TORCH (26 page)

I sit up suddenly and the image scatters. But I got what I needed. He is at a propane depot, and there can’t be many nearby.

My fingers tremble as I Google, and find one, about a ten minute drive away. It’s the perfect place to stage a show, and kill a few innocent people in the process.

I trigger the plan I laid out for myself a week ago. Turning up the volume on the TV, I grab my coat and my phone and open the window. I took the screen out earlier and stashed it in my closet. Now it’s merely a matter of dropping the rope I secured to my heavy sleigh bed and scaling the fifteen feet from my bedroom into the back yard. Dad has blocked the Jeep in the garage with his pickup, so I use the key I lifted earlier. Putting the truck in neutral, I let it roll down the driveway and turn the ignition only when it’s in the street. Then I keep the lights off until I turn the corner. Dad is dozing in the kitchen, and luckily, his intuition is no match for mine.

Checking the rearview mirror, I notice a car keeping pace with me. I turn down a few side streets, letting the car get close enough to confirm my suspicion. It’s Kai’s Cavalier. Joy floods through me as I realize he’s been watching over me all this time. But that joy comes at a cost.

Grabbing my phone, I keep driving and text with one hand: 
Don’t. I need all the strength I can get. Please.

He texts back,
I love you.

My answer is to push the pedal down until he is out of sight. I take a circuitous route to make sure I’ve lost him, knowing there’s no particular hurry. Black Hat is waiting, luring us. He’ll be hoping for a big turn out, but alas, I’m the only guest.

The propane station is on a big lot, with only a few houses close by. Still, if things start exploding the debris will blow far and wide. Regular people will be injured, which is outside the bounds of whatever game Black Hat is playing. I have to stop him before that happens.

I'm hoping that doesn't mean killing him, because I'd rather have him alive and be punished for what he's done.

There are several small buildings on the property, surrounded by a dozen massive fuel tanks and twice that many trucks, bearing the company name, “Skyline Propane.” I drive around the lot, hoping that Black Hat will have left clues. The point was to call us out, after all. All I can find is a white sedan parked behind the main building. It looks like a rental car, and it could belong to anyone.

Pulling up thirty yards away, I grab my phone. Knowing this is a battle I am likely to lose, I take a moment to type an e-mail and send it to the account Dad rarely checks. He’ll find it later and share my words. To Dad, simply,
Sorry
. To Regan,
Sorry X 100
. To Graham,
B strong
. And finally, to Kai,
Love U 2.

With my good-byes said, I’m more resigned to whatever faces me. I jump down from the truck, with a backpack of supplies over one arm, and walk into the facility through the unlocked door. There is no one in the darkened front office, so I keep going into the vast warehouse in the rear. My heart is pounding so hard I can barely hear the hum of the cooling system. Somewhere further back there is light, just enough to show the outline of fuel tanks in many sizes, from racks of regular barbeque tanks, to some that must hold over 100 gallons.

“Well, well.” A voice comes out of the darkness. “If it isn’t the prophet Phoenix. I trust you got my little love letter?”

The voice is familiar, and I struggle to place it as I spin around.

A tall guy is leaning casually against a big tank. His face is lost in shadow, but I can make out the brim of the baseball cap and now I know exactly who it is. I just can’t quite believe it. Trying to sound confident, I say, “Yep, I got it. Everyone I love dies, and then me.”

“Correct.”

He steps out and I see his face for the first time. It’s Flynn Reilly.

“You were my brother’s best friend,” I say, and despite my best efforts, my voice quavers.

“Not for reals,” he says, white teeth showing in a grin. “Although I thought he was one of us when I killed him. But it was wasted effort, and started the whole ruckus too early.”

I know he’s trying to make me angry, and it’s working, but if I hope to end this here, before he can go after everyone else, I need to find the right balance of fury and calm. That’s where the real power lies. “So what’s the point? Of the ruckus, I mean.”

“People like Ray and Rick Wilder need to be stopped.”

