TORCH (22 page)

“Huh. Anything else?”

“When I was even younger, he started a campfire without matches a couple of times.” Her brow furrows. “He said it was like a magician’s trick and I believed him. Especially because the flames burned sort of green at first. More like teal.”

I clutch her sleeve. “That’s it.”

Regan stares at me in the semi-darkness. “If it’s true, why hasn’t Dad told me?”

“Why didn’t my dad tell
me
?” I ask. “It’s obviously not something they talk about openly. Either they’re trying to protect us, or it’s that Rosewood-mosaic crap.”

Her brow is still furrowed. “But does that mean I’m a Torch, too?”

I shrug. “Maybe. You know how it snuck up on me. But it also never surfaced in Nate.”

“Oh my god. I hope it doesn't surface in me either."

I squeeze her hand. “I know. I’m sorry.”

She rubs her forehead with her free hand. “Isn’t there anything good about it?”

“Other than being able to light a campfire without matches? Not much. I’d give anything to be normal again, Ree.”

She gives me a skeptical look. “You’d go back to the Phoenix you were before all this started? The one who didn’t know Kai?”

“If I weren’t a Torch, Kai and I could have a normal relationship. What we have is amazing, but it’s not normal.”

Her sigh seems to come from her sneakers. “Can we just sit here for awhile? I don’t want to go home.”

“I know it sucks,” I say. “But remember, we still have each other.”

She squeezes my hand so hard it’ll ache for a week.

K
ai arrives at the door to the pool at ten, looking tense. “What’s wrong?” he asks. “I’ve barely heard from you in days. Are you upset about what happened last Friday?”

It never occurred to me that he’d think I was worried about our aborted make out session. “No, we’re good,” I say, kissing him to dispel that idea. “It’s about the fire at Frank McKenna’s plant.”

“I wondered if it was an arson, but you said you didn’t dream about it.”

I tell him that Regan’s dad said this fire had all the typical markers of “our” arsonist. “Regan speculated that I didn’t dream about it because I’m losing my ability.”

“Losing your firepower?” Kai looks even more concerned. “Are you?”

It took ten tries to get a sheet of paper lit in the bathtub, and even then it went right out. "Would that be so bad?"

“In some ways, it would be great,” he says, his brow still furrowed.

"I’m sure I’m just distracted.”       

He’s quiet for a moment putting the pieces together. “Distracted by me?”

I fiddle with my knapsack as an excuse not to look at him. “Regan wondered if our relationship might be a factor. Have you noticed any change in your own skills?”

“I haven’t needed them lately. Should we experiment?”

I knew he’d suggest it, and I know we need to try, but I’m afraid of the outcome. “We could just wait and see what happens,” I say.

“Phee.” He leans in and puts a hand on either side of my face, so I can’t look away. “We both need to know.”

“Okay. Okay.”

I take my usual position on the deck and Kai takes his. He’s only about five yards away, but it seems so much further. Standing with his hands at his sides, he says, “Hit me.”

“I can’t just hit you. You’re going to have to make me mad.”

“I don’t want to make you mad,” he says.

“Like the first time,” I say. “You know how.”

He musters a faint grin. “Did I mention that I find Bianca incredibly hot? Well, I do. When she shows up in the pool in that white bikini it makes my entire day."

Despite his grin, the mention of Bianca in that bikini is enough to create a bit of heat in my heart. I shake my hand, to try to bring the heat down, but nothing happens. “Go on,” I say.

“I kissed Bianca once,” he continues. “More like she kissed me. At a party last year. I think that’s why she’s so vicious about me. She kissed me and I never asked her out. But I liked kissing her. She tastes like strawberries.”

I can feel the heat hovering above the elbow, but I can’t dislodge it. "Keep going. You have my permission to be mean."

He takes a new direction. “I still think your dad’s a killer.”

“Your dad’s a killer, too,” I say. “Maybe they could compare body counts sometime.”

“They’ll never have a chance,” he says. “Because someone’s going to take out your dad before long. I hear there’s a hit on him.”

That does it. The heat passes whatever’s blocking it and I manage to throw a fireball in Kai’s direction. It hits the ground at my feet and burns out long before it reaches him.

Kai gives a nasty laugh. “Like father like daughter. More smoke than fire.”

I try again, and the fireball stays airborne for a foot before crashing. It’s smaller than a golf ball.

“Here’s something else you should know,” Kai says. “My dad ordered me to date you. To get the inside track on Torches.”

I stare at him, expecting him to laugh. Instead, he adds, “I’m using you. To get to your dad.”

This time the fireball is shooting toward him before I even know it’s gone. It’s small, and it’s slow, but somehow, Kai doesn’t dodge in time, and he doesn’t shimmer when it hits him. Instead, there’s a sizzle and an almost instantaneous smell of burning flesh. I turn, grab the towel he dropped on the deck, and throw up into it.

Kai is at my side immediately and I shrug him off. “Don’t touch me. Do not touch me.”

I sink to the deck, sobbing, and he kneels beside me. “Phee, Phee. None of it was true. I was just trying to make you mad.”

