Rouge (9 page)

“How could you
leave
me
like that Hunter?” he shouted, throwing the ice block at the sink. She jumped
in surprise; Joshua never wasted ice.
“Do you know how worried I was? I
was about ready to phone the police when you didn’t answer my calls. Did you
even check your phone, I called you a
hundred
times!”

Hunter looked at her cold
heels, soaked from the snow and leaving puddles on the floor. She had checked
her phone, but seeing the thirty missed calls from Joshua only made her
angrier.

“I’m sorry, okay? I saw you
get the award, I watched the rest of the speeches, and you looked like you were
comfortable talking to Mr. Bradshaw and Eli’s dad that I didn’t-”

“Eli’s
Dad?
You went
out with Mr. Akerman’s son?”

She sighed as he turned and
stalked toward the stove. “Joshua, come on, would you stop acting like a
paranoid jerk and-”

“Please Hunter,” he snorted,
whirling around. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Dramatic?” All thoughts of
remaining calm vanished from her mind in a wisp. “I’m not the one throwing ice
blocks around the kitchen and calling me a billion times!”

“Well you can’t just
disappear in this city without telling me where you’re going, okay? I’m your
guardian and you need to respect me like one.”

“Yeah Joshua,” she nodded.
“You may be my guardian and the only family I have, but you’re
not
my
father.” She knew that if she argued things would only get worse, but something
was burning inside of her, something she hadn’t let out before. Her entire body
tingled with anger and it rippled through her like waves of hot air. Hunter
knew Joshua was a sensitive man beneath his creepy, strange interior, but this
time he’d gone too far.

“What are you talking
about?” he fumed. A lock of his black hair had escaped from the slick comb-over
and dangled over his eyes. “I’ve given you everything you’ve ever wanted
Hunter! A home, an education, every worldly thing you desired!”

“That’s not enough!” she
screamed and for a moment, Joshua froze. Eli’s words from earlier in the night
still rang like church bells inside her mind.
Except what only your parents
could give you...
“Don’t you understand? You could
never
give me
what my parents could, Joshua. You could
never
love me as your own
because that’s not who you are. You’re just some cold, insecure man with weird
phobias and a heart as hard as stone. I was there for you tonight, and you
couldn’t even let me have one moment of peace with someone who actually likes
me for who I am without thinking I died or something!” She stalked up to him so
they were practically nose to nose. Joshua had become terribly pale, but Hunter
was too enraged to notice. “I know you think you’re doing the right parental
thing, Joshua, by worrying about me twenty-four-seven, but don’t waste your time.
I can take care of myself, and I don’t need you treating me like I’m some
fucking child of yours!”

“Hunter, I-”

“No!”

At that second, the stove
Joshua had been pressed up against burst to life, flames of blue and orange
exploding in a ball of invisible gas. Hunter stumbled backwards. Joshua
shrieked and dove away from the stove, slapping at the sleeve of his shirt that
had caught on fire.

In her panic, Hunter
snatched a dish towel and whipped it frantically over the mountain of flames
until all that was left was the charcoaled remains of the stove and a long line
of sizzling smoke. The fire alarm blared. Hunter threw the blackened towel into
the sink and ran to the door, punching in the code and then all was quiet,
except for Joshua who was whimpering like a puppy.

The two of them stared
open-mouthed at their scorched kitchen, and Hunter found no explanation for
what had just happened. She was rendered completely speechless.

Joshua glanced up at her and
his eyes widened in alarm. “You’re on fire Hunter!”

Her heart leapt out of her
chest as she looked at her shoulder. A small clump of flames had started
crawling up the thick material of her coat, catching onto her hair. Before
Joshua had the chance to grab another dish towel from the hanger, Hunter had started
madly slapping at her arm until the flame was no more than a black hole in her
coat sleeve.

