“Because the Swedish people didn’t know that was its function. They were going to sell it to the American army, and that would have been a disaster purely because the Americans would never let it go. But the Swedes were clueless.” He shuffled forward on the chair and used hand gestures to explain. “You need the fuel to create the fire. Do you know what the three elements of the fire tetrahedron are Hunter?”
“Heat, fuel and oxygen,” she said.
“Exactly. When combined and kept consistent with the sustaining chemical reaction, they create a flame. When you have fire, you have heat – usually provided by a match or lighter – oxygen – which is naturally occurring in the air around us – and something to fuel it. It could be wood, paper, cloth, anything really. Metals such as magnesium, sodium, titanium and more are also flammable, but... you don’t need to know that.” He hurried on the moment a you’re-rambling-about-science-shit-I-don’t-get look appeared across her face. “Your father and I had just returned from an expedition in Cuba that night.”
“As in Cuba, where we went when I was eight?”
He nodded. “The very same. We had discovered a volcanic stone neither of us had ever seen before from the mountains. Your mother and father - being the passionate couple that they were - start to... well...”
Hunter didn’t need to see Joshua blushing to know what he was referring to. “Yeah yeah, I get it!”
“While they were... doing the dirty, this stone somehow cracked open on its own, spilling lava across the floor. I believe your mother triggered it.”
“How?”
“This stone reacted to the drug in your mother’s system. When she touched it, it became incredibly hot. Things like passion and anger awake the substance inside it. When your mother and father were making love, the lava inside the stone was drawn to her. Once it touched her skin, it ignited a dangerous flame and caused the entire apartment to burn. Except your mother, who was immune to it.”
“I’m sorry, what? My mother was immune to fire? So she didn’t die in the apartment with Dad?”
“I’ll explain that in a moment,” Joshua assured her. Hunter opened her mouth to argue but he whipped up a hand and she fell immediately silent. His face had turned suddenly more pale than usual and his eyes were swimming with a painful memory. “You’re with me so far, yes Hunter?”
Feeling as though she was having a particularly detailed nightmare, Hunter struggled to understand what he was telling her. “How is it possible that volcanic lava has the power to crawl from the floor, up onto a mattress and start a fire? Is it magic lava?”
Joshua’s eyes practically glittered in anticipation. “Close. I’ve studied it for many years now. In fact, I have several samples in that glass tank over there.”
Hunter glanced at the buzzing blue cage filled with plants. “I thought you were growing marijuana.”
He snickered. “No. The substance we found is not of this world. It is completely unique. It is also living.”
“What? Joshua, this is getting so farfetched I don’t even know if I believe you anymore.”
“Hunter listen to me. I can prove it all later, but you need to understand how this happened. It is something of a scientific breakthrough.”
“Yeah,” she snorted. “Something like that.”
Hunter still couldn’t wrap her head around it. There has to be some sort of logical explanation for those fires, not this alien-rock-super-drug theory of Joshua’s. He’s far more loopy than I thought.
“This volcanic stone reacted to the Feucotetanus drug in your mother’s system. I believe it actually soaked into your mother’s skin. When combined at the exact time your mother… um… felt very passionate, fire exploded from her body. The drug made her immune to flames. The lava created fire. That was the moment you were conceived, and so your DNA was comprised almost entirely of this drug and this rare volcanic substance. You not only have these powers, you were made from them.”
“I was… what?” Hunter was grateful she was sitting down, because suddenly the room around her began to blur. Oh God… I’m going to pass out…
“Hunter?” Joshua ran to her side and gripped her shoulders. “Stay with me. Breathe.”
“I just can’t-” The words in her mind started to meld together like alphabet soup as she stared at her knees quivering on the chair. “Joshua, how? Where did this stone come from?”
Joshua rubbed a hand down his face and shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve never been able to locate its origin. I just know where to find it.” He hurried over to the glass tank and flicked a switch on a stainless-steel keypad on the wall. The entire tank steamed as though it were either very hot or very cold inside, and the lid raised like the boot of a car. Joshua reached in, dug around the marijuana plants and came out with a little black rock. “I’ve frozen them. They are used to the impossible heat of the volcanic mountain, so I believe this way I can preserve their biology and keep them from creating mischief at the same time. Here-” he placed the rock in her hand and took a few steps back. “Watch.”