It felt real. It felt so real I can’t stop crying, or form any words.

“I didn’t mean any of it,” he says. “You know I didn’t. I love you. I love you.”

Somehow, that only makes me cry harder. “This is bad,” I finally say. “My fire’s nearly gone and you got burned. It’s bad.”

“Why?” he says. “Maybe losing our powers is exactly what we need. Then we can be together. Isn’t that what you want?”

It’s exactly what I want. To be normal and to be with Kai.

But it isn’t who I am. And it isn’t right.

H
ux is on his hands and knees when I walk into the pool area the next day, after school. He’s scrubbing the deck with a brush and a pail of water.

“The least you could do is clean up after yourselves,” he says, without looking up. “It’s bad enough coming in to food wrappers all the time, but a burn mark on the tiles is unacceptable.”

I’m too taken aback to answer.

“Yes, I know you helped yourself to a key off my chain,” he says.

“You were okay with my hanging out here?”

“I wasn’t thrilled, and I could lose my job over it. But you weren’t willing to work with me and you needed to practice somewhere safe. Otherwise you’d have been burning up empty fields and we’ve got enough trouble in Rosewood.”

“Yeah, about that,” I say. “I notice the Association of Fire-Starters meets at the Fox and Fiddle every Tuesday.”

Hux stops scrubbing for second, and starts again. “Tailed your dad?”

“How come I don’t get invited to these meetings?”

“For
starters
,” he glances up to make sure I catch the pun, “you have to be in command of your abilities, which you obviously are not.”

“You forgot to give me the user's manual.”

“I hadn’t seen much damage for awhile,” he continues. “I figured you were improving.”

“Well, I was. And then I wasn’t.”

He leans back on his heels. “Let me guess. This has something to do with Kai Seaver.”

“Possibly. I just can’t pull off what I could before.”

Hux’s glazed eyes sharpen. “So you’re hanging out with the Flood all the time and now you can’t light fires.”

“I can, I’m just weaker. I didn’t intend to scorch the deck. I was aiming for Kai.”

“Did you hit him?”

I scuff the tiles with my sneaker. “With the next one.”

“If you managed to hit him, his powers are diminishing, too. You’re neutralizing each other.”

“You’ve heard of this happening before?” I ask, brightening.

“Actually, I’ve never heard of a Torch and a Flood hooking up,” he says. “That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. They may have killed each other before they realized they could just wait it out till their powers died.”

“You don’t have to be a jerk,” I say, glaring at him. “You know I’m here to ask for help.”

“Then scrub,” he says, offering the brush.

I drop my knapsack and kneel, while he straightens up and rubs his knees.

“So, what should I do?” I ask.

“Depends,” he says. “You could just leave well enough alone, and see what happens when you break up. Because you will. High school romance never lasts.”

“Lots of people meet their soul mate in high school.”

Hux snorts. “The odds are against it. And if you wanted to live happily neutralized ever after, you wouldn’t be here.”

I dip the brush in the pail and scrub harder. “It’s just that—”

“—it feels like a part of you is missing?” he interrupts.

“An important part. That could prevent trouble.”

Hux sits and crosses his legs, curious now. “How?”

“I don’t want to get into specifics, in case my ability never comes back. You’d never let me forget it.”

He takes the brush so that I have to look at him. “Can this ability-gone-AWOL save lives?”

“Possibly. But isn't that the case for every Torch?"

"Every Torch is a little different. Some weaker, some stronger. Your dad is one of the best. That’s why he won so many awards for firefighting.”

“I can do something he can’t,” I say. My dad may be as resistant to flame as I am, but he doesn’t have visions. He said as much.

“You may be on track to be very good,” Hux says. “If you get yourself straightened out.” His curiosity gets the best of him. “Tell me what you can do.”

I look him straight in the eye. “Tell me why you were at Bianca’s the night her house burned down.”

He’s only mildly surprised. “You got there first? I figured someone got her out of the house. She was coming around by the time I found her, so I took off. “

“How’d you know about the fire?”

“Your dad called me to do a run-through. Rick told him the trucks were delayed, and your dad had been tagged at too many fires.”

“You’re working together?” I say.

Hux nods. “But so far, this guy is a match for all of us. If you’ve got something special to add, you know what you have to do.”

“I’m not splitting with Kai, if that’s what you mean.”

He raps my knee with the brush. “If people could die because of your relationship, can you justify staying together?”

I shove the brush away. “Why is this on me? I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“Doesn’t make it any less true.” He gets up and walks away. “Suggestion:  take a break from the Flood and see if your powers come back.”

“I’m not breaking up with him.”

“I said
take a break
. If you don’t trust him on his own for a couple of weeks, you’ve got bigger problems than a fizzle in the fire department.”

“I hate you,” I call after him.

He turns back. “This is how much I care.” While I watch, he lets a fireball drop from his hand to the floor and then snaps it back up, like a yo-yo.

I roll my eyes. “Impressive. But it won’t save lives.”

He laughs. “Keep the key for now. But you’d better use it alone.”