Silence met them, no sound
in the room but their heavy breathing. Hunter stared at her arm, then at her
hand, and wondered how she hadn’t been burnt. Her finger traced the patch of
skin beneath her coat that had bloomed a soft pink, and something like a vision
flashed before her eyes.

She was inside a fire,
burning brightly, flames so loud it was deafening, but she felt peace. She
didn’t burn. She simply lay there in the flames.

Hunter blinked back to the
reality of the quiet kitchen and found herself leaning on the bench for
support, Joshua much closer than he was seconds before. His eyes were wide with
concern and panic. He was sweating more profusely than she’d ever seen him.

Her eyes darted to Joshua,
then the stove, then her arm, then back to Joshua.

“What the hell just
happened?” she gasped, all anger from her outburst subsided. She wasn’t sure if
she was talking about the sharp déjà vu of some fire somewhere, or the stove
that had burst to life on its own, or both.

Joshua heaved, completely
bewildered.

“It…” His eyes moved back
and forth between the smoking kitchen bench and Hunter, whose hair had been
singed and was still emitting ribbons of smoke. Hunter watched as understanding
suddenly dawned on him. It was such a shock that Joshua’s eyes widened.

“What? What is it?”

He caught his breath as if
his throat had suddenly shrunk. “It… I…”

“Joshua,
what?
”

He swallowed, put his hand
on his chest and shook his head. “Nothing. I guess I was just thinking about
your parents.” He gave her a pained smile and told her he was going to bed.

“Wait, what was that? With
the stove?”

Joshua tried to shrug, but his
shoulders remained stiff and his head twitched. “I guess it was just a
spontaneous combustion. I must’ve leant on the gas or something. I’ll have
someone come and fix it tomorrow.” He turned his back to her. “Goodnight
Hunter.”

Still in shock, Hunter had
no answer for that and watched him climb the stairs to his bedroom, where the
door opened and closed softly.

Fire really scared Joshua.
She didn’t blame him; it had killed two of his best friends. Hunter often
thought that was the reason for his obsession over all things cold.

Still, she had a strong
feeling this was different. The situation couldn’t be explained.

She forgot the mess in the
kitchen and instead made her way to her own bedroom, where she stripped off to
her underwear and shoved on a T-shirt. It was a vintage band Tee, and it
reminded her instantly of Eli. As she climbed under the covers and went to bed,
the events of that night passed through her mind in flashes. She couldn’t
believe it had only been a half an hour ago that she and Eli were standing in
the snowstorm talking about school. It felt like a dream compared to what went
down in the kitchen. As she lay under her covers, the skin on her arm unscathed
by the fire tingled and Hunter felt suddenly queasy. Something weird had
happened that night.

Spontaneous combustion my
ass,
she thought,
stoves
just don’t burst into flames.

Joshua waited exactly an hour before
leaving his bedroom. Listening to Hunter as she moved from the kitchen to her
bedroom and back and forth between the two was increasingly difficult,
considering she remained so quiet and his bedroom was upstairs, way out of
earshot. He liked having the upstairs bedroom; he could keep the temperature as
cold as he wanted without Hunter getting a chill.

About fifteen minutes after
the house was completely silent, Joshua was certain she’d retired for good. His
mind racing and with no intention of sleeping at all - not after what had just
happened - Joshua knew exactly where he needed to be.

He crept through the cold
house, still in his neat pants, shirt and tie, and collected his other
key-card, which he kept in the freezer. Hunter would never find it there. As
quietly as he could, Joshua left the apartment and moved to the stairwell.

Their building was quite
fancy, but not nearly as fancy as some hotels Joshua had accommodated during
his travels. In fact it was quite a dull building, with the same gray colors as
the sky before a storm and a feeling of complete emptiness. Joshua had lived
there with Hunter since she was just a small child, and he liked it. It was
comfortable and convenient and would always be his home.

Joshua climbed three stories
down and came to the fifth floor. He strolled down the tiled corridor, his
expensive shoes clapping lightly on the smooth stone, and stopped in front of
room 57. He swiped his key-card in the door and stepped inside.

