TORCH (15 page)

Pushing the sheets down, she swings her legs over the side of the bed. “Show me. Show me how you do it.”

I lead her to the bathroom and ignite a roll of toilet paper in the sink. Regan looks simultaneously awed, and horrified and proud. “That is so cool. And scary.”

“More scary than cool,” I say.

“What does it feel like, when you do it?”

I struggle to find the right way to describe it. “It feels like I’m being taken over, like I’m not in control of my own body. It feels awful, until it’s over. Then there’s a sense of calm.”

“Do you think your dad can control it?” she asks.

“Definitely. It looked like a game for him. But if he thinks Kai’s dad killed Nate, and wants revenge, maybe he won’t be able to stop himself. Although there’s nothing in my dreams to suggest it’s my dad.”

“You can’t see the guy’s face?”

I shake my head. “It’s like I’m floating directly overhead. It could be almost any guy in a baseball cap. But my dreams are getting clearer, so I’m hoping to get a better idea.”

“And then what?”

“Then I talk to your dad,” I say.

Regan seems satisfied. Curling up again on my bed, she says, “So you’re in love with Kai.”

“That's ridiculous. The guy could kill me.”

“But he hasn’t. Instead, he did this.” She holds out my arm, and points to his lip print. “And you’ve never looked better.”

I glance in the mirror over the dresser, and barely recognize myself. My normally dull brown hair is glossy, and my hazel eyes seem more topaz than muddy green. For the moment, at least, my skin is glowing enough to minimize the freckles.

Perching on the side of the bed, I sigh. “I don’t know if that’s because of Kai. But it’s been such a relief to have someone else around who’s like me. No matter what Hux says, Kai and I have something in common.”

“Maybe Hux is worried that Kai’s trying to spy on your dad through you.”

I notice she carefully avoids saying that Kai is using me. It’s not as if the thought hasn’t crossed my mind. “Well, Kai definitely wants to protect his dad, just like I want to protect mine. But he’s seen that I’m not trying to set fire to the town. Maybe I’m not a typical Torch, and he’s not a typical Flood.”

She points to my arm again. “But doesn’t that mean you can’t really be together?”

I stare at both arms. The first mark has nearly faded away, but the second is quite visible. “I guess so.”

“But you’d like to be?”

Throwing myself back on the bed, I sigh. “The only thing I’m sure of right now, is that I have to stop these fires, and keep my family safe.”

Regan reaches for my hand and squeezes it. And with the sun sliding in around the curtains, that’s how we fall asleep.

S
queezing Regan’s hand as hard as I can, I scream, “We’re going to die!”

The view from the crest of Medusa, the 150-foot-high roller coaster I vowed I’d never ride, is even more terrifying than I imagined. In all my visits to Six Flags with Regan over the years, I’ve resisted every plea to join her on this purple-and-green deathtrap. I’ve never seen the appeal in careening around loops at 60 plus miles per hour, especially upside down.

But I don’t like to decline a dare, especially when it comes from Flynn Reilly, Nate’s best friend. Heights and speed don’t faze a firefighter, and Flynn, who proposed today’s road trip, is coaster-crazy. He bribed me with a promise of a milkshake to face down my fears, and while that isn’t much of an incentive, I took him up on it. Given what I’ve been through lately, I figured it couldn’t be that bad.

I was wrong.

“I’m so sorry,” Regan screams back at me, as we lurch into the terrifying descent.

She should be. Flynn never needed to know the depths of my coaster-phobia. I was planning to wander off on my own and check out marine world while Graham and Regan joined him on the killer rides. But Regan was so desperate to keep the conversation going on the long drive over, that she spilled. That was the thanks I got for folding myself like an accordion into the back seat of Flynn’s sports car with Graham so that Regan could ride beside him up front and gush over everything from his cool sneakers, to the way his buzz cut has started to grow in.

Flynn made it his mission to break me down, and while I’m generally happy to banter with him, I knew if I didn’t give in, he wouldn’t let up. The point of the day is for Graham to have fun. We haven’t had much time to hang, lately, and if that means literally hanging from a floorless steel monster, so be it.

Three minutes and seven inversions later, I climb off, feeling a survivor high. Giving Regan a fist bump to the left hand I mangled, I turn to Flynn and say, “Make my milkshake vanilla, please.”

“Vanilla?” he says. “I thought you were more interesting than that.”

“I’m just a simple girl, with simple tastes.”

Regan snickers. She was in awe of me for a few days, especially after learning that the arsonist was probably targeting an exposed gas line in the house that was being renovated. The awe’s worn off, thankfully, and she’s back to teasing me.

Her snicker catches Flynn’s attention. “What’s going on? Is this about seal-boy?”

I shake my head. “I’ve put water behind me. Regan and I are taking private karate lessons instead.”

Now Graham snickers. “After she got banned from the school karate club for kicking someone. Dad got called to the principal’s office.”

“Not so vanilla after all,” Flynn says. “What happened?”