“Stopped from what? Living peaceful lives?”

“Stopped from pretending to be regular people. Rosewood is full of liars and fakes—everyone acting like they wouldn’t kill each other given half a chance.”

“Who’s it hurting?” I ask.

“It’s wrong,” he says. “And unnatural. Look what happened when you got too close to the Flood. Who’s hurting now?” He swaggers a little closer, and I see the grin has become a sneer.

“Regan told you I lost my powers?” I say, praying she didn’t tell him I got them back.

“Yeah, you poor sap. Meanwhile, the guy was just using you to get to me.”

“Probably,” I say. “Like you were using Regan to get information.”

He shrugs. “Kid came in handy for awhile.”

“So Rick was a traitor to the cause,” I say.

“Yep. He had to go. I have my orders.”

“Orders? Even you have to take orders?” I’m surprised at how nonchalant I sound. I guess it helps that I bantered with Flynn long before I knew he was a merciless killer.

He laughs, a harsh sound that gets swallowed in the massive warehouse. “We all answer to a higher power, Phee. Including you.”

“Well, who’s my big boss? I’d like to have a one-on-one.”

Flynn laughs again. “You won’t be around long enough.”

“No? You going to incinerate me with some pink fire, big guy?”

He doesn’t answer, but I feel the change in the atmosphere. Before, he was enjoying the sport, and now he’s pissed off. Sensing my advantage, I push it. “For a while I thought you were a lady, although you sure didn’t act like one.”

Focusing, I sense the moment the energy moves, drop my backpack and explode his fireball a second after it leaves his hand.

“So pretty,” I say.

He fires again, and I explode it again.

“You’re better than I expected, Phee,” he says, circling me. “After your sorry excuse for a brother.”

“Imagine if I hadn’t hooked up with a Flood,” I say. “You’d be in a pink coffin by now.”

This time he gets off a shot before I can block it, but I throw up my shield and the fireball bounces into a rack of barbeque tanks. One by one, they explode. Metal scraps scatter everywhere, so I dash between the bigger tanks for shelter.

What follows next is a fiery game of cat and mouse, with me crouching and dashing, while Flynn fires shot after shot. One of the mid-sized tanks explodes in a deafening blast, tearing a hole in the ceiling. Luckily, they are spaced far enough apart that the one beside it doesn’t blow.

For a second, the pressure in my head is so high I think I may have burst an eardrum, but then I hear Flynn calling, “Keep going, Phee. Your dad and the others are going to come in after you and I’ll be able to kill them off one by one, just like I planned.”

“If you do, I’ll return the favor,” I say. “I’ll hunt down everyone in
your
family and make sure they pay.”

“Good luck with that. There’s no one left.”

There’s a silence as he repositions, and I do the same, trying to move as quietly as possible, and hoping his ears are ringing, too.

They might be, but his eyes are sharp. A pink comet heads toward me and I explode it just before it hits. Looking down, I see my white sneakers glowing in the semi-darkness. A giveaway. I slip them off, padding away in dark socks.

Flynn sends a few more shots toward my shoes, and I see a shadowy form advancing behind the pink fire. I dart behind another long tank and crouch behind him.

I have to get him to come a little closer without wasting any more energy. When I have him in my sights, I’ll need all the power I have to take him down.

“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” he calls.

I hope he’s right—that I’m the cat in the equation. Right now, I feel like the mouse.

Keeping watch on his feet, in work boots I’ve seen only from the top before, I wait until he is exactly parallel to me and send a small, sneaky fireball under the tank. It hits the leg of his jeans, and while he’s slapping it out, I dash off again, sucking back a whimper as I step on a piece of metal.

“You’re pissing me off, now,” he says. “So I’m changing the plan. Your dad and his goons are already on the way, so I might as well take you out first. It’s a shame you didn’t get to see Graham die. You’ll just have to trust me that I’ll get him later. Step out now, and I promise to make it fast. Keep annoying me, and count on a slow, miserable death for baby brother.”

I breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth. The only advantage I can have here is staying calm. I can tell by the fact that his voice is louder and higher than before that he’s getting nervous about facing a whole squad of Torches.

Picking up a piece of metal, I toss it in his direction. He’s quick off the trigger, firing at it, and revealing his location. I grab more pieces and repeat the process. Sneaking around the huge warehouse, I
toss them at random, so he can’t be sure where they’re coming from. He fires at everything, and while that will tire him out, it’s also inevitable that he will hit a tank and blow us both to bits. I’ve decided to take that risk. Better to die on my own terms than let him kill my defenders, and perhaps the rest of the town.

Finally, I crouch to wait. When he comes around the end of my row, I’ll hit him with all the power I can summon.

His feet come closer and closer. I sit back on my heels, centering myself. It’s my job, and I’m ready.

Flynn’s shadowy form emerges at the end of my row, with the light behind him. I raise my hand, about to fire, and then stop. Behind Flynn is another man:  Kai.

Sensing him at the same moment, Flynn turns and a shot intended for me heads toward Kai.

“No!” Jumping to my feet, I send blue fire racing toward Flynn. He’s still turning from Kai, who has shimmered, back to face me. My shot hits Flynn in the temple, rather than the forehead, but it’s a good solid shot. I see the exact moment when indigo flame meets flesh and disappears.

Watching my own shot hit home, I miss the pink comet coming my way until it’s too late. I’m thrown backwards by the force of Flynn’s fireball to my gut. I look down and see a pink glow, and then it feels like my abdomen explodes. The pain is incredible.

“Phee,” Kai says, taking human shape beside me.

“Finish him,” I gasp.

Flynn is staggering around like a malfunctioning robot, firing haphazardly. His head is ablaze with indigo flames. I clutch the smooth side of a propane tank, willing myself to stay conscious long enough to see Kai become a ten-foot human wave that hits Flynn from behind. When Flynn collapses—burned, drowned, motionless—I let myself collapse, too.

Kai is hanging over me, trying to cool me, but I whisper, “Stop.” Because I don’t want to be cooled. I am burning from the inside out, through flesh and bone, and it feels... exquisite. Staring up at his blue eyes, I surrender to the fire, until everything is blue, then red, and finally, black.

D
ying, as it turns out, is the easy part. The hard part is coming back to life.

At first, all I see is the stars, and I believe I’m dead, and this is what death looks like. It’s cooler than I expected, and louder. Because someone is sobbing. My dad. I heard the sound once before, when Uncle Rick broke the news about Nate.

A black shape blocks out some of the stars and gradually it comes into focus as Kai’s face. Kai’s beautiful face amongst the stars.

I can’t feel my lips, I can’t shape the words, but somehow I will Kai to tell him.

“She’s alive,” Kai says. His voice is barely a whisper.

“Tell him,” I say, and this time, I hear my own faint, slurred voice.

“Ray,” he calls. “Mr. Seaver. Phee’s alive.”

Suddenly everyone is standing over me, and there are no stars, just a dozen faces. Hux, Chief Larken, Principal McCabe, Regan and others. Dad looks down at me in complete disbelief, tears still streaming down his face. “She was...”

“A steaming pile of ash,” Hux says. “Phoenix, you freakin’ rock.”

I try to smile, but Hux stops me. “Hold up, your lips aren’t fully back yet. You are some sort of scary thing.”

“Don’t look,” I plead with Kai. I can see the mixture of horror and love on his face.

“Give the girl some space,” Chief Larken says. “Everyone just back off.”

He herds everyone away, except my dad, who tries to hold onto something, probably my hand, but I can’t feel anything except searing pain, everywhere. “Dad, it hurts. Make it stop.”

“No,” he says. “You’re regenerating. I’m not stopping that. Just breathe.”

It seems to take forever, but eventually the pain ebbs, and Dad covers me with a blanket. “So heavy,” I say.

“So naked,” he responds, smiling at last.