Rouge (40 page)

Then something appeared out
of the darkness above her, a body, suspended by a chain looped over one of the
rafters. It fell just short of the ground merely meters from her chair. Jack’s
eyes met hers, wide with fear, begging her to help him. He was bleeding from
the stomach, a large gash slashed across the skin, dirty as hell and gagged
with a grimy cloth. Blood tricked from his hairline down to his left eye. The
awkward position stretched his body from his dangling legs to his taught upper
torso area. His hands were chained together tightly, the only thing holding him
up. It had to be killing him. His shirt was soaked with blood.

“Jack,” she muttered
helplessly and it took all the self-control she had not to burst into flames
and throw herself at Joshua. But she wasn’t sure if the ice had completely
melted out of her system yet. The only proof she had was the pain that had
started to throb in her arms, particularly her fingers. She looked at Joshua
through burning eyes as he appeared out of the darkness again. “What the
hell
have you done?”

He ignored her and walked
over to Jack hanging from the hook. The chains jingled as he tried to free
himself, but it was hopeless.

“Poor Jackie couldn’t even
put up a fight,” Joshua muttered, as if he were talking to a child. “He swore
to me he would never tell anyone about you Hunter, but I couldn’t take that
risk.”

“So you kidnapped him? Why
not just kill him like you killed Miss Smart and Eli?”

Jack’s eyes went wide and
met Hunter’s. She looked instantly away, pain shooting through her.
He’s
dead Jack. Eli is dead.

There was something
sparkling in Joshua’s eyes, reminding her of when he had taught her about her
own powers. It was excitement and fascination.

“Jack is special too
Hunter,” he told her. “I don’t know how exactly, nor do I know the details. But
I can feel it! You should have been there the other night when I found him
Hunter, Jack nearly killed me and he didn’t lift a single finger! There’s a
darkness about him, something he can’t control either, something different.”
Joshua circled Jack slowly, inspecting him like a model of art. “I took Jack
back to the lab and, like old times, ran some tests. His molecular DNA is very
fascinating Hunter. You would appreciate it. I’m unsure of what his power is
exactly, but let me tell you, Jack here… he’s one of a kind. One of
our
kind.”

“You’re insane. He’s not-”

Joshua pressed down on the
gash in Jack’s chest and he screamed behind the gag.

“Well, I guess it’s not
regeneration,” said Joshua.

“Stop!” she shrieked, wriggling
her fingers. “Joshua I swear to God when I get out of this, I’ll-”

“Kill me?” He wiped his
bloody hand on a white handkerchief. Only Joshua still used handkerchiefs.
“We’ve been through this earlier Hunter, you can’t
kill
me. Haven’t you
figured that out already?”

“I’m prepared to prove you
wrong. Let him go, Joshua
,
”
she snarled, “Jack has nothing to do
with this.”

Joshua turned to Jack, who
looked down in absolute horror and wriggled on the meat hook. “Actually, he
does. See, like Eli, Jackie here knows a little too much about you Hunter.”

Jack yelled something that
sounded like “please, don’t!” behind his gag, and Hunter’s heart began to race.
Time was running out, and she was still bound by the ice flowing continuously
through her system. The fire had almost consumed her, and it was taking so much
of her strength to keep it from reaching her exterior and melting the ice.
Fortunately, Joshua hadn’t noticed her breathing increase or her body shaking
from the strain.

“You can’t… protect me...
forever.”

“I’ve done a good job so
far,” he replied.

She puffed loudly, hoping it
looked like she was shivering rather than burning from the inside. “So you’re
just going to… kill everyone who… finds out about me?”

“If it means keeping your
secret hidden, yes.”

“I
woan
pell
!” Jack shouted loudly.

Joshua frowned and turned to
him curiously. “I thought the point of this gag was to keep you quiet-”

“You killed Miss Smart,” she
interrupted and Joshua turned. “You killed Eli, the only person I ever loved. I
don’t think the real reason you did it… was because you wanted to keep my
secret, or you would have hidden me away in your lab for the rest of my life.
It’s… b-because you don’t want to be second anymore.”