“I’ll tell you later,” I say. “If you add a burger to my milkshake order.”

“Only if you ride Medusa again,” Flynn says. “Alone.”

It was one thing to take that zero-G roll with Regan, and another do it all on my own. “Make it burgers for everyone and you got it,” I say.

I should have known better than to drink the shake
before
the solo ride, but the line was long and when Flynn handed it to me, I couldn’t resist. I got through the first loops and even the zero-G roll okay, but the double serpent loop toward the end brings the taste of vanilla with it. He probably wants me to barf. I won’t. I can’t. It’s a point of pride now. It’s hard enough being up here alone. As we soar into the barrel roll, however, I realize that it’s not as bad as I thought. Not fun, but not terminal. Maybe knowing that I have Regan on the ground, cheering me on, and accepting me with all my flaws is making me stronger.

By the time we’re in the home stretch, I manage to raise my arms like the other riders, and whoop instead of scream.

“Way to go,” Flynn says, throwing his arm around me as we follow Graham and Regan to the next ride. “I’m proud of you. Don’t you feel better?”

I suppose this is Flynn’s way of helping me cope with my grief over Nate—by pushing me to face down my fears and carry on. There’s probably an easier way, but I appreciate the thought. “Except for the nausea, yeah,” I say.

“I know exactly how to treat that,” he says. Signaling Regan and Graham to stake out a place in line for the next ride, Flynn leads me to a kiosk and orders French fries.

Surprisingly, the grease and starch do settle my stomach.

“So, who’d you kick, and why?” Flynn asks, as I wolf down the fries.

There’s no point trying to hide the truth, when both Graham and Regan will happily fill him in later. “Bianca Larken,” I say.

His eyebrows rise. “The police chief’s daughter? Why?”

I answer around a mouthful. “She keeps saying Dad’s behind the arsons in Rosewood. So I snapped.”

Flynn takes one of my fries and dips it in the pool of ketchup I dumped into the corner of the cardboard tray. “They’re trying to pin those fires on Ray?”

“If you can believe Bianca.” And Kai, although I’m not bringing him into the conversation.

“Well, she’s hearing it at the dinner table, so it’s probably true.”

I slap Flynn’s hand away from my fries. “True? How can you even think that?”

“True that they’re
saying
it, not that he’s
doing
it.” Shaking his head, he reaches around my back and snatches another fry. “When did you get so touchy?”

“When people started accusing my dad of a crime.”

“What does Ray have to say about it?”

“Nothing. He tells me not to worry, but he keeps showing up at the fires.”

Flynn stares at me. “How do you know that?”

“Bianca,” I say. “And Dad didn’t deny it. Can’t you talk to him? I mean, without letting him know I mentioned it?”

This time I offer him the fries, and he takes a couple. “I can try, but he hasn’t wanted to talk lately. I get the sense he might be—” Flynn makes the motion of drinking—“a bit too much. Am I right?”

I feel the trigger inside trying to switch and resist it. “What makes you say that?”

“People talk.”

“Well, you should defend him,” I say. “You were Nate’s best friend.”

“Who says I don’t, troublemaker? ”He ruffles my hair. “You do worry too much.”

I escape his hand by dashing over to the trash can. The cardboard container holding the fries is smoldering, but I dump it into the bin anyway, so that Flynn doesn’t see it.

As I walk back to him, he sniffs the air. “Do you smell smoke?”

“They’re grilling sausages,” I say, gesturing to a kiosk.

As we walk toward Regan and Graham, Flynn says, “So how about I make a play for Bianca’s sister and see what I can find out? She’ll be home from college for Thanksgiving.”

I laugh. “Thanks for offering to take a hit for the cause. Talking to Dad will be enough.”

“At least I made you laugh,” Flynn says, dropping an arm around me again. “You know you can call me if you want to talk, right?”

“Thanks,” I say. “If Regan gets tired of listening, you’re next on my list.”

“She’s a nice kid,” he says, looking over at her.

“Too young for you,” I say.

“True enough,” he admits. “Give us both a few years to mature, and maybe.”

“By then she won’t want you. I think that’s how it works.”

“You,” he says, shoving me away, “are wise beyond your years.”

T
he cushy white couch ignites with a puff as the long lighter hovers over it. Black Hat drops the lighter onto the carpet, and backs away slowly, trailing starter fluid as he goes. In the kitchen, he kicks the empty tub down the basement stairs. Standing with one gloved hand on the latch to the back door, he waits, his head slightly tilted. There’s a cough in the distance, and he leaves. I travel around the house with him, floating above him as always, and from the end of driveway, I see a sign in the distance reading “Forty-Niners Mini Golf and Bowl.”

Opening the car door with one hand, I text the approximate address to Kai with the other.
Someone still in house. Don’t call 911
.

I need to get to the house first. By the time the fire department figures out someone’s still in there, it will be too late.

The house is more like a cottage, small and tidy, with lavish gardens. I stand at the foot of the driveway, wondering if Black Hat is lingering nearby. When awake, I have no sense of him at all.