Rouge (19 page)

Still, the fire urged for
release. She could feel it whispering to her.
This isn’t right. You’re not
ready to be alone with him. Joshua will kill you when he finds out.
She
shook it out of her and tried to find her real voice. It, too, whispered to
her.
The fire doesn’t control you, you control it.

Hunter concentrated on
seeing Eli and tried to pretend she was simply a normal girl going on a date.
After a while, she felt calm.

The cab dropped her off in
front of a dark building with century-old architecture. The golden plaque on
the sandpaper-like stone read ‘St George Library, 1922’. Hunter frowned
wondering if she’d misread Eli’s directions, when someone behind her cleared
their throat.

Hunter whirled to see Eli in
a burgundy coat, scarf and his usual square spectacles. The fire roared inside
her, reacting to the warmth and excitement of her emotions.
I can do this,
she
repeated.
I’m stronger than the fire.

“Hello,” he smiled.

“Hi. This isn’t where our
date is, right?”

Eli laughed, held out his
arm and nodded toward Prince Street. “Not quite. Are you hungry?”

She grinned and took his
arm. “Starving.”

Eli took her to an artsy
French restaurant called Raoul’s. It was clustered with sixties antiques and a
little more crowded than she would have liked, but the staff were so friendly -
to Eli in particular - and brought out many different appetizers for her to
try. Some she couldn’t even pronounce the name of. Eli recommended this and
that from the menu and even asked the waitress to pass a message to the chef.
Hunter stared back at him as he devoured his vegetarian meal in surprise, the
golden romantic candlelight of the room giving his olive face and angelic glow.

“What?” he asked as he dug into
his Pâté
Maison
.

“Do you like… own the
place?”

“Dad used to bring me here a
lot when I was younger, sometimes with Mom, sometimes alone. Not anymore
though.”

Hunter sipped her water.
“How come?”

 “He has ‘more
important’ things. He’s too immersed in his work and his girlfriend to find the
time for me, so I doubt he’s been back here since, like, the nineties.”

“You must really hate him
for it,” she said, knowing if it were her there’d be hell to pay. What kind of
father would neglect his only son for work and money?

But Eli wasn’t vengeful. He
simply shrugged and played with his fork. “I know he doesn’t have time for me,
and I can’t understand why, but there’s nothing I can do. He’s dug himself a
hole and he’ll forever live in it.”

Hunter sighed. Eli seemed
like the perfect guy. He was vegetarian, he played the violin and he was the
son of a rich father who treated him as though he didn’t exist. Alex was right;
Eli was poetic. And what was Hunter? An orphan with an awkward guardian who
smoked, couldn’t control her temper and had a supernatural fire burning inside
of her.

“Are you okay?”

Hunter shook her head
slowly. “Eli how do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Shrug it off like that?
Have you ever tried talking to your father?”

Eli’s eyes seemed to swim
with pain. “Countless times. But I’ve given up. I’ve learned to face the fact
that I’m no longer a part of his life.”

It was causing Hunter pain
to listen to his words. To know that Eli had a father – something she’d never
known – who treated his own son as if he were simply an accessory or a nuisance
made fury burn inside of her.

It was then that the heat
began to push itself against her skin.
Hunter relax,
she told herself,
focusing on not letting it overcome her. It was bubbling in her core, as though
someone had turned up the temperature on the stove. She wasn’t going to let
herself lose control, not here with Eli, not when her powers were so raw.
This
was stupid, you shouldn’t be here, leave now, leave
leave
leave
-

“Hunter?” asked Eli, peering
through the candlelight at her. “You look a bit flushed, are you alright?”

She held her breath,
concentrating with her all her might and wishing it would be over. But the
tingling sensation was building, the buzz of the restaurant confusing her,
Eli’s panic echoing in her mind until she realized she needed air.

“I’m going outside for a
sec,” she managed to mumble before she fled from her chair, nearly knocking a
waiter out of her way and onto a neighboring table. Before anyone could scowl
at her or whisper to their friends, Hunter had burst through the door of the
restaurant and out onto the street where it had started to drizzle. She found
herself amidst a crowd of people popping their umbrellas and preparing for a
downpour. As she tilted her head up to look at the black sky through the maple
trees swaying in the wind, she felt the heat wash out of her.

Eli caught her by the
shoulder and turned her around suddenly. She met his green eyes and tensed,
waiting for the fire to erupt from her hands, but it was completely gone.

“Hunter, are you-”

“Sorry,” she said and let
him guide her under the porch of the restaurant. “It was just a bit stuffy in
there.”

“It’s okay. It gets a bit
like that, but I like stuffy. It’s a nice change from being so alone all the
time.”

Hunter’s heart broke.
“You’re not the only one who feels alone sometimes. Joshua isn’t exactly the
best of company, and since the rumor I haven’t had a close friend, or any
friend for that matter. I know what it’s like to be alone.”

She turned her eyes from
watching the rain and looked up at Eli’s face. Suddenly it occurred to her how
much she truly cared for Eli. Their differences were more than what they had in
common, but they could make it work. Even though she was afraid of the path ahead
of her, of how the fire might react, so far everything was perfect. For now,
that was enough.

“I guess we can be alone
together,” Eli said over the sudden downpour.

Without a second thought, Hunter
took his face between her hands and kissed him gently.

Eli blinked in surprise and
relaxed, his hands sliding around her waist, his lips becoming soft and eager.
The feel of his arms around her was like nothing she’d ever experienced and the
smell of his clean blonde hair mixed with strong cologne and rain intoxicated
her. The kiss was so simple and yet so blissful at the same time. When she
pulled away, his eyes were sparkling. Flushed cheeks tensed as he smiled.