He sniffed. “What are you
waffling about Hunter?”

“My mother loved my father
more than you. You were the guy next door, the
best friend.
You were
never good enough for her.” Boiling satisfaction filled her as Joshua’s face
began to fall. “It used to be just you and me, Joshua. Until I met Eli. You
couldn’t stand to be replaced. You don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“I don’t-”

“Well guess what?” The
boiling heat inside of her flowed faster beneath her skin, swallowing the cold
ice quicker than she could comprehend. The power of every painful emotion she
felt all mixed together as one burst through the cage of ice inside her to the
very edge of her skin. The ice suit covering her melted onto the concrete floor
below her, freeing her body and allowing her to breathe, to blink, to mimic his
own manic smile. Hunter stood and water splashed to the floor. Her skin was
glowing so brightly, it was white as snow. She was free at last. “You’ll be
alone for the rest of your life-” She yanked the tubes out of her arms, the
splitting pain fuelling the fire and muttered, “-In hell.”

A torrent of flames burst
from Hunter’s hands like fire from the mouth of a dragon. The power was so
enriching, so
warm,
that Hunter felt as though she were on a high. And
it didn’t end there.

As Joshua dove out of the
way – having been so surprised that she had any fire left in her and no time to
summon his own power – the room lit up fantastically and she saw a small
warehouse spread before them, crates lined up in columns and chains hanging
from the corrugated iron roof where slabs of skylights shone small amounts of
moonlight into the room. It looked like the hideout of a street crew or the
Mafia.

Hunter’s first thought was
to get Jack away from the warehouse, but Joshua had recovered quickly and was
back on his feet, brushing away the flames on his shirt. With a flick of his
hand, they had disintegrated into ice.

“You’re much stronger than I
realized Hunter,” he snarled, no longer his confident self but rather more
manic, if it were possible. “But weren’t you listening before? We can’t kill
each other!” He threw out his hands and cackled. “We’re fire and ice, baby!”

She screamed in fury and
twisted her hands together, forming a ball of flames that she threw at him with
all her might. The fire would have hit him, too, had he not lifted his hands
and shot a jet of water from them, drowning the fire.

“But Professor,” she smiled,
watching his lip curl at the name. “I
was
listening. Cold does not
exist. You said that cold is merely the absence of heat,” Hunter inhaled and
breathed out hard. Her body burst into flames, and in the reflection of
Joshua’s horrified eyes she saw not a human-shaped orange flame, but a ball of
white-hot, dazzling fire, sparking venomously. She looked like an angel,
enriched by a ball of fire brighter than the sun, her flaming hair and eyes red
like the devil himself.

“Well heat is back,” she
snarled, “and they call her Rouge.”

If anyone passing by the warehouse had
stopped to listen for a moment, they would have come to the immediate
conclusion that someone was either washing a car, or burning down the building.
For inside, chaos reigned. As Hunter and Joshua battled it out, fire and ice,
Jack swung back and forth on the hook, shouting for help and having his voice
lost in the din as he dodged balls of flames that came soaring at him. Crates
caught on fire as Hunter shot endless bursts of fire from her hands, but they
were immediately extinguished when gallons of water fell upon them.

Jack had never been more
terrified in his life.
I’m dreaming,
he thought to himself as he tried
to ignore the searing pain in his chest, hands and throbbing head. The din was
deafening, but it was as though he didn’t exist. Caught in the middle, Jack
could do nothing but hang there and pray that Hunter would snap out of it, or
that Joshua would give in.

He couldn’t believe the
situation he was in. Hunter could shoot fire from her hands. Joshua was like
the Iceman from comic books he’d read when he was a child. This was completely
unreal.

