingers and the palms of her hands. She closed her eyes and let out a
long breath of air. The heat from the mug felt as if it were slithering through
her bloodstream on a current. It travelled up her arms, into her chest. Was
that where the core of the fire really dwelled? In her heart? Her soul?

How the hell do I do
this?
she asked
herself.
How do I make these flames?

Joshua had explained that when
the volcanic lava had connected with her mother in a moment of passion, a fire
ignited.
Both the drug and the fire live inside me, therefore I have the
power to produce a flame whenever I feel the need to. But do I have to be
angry? Or scared? Can I do this simply by feeling the flames within me?

Hunter placed the mug down
on the bedside table. Breathing deeply and concentrating hard -
because
that’s what they do in the movies
- Hunter opened her palms as if she were
practicing yoga. She listened to the air coming in and out of her nose and
mouth, felt the heat coursing through her veins. But it was calm, just like a
gentle breeze. Nothing happened.

Hunter tried to remember how
she’d done it before. She was angry at Joshua and Benny, but she feared the men
in the alley. They had come close to raping her, and instinct took over.

The very thought made Hunter
want to vomit, so she pushed it away and decided to focus on Joshua. She
concentrated on everything he’d done lately to make her angry.
He lied to me
about my parents, about my past, about who I am and the mutation inside of me.
He waited until I discovered it on my own to tell me I could produce fire from
nothing, and why? To protect me? To keep me safe? So that I could have a normal
life?

“Guess what Joshua?” she
said aloud, surprised at her poisonous tone. The air in her lungs was coming
out stronger as the anger pounded inside of her like the beating of a bongo
drum. “I’m not normal!” she shouted. “I’m a goddamn fire-breathing freak of
nature, and now I’m a killer!”

Hunter’s breath caught in
her throat when she felt it: the surge of heat from her chest into her arms and
then the palms of her hands. In the reflection, she saw a glowing orange light
ripple through her skin and suddenly her hands caught on fire. Flames floated
above her palms, dancing and bending around each other, sparking like a fire
sprinkled with kerosene. The urge to run to the bathroom and stick her hands
under the running tap burst inside her, but she was paralyzed.

But the flames weren’t
burning her. Her hands felt strangely warm, tingling pleasantly, like the
tickle of a hot summer breeze.

“Oh shit,” she whispered,
transfixed. She joined her hands together and watched the flames combine, as if
she were holding a miniature fire in her hands.

After the moment of
inclusive awe passed, the sight of the fire reminded her of the alley and she
clenched her fists together tightly.

“I can’t do this,” she
muttered, tears spilling over her eyes.

You have to
.
For the sake of others, you have to
fight this fire. Put it out for good, or at least learn how to keep it inside
you. You can’t hide in this hotel room forever, Hunter. Though the fire is
deadly, it is a part of you. Use it for good, not evil. Control it.

The voice sounded like something
her parents would say.

Hunter spent a few minutes
collecting herself. She poured more coffee and drank it in steady intervals.
Then, she flexed her fingers, shook them and brought them in her lap again. She
closed her eyes.

Summoning the flame without
emotion turned out to be simpler than she expected. The fire already lived in
her. She just needed to get a metaphorical grip on it.

A strange sensation rippled
through her body, as if a real fire stirred inside her. From somewhere deep in
her core, it crawled through her veins and burst from her skin, pouring fourth
into a bright orange flame. She soon found that she didn’t need to be angry or
scared to produce the fire; it was simply a matter of sensing it in her body
and forcing it to her fingers.