“Wow,” he said.

The rain poured over the
veranda roof and people pushed past them in their hurry to find shelter, but
Hunter and Eli didn’t notice at all. She felt the heat disappear as though
blown out like a candle. Perhaps it was because she was falling for Eli and
finally happy for the first time in a long time, or even because she wasn’t
angry anymore. Maybe it was just the rain that forced the fire back into the
hole it seeped out of.

Whatever the reason, Hunter
wrapped her arms around Eli and, with a small smile, kissed him again.

The weather grew warmer as the school
days passed on, and Hunter caught taxis to and from Jackson High. She would
arrive home before Joshua and leave after he went to work each morning. Joshua
had developed such an obsession over her powers that she marveled at his
inability to see what was going on right under his nose.

The moment he got home from
the university, they would begin a new training session that he’d spent all of
his free class time prepping for. She was completely taken aback, day after
day, by his impressive knowledge of her powers and what she could do with them
that sometimes she speculated how much of the truth he’d actually told her. For
how long had he known of her abilities? A few years? Her whole life? Not only
were they fighting the fire, but Hunter was also learning techniques such as
defensive combat training, controlled breathing exercises and even theory -
most of which Joshua researched thoroughly in his spare time studying in the
lab and between classes.

By the time May came and
went, Hunter could set things on fire as easy as if she were breathing air. It
made it that much less of a challenge to be around Eli when she wasn’t
constantly measuring her inside temperature or worrying that her hands were
ablaze.

“Hey I was wondering,” Eli
said as they sat at a table in the rowdy cafeteria. “Did you want to come with
me to the aquarium this weekend? I can give you a sort of… backstage tour?”

Hunter nodded. “I’d love to.
I’m working Friday and Saturday night, but we could go Saturday morning?”

“Sure.” Eli took a big bite
out of his veggie burger and Hunter laughed at the sauce that dribbled down his
front. “Oh… crap.”

“Here, I’ll get it.” Still
giggling, Hunter took her napkin and wiped it on the hem of his flannelette
shirt. “You’re a grub, you know that?”

“Shut up, I’m enjoying
this,” he mumbled through his food.

Hunter fixed his shirt and
went back to eating her own. She rested her head on her fist and felt herself
dozing as Eli talked about the aquarium and their most recent mission to save a
whale colony in Iceland. It wasn’t that Eli didn’t interest her – on the
contrary, she couldn’t get enough of him. Joshua had her working so hard in the
lab that she had a ton of homework piling higher every day. It was nearing the
end of the third quarter, and soon she would have to start studies for the end
of year exams. None of it seemed important anymore, in the scale of things, but
Hunter still wanted to try.

“You look tired,” said Eli.
“Have you been working a lot?”

“Something like that,” she
replied.

They were suddenly joined by
one of Eli’s friends whom she had seen before but never met.

“Hi, Hunter is it?” He held
out his hand as he sat opposite them on the bench. His brown hair and square
jaw reminded her of someone who belonged on the football team. “I’m Jack
Holloway.”

“Hey,” she said. “You’re not
any relation to Benny’s girlfriend Clare, are you?”

Jack nodded, rolling his
eyes good-naturedly. “Yeah, unfortunately. She’s my sister – but that secret
stays between us.”

“You share the same last
name.”

Jack fiddled with a strap on
his backpack. “Right… yeah, I guess that sort of gives it away.”

Hunter wanted to burst out
laughing. The similarities between Jack and Eli were uncanny. Both were quietly
attractive, in a nerd-undercover kind of way. Jack was just as nervous around
her, if not more so, than Eli had been.

“Hunter.” Eli nudged her and
nodded to a table of mixed groups next to theirs. She turned her head and
caught them all with their eyes glued to her. It was nothing she hadn’t seen
before, but as they all whipped their heads back and started whispering, she
thought she saw something different in their eyes.

“Why were they staring?”
asked Jack.

Hunter shook her head and
sipped her can of Coke. “They always do. It’s nothing new.”

Jack nodded slowly, his brow
creased in a frown. “Okay, well dude, we still on for Saturday?”

Eli made cutting motions
with his throat. Hunter peered at him.

“What were you doing on
Saturday?”

Eli shrugged, shooting a
glare at Jack, who looked just as confused as Hunter. “Uh, nothing. He just
comes over every Saturday after soccer. I can’t Jack I’m… I’m taking Hunter
out.”

“Hey bros before hoes man!
I’m kidding,” he chuckled. “That’s fine, I’ll just let myself in.” Jack
collected the books he’d dropped at their table and waved. “See
ya
guys.”

Hunter turned to Eli after
Jack was out of earshot. “Does he like… live at your house or something?”

“His home life isn’t that
great,” said Eli. “He just stops by whenever he has the opportunity, just to
get away from home.”

“Oh.” Hunter pretended to be
immersed in her half-eaten lunch, feeling suddenly awkward.

Eli wrapped his hand in hers
under the table and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Hey, he can join our club.”

Her grin widened and she
relaxed against Eli’s chest, a place she’d become very comfortable
lately. 

Hunter let herself into the apartment
and threw her key card in the bowl next to the door. It clattered against the
other identical key card that Joshua took with him to the university, and
Hunter did a double take.

Oh shit. He’s home early!

Panicking, she ran to her
bedroom, hoping he was in the lab and not waiting around for her. But her luck
had run out. Joshua stood in the kitchen, chopping a cucumber in preparation
for a salad as she ran past. She froze, backed up a couple of steps and turned
to face him.

The piercing glare of his
pale blue eyes stabbed her like the stainless-steel knife clamped in his bony
white hands.