“Joshua, what-”
Her next question froze halfway out of her mouth when the stone in her hands began to buzz. It was only very slightly, but Hunter felt it nonetheless. Her heart was thumping harder than a drum as the stone of about the size of a tennis ball and the color of the night sky slowly grew warmer in her grasp.
“How is it doing that?”
Joshua beamed like a Cheshire cat. “It’s you. I said the stone is used to its natural habitat. Your body is volcanic in itself Hunter. The moment this substance recognizes the heat in you, as it did your mother the night of the fire, it starts to grow warmer until it is so hot that a normal human being would not be able to touch it. Like now, for instance.”
“It’s not hot at all,” said Hunter. She liked the warmth of the stone and the way it felt in her hands.
Still smiling, Joshua snatched a thin black remote from a plastic box on his desk and directed it at the stone. After the device powered up, it began to beep and buzz like static from a radio. Numbers flickered across the screen and a colorful graph depicted levels of heat like waves on a balmy ocean.
“252 Fahrenheit, and rising. That’s way above boiling point. And you’re holding it.”
Hunter gazed at the stone and noticed an odd glow emitted from cracks in the surface. Am I doing this? Panicking, she raced to the glass tank and practically threw the stone back into the mix of dirt, plants and stones alike. Joshua gasped at her to be careful and hurriedly closed the lid, attacking the buttons on the wall. As the stone rolled into a nook between the glass and other foliage, other stones started to emit the same glow as the first. Then, cool steam like liquid nitrogen encased the tank and they were no longer visible.
Hunter found herself pacing and running her hands through her hair, which didn’t seem to help in the slightest.
“So the fire on the stove, that was me?” she whispered.
“Yes. It was a moment of heated anger. You reacted naturally, and the fire was released.”
“Naturally?” she squeaked. “Naturally? I’m immune to flames and I can make fire out of nothing because my mother was infested by a Swedish drug and a supernatural lava creature and you think that’s natural?” Her voice shook as she spoke the words aloud in an almost giddy tone.
“Well, no, but-”
“There’s no toxic waste or radioactive spiders thrown into this twisted mix, right?”
Joshua rolled his eyes and ignored the comment. “The fire reacts upon your emotions Hunter. The other night was the first time you triggered your powers with real anger. But you mustn’t let yourself lose control of your emotions around others, or become too passionate like your mother, or-”
“What happened to my mother?”
Joshua froze. He looked down at the steel floor of the lab and scratched the back of his neck. “Uh…”
“Tell me Joshua. For Christ’s sake, tell me the truth this time.”
When Joshua lift
ed his eyes and met hers, they were filled with tears. “She died giving birth to you.”
Hunter was too stunned to breathe. “How?”
He wiped his hand over his mouth and said, “Before I tell you this Hunter, please understand that what happened was in no way your fault. Your growth inside the womb couldn’t be monitored, nor could the power of the fire. At the time, I had no idea what that rock contained and how completely alive it was. Please, don’t be alarmed.”
“Just tell me.”
Joshua sighed. “When your mother went into labor with you, something went wrong. Her body wasn’t strong enough to handle it. She lost a lot of blood during the birth and when she pushed you out, the pain was too much. She died soon after.”
“The fire killed her, didn’t it? The fire in her, in me?” Hunter’s eyes were suddenly fuzzy as tears spilled over. “I killed her.”
“Hunter, please-”
“Joshua... how do I get it out?”
“How do you what?”
“Get it OUT OF ME!!” she screamed, making Joshua stumble back in shock. He’s scared you’ll set him on fire. Hunter looked down at her hands and wondered if that were possible. He’s scared you’ll lose control.