But Joshua had seen what was
inside of him. He knew there was something wrong with him. Hunter had never
noticed, and neither had Eli. Joshua, of all people, had seen the darkness and
had taken him because of it.

Am I a freak?
He could not stop asking himself that question.
The past few days had opened his eyes wider than they’d ever been before.
Things started to come together, events in his life that could not be
explained, his own actions questioned, and all the while Jack knew this
psychotic man was right. He
was
different.

And maybe he could use
whatever hellish ability he had to get out of there.

Jack looked up at the meat
hanger his chained hands were hooked over. The hanger was looped tightly over a
rusty metal rafter high above his head, connected to a pulley system Joshua
used to lower him down like some kind of fishing bait. Jack wriggled back and
forth, trying to imagine himself swinging high enough to lift the chains up and
over the hanger, but he was too weak and his ribs seared with pain. Panicking,
he chewed on the gag and narrowly missed getting hit by a stray ball of fire.

I have to get the hell
out of here before I roast like a freaking marshmallow!
Fear rose inside Jack and in that
moment, he felt it swirl inside him. At first it was a bitter taste just like
in the alley where Joshua had found him. And then it bubbled inside him like
burning tar, a mix of hot and cold, powerful and angry. Out of pure instinct,
Jack looked up at his chained wrists and concentrated on the links. He didn’t
know where the thought came from, but he had nothing left to lose. So he
clenched his fits, held his breath and ripped his wrists apart.

The chains shattered as
though they were made of dry sand.

Jack dropped, his knees
buckled and he fell on his side, agonizing pain stabbing his chest. For a
moment he couldn’t breathe and colorful dots danced before his eyes. Groaning,
he rolled over and saw a brilliant bright light that had to be Hunter as she
advanced on a cowering man against a stack of crates. Doubled over in pain and
unable to move, Jack lay on the ground heaving in air but altogether astonished
as his eyes fell upon the broken chains.

I did that,
he thought amazedly. And then he smiled.

So consumed with rage and a yearning for
painful revenge on Joshua, Hunter had lost control of herself. She was so eager
to find a way to hurt him that she had forgotten who she was. She burned redder
than the molten stone that had given her abilities, and it was too strong for
her to find herself again. The fire was like a demon that had possessed her,
and even when Jack called her name, even when Joshua screamed as the fire
passed through his barriers and burnt his skin, Hunter continued to laugh.

“Are you
burning
yet
Joshua?” she snarled. The soft sound of rain on the roof began to patter in the
background. “I could keep going, honestly, this fire never ends. You know the
saying the things you do-” she shot him down again with another boiling ball of
lava that landed on his leg and hissed dangerously, “-come back to
bite
you?”

“Hunter…” Joshua heaved,
slipping and sliding on his own ice. “You can’t… let it… control you.”

“Don’t talk to me about
control, you psychotic hypocrite! I’m not the one on a murderous bender
strapping people to ice chairs and kidnapping innocent teenagers, am I?”

Joshua lifted a hand to
shield his face from the glare of the fire burning in Hunter’s hands, her hair
curling wildly around the flames, her eyes now gold and bright as the sun. But
Hunter wouldn’t allow it. She grabbed his wrist and squeezed.

Joshua screamed as she
channeled all her heat into his wrist, watching it sizzle, grinning. It was as
if all the ecstasy in the world couldn’t compare to it.

“I know, I know, I’m a
terrible person,” he pleaded, his voice breaking. Something in his eyes had
changed: He was less of the psychotic killer and more of the old Joshua. “But
you’re better than me. Let go of the anger, or it
will
consume you!
Please Hunter!”

She laughed loudly, the
cackle echoing in the warehouse. “You think you can fool me with this act
Joshua? As soon as I turn away, you’re just gonna stab me in the back. Of all
the things I’ve learned these past few months, I know one thing for sure; your
loyalty is no longer to me, or my mother. You lost yourself to your power. Now
you’ll never get out again.”