Room 57 was his little
secret. Hunter didn’t know he owned it, and he hoped she never would. It was
something of a sanctuary. He spent almost as much time here as he did in their
apartment upstairs, but he always worked late into the night. Sometimes Hunter
asked him why he arrived home so late from the university or where he was
running off to at eleven at night. She must think he was seeing women or some
ridiculous assumption such as that.

But Joshua had no interest
in women. In fact, he wasn’t sure he ever would. Not after what happened to
Liz.

True love was a foreign
feeling to Joshua.

Room 57 used to be an
apartment as homey as his own upstairs when Joshua had first purchased it many
years ago. True, it appeared that way when one entered. There was a homely
couch in the right corner facing a small television screen, with a few works of
art across the custard-yellow walls. One room led to a bedroom and small ensuite,
the other led to a simple kitchen with a fridge and no microwave. But these
dull decorations were only a cover for what lay behind this room.

Joshua crossed directly to
the artificial fireplace where a collection of photos stood dejectedly on the
mantelpiece, gathering dust. Pausing, Joshua glanced at the one picture he kept
of her and felt his smile twitch ever so slightly.

Liz stood on the beach in
front of their shack, only two months pregnant and glowing with laughter in the
sun. She had her arms spread out wide, a beautiful, emerald green sarong
rippling in the air like a flag behind her. It was the first he’d seen her
happy in a while. He had to capture it on film.

Behind the frame, he found the
lever. Just like in a Sherlock Holmes journal, the fireplace swung inward and
Joshua stepped into a large, dark room.

Fluorescent lights blinked
brightly, illuminating the room with the pale silver glow he knew too well.
Sleek computers on steel desks lined the left wall, and two steel tables jutted
out of the other. These tables were usually surrounded by silver plastic
curtains, but for now they were drawn back against the wall. At the far end of
the room was a large filing cabinet where he kept all his research. There were
banks of shelves lined with fossils and rock formations, test tubes and glass
beakers, medical and technical equipment. A giant corkboard hung on the right
wall over the two steel tables with his many geographical findings and scientific
terms, a scramble of notes pinned in order for him to make sense of them
visually. A giant glass tank hummed beside the desks, the plants and substances
inside it littered with icicles.

Joshua un-cuffed his sleeves
and loosened his tie, as he always did when preparing for work. At the back of
the laboratory where he kept his files, Joshua unlocked the second drawer in
the third column. Inside, behind a stack of files, he caught sight of their
documented videos, the ones he later converted into discs when the technology
allowed it. Those were the best and the worst times of his life.

Hunter would never
understand just how much he loved Liz, not only because of the promise he made,
but because of how much she reminded him of her.

And now all his work to keep
things secret was coming undone.

Brushing a tear from the
corner of his eye, Joshua riffled through the files. After the fire in the
kitchen, a nervous feeling had overcome him. It was a hunch, but somehow, deep
inside him, Joshua knew what it meant. Because it wasn’t just a coincidence,
no. It wasn’t a spontaneous combustion either. A flutter of something mixed
with panic and excitement surged through him as he picked up the file, took it
to one of the desks and spread it out over his most recent work. He looked down
at the title scrawled in black across the lip and smiled.

Sitting down in the swivel
chair, Joshua immersed himself in his old research notes, the file of
information bringing back a flood of memories and emotions along with it.
Delight. Anticipation. Pain. Joy.

It had been a long night and
physically, Joshua was about to explode from exhaustion. But the events of his
night could not compare to what was happening now, before his very eyes. After
analyzing the data and his predictions, Joshua’s heart began to beat faster. He
knew this day would come. The evidence was spread before him in his own
writing. Oh yes, it had happened numerous times in the past, but Hunter thought
nothing of it. This time, it was different. The fire on the stove was the sign.
Hunter was the key.