“Hunter, no,” he begged. “You have a... a special gift inside of you, you just need to harness it and-”
“Special gift?” she spat, anger building inside of her just as suddenly as in the corridor at school, boiling, threatening to explode. Her skin itched. She was sweating profusely. It was taking over her. “This gift killed my father and my mother, Joshua! This gift is the reason I have no parents! This gift is a slimy, alien volcanic substance inhabiting my body like a demon. How could you have kept this from me? After all these years, you knew it was growing in me and you never tried to get it out, you never told me I could manipulate fire-”
“I didn’t know for sure,” he muttered, but something in the way he bowed his head made her instantly doubt the truth in his words. “I knew you were immune to it, but I had no idea of what kind of power you possessed. You started causing strange accidents when you were a child, but even then I couldn’t determine whether you yourself had caused them until the other night.”
Hunter scanned the pictures on the corkboard, raking through her memories. “Wait…” There were blurred images of little fires that started here and there, one in an art class in grade one, the second at Sally Henderson’s sleepover party… but never an explosion like the one she caused today. “They were caused by me? But they were so small and pathetic, how did-”
“Your emotions are stronger now because you are feeling more deeply and more passionately. You are losing your temper easily, you fear more, you are falling in love-”
Hunter let out a bitter laugh. “Joshua please. Don’t bring Eli into this when we’ve only just met. It’s not love.”
“But it’s something,” he whispered in a tone that chilled her bones. “It’s the beginning of something. I can’t take this fire away from you Hunter. It’s lived in you since the day you were born. But I can help you master it. Liz’s last words to me where to protect you-”
“Don’t!” Hunter found herself falling to the ground. She clenched one of the steel tables to steady herself. It was cold and somehow soothing. She looked up at Joshua, who was waiting for her to explode, but she could hardly open her mouth to speak. She wanted to cry again, to hug him, to hug something. “Joshua, I... I can’t do this. I can’t be what I am... whatever that is. Please-” she stepped up to him and looked into his eyes. “Take it away. Take away my abilities before I hurt someone.”
In Joshua’s pale eyes, Hunter found some comfort. But there was also pain and disappointment. Clearly this didn’t go the way he wanted it to.
“I can’t Hunter,” he replied. “It’s who you are. But you can change, you can learn to control it-”
“I don’t want to learn to control it!” she screamed, shoving one of the pencil pots off the desk so it scattered stationery across the floor. Joshua kept very still and watched her pace in front of him. “I don’t... want to be... a murderer.”
“You’re not-”
“Just leave me alone.” Hunter kicked the pencil pot so it soared across the room and stalked to the door. “Don’t follow me.”
“Hunter-”
The door to the fireplace would have slammed shut, had it not been so old and creaky. The moment room 57 was behind her she took off running, back up the stairs to their apartment and into her bedroom. There, she gathered a bag of clothes and necessities, snatched some of the cash she kept in her favorite children’s book and ran to her desk. She took a scrap piece of paper and scribbled a note to Joshua, which read these three words:
‘I need time.’
twelve
The moon was almost directly above her when Hunter stepped outside the apartment building. It was very late at night, and only the lonely were up and about. She hitched her overnight bag higher on her shoulder, stuck her hands in her pockets and moved down the street, eager to get away from home before Joshua raced after her.
As she stalked through the frosty street, her energy still buzzing and fear clouding her mind, she wondered where to go. Her first and only thought at that moment was to get some cigarettes, which she’d forgotten to pack. So she headed in the direction of the 24-hour mini mart. Maybe the walk would calm her down.
Concentrating on her breathing, Hunter watched her feet as she walked, thinking of the cigarettes and the warm shopping mart. She turned a corner into a quiet alley that she usually took as a shortcut. There, she found two homeless men standing around a rusty iron barrel, trying to light a fire.
It was too late to turn back. They were close, their attention drawn by the sound of her footsteps. She could pretend they weren’t there and walk past them, but the alley was small. And the hunger on their faces made her heart pound.
Despite living in New York all her life, Hunter had never come across a situation quite like this. Though she’d never been out this late, and usually when she came upon this alleyway it was empty, she knew it was dumb to walk around on her own in such a dangerous city.
The sight of the two men - one large and beefy with dark, black skin and the other scrawny with a rugged beard, layered in dirty clothing - sent Hunter’s emotions into hyper drive and she found herself frozen on the spot.
The beefy guy elbowed the skinny guy and kinked his head in her direction. Abandoning the fire, they turned towards her.
“You got any money on you girl?” he snarled, the whites of his eyes wide and terrifying in the dark.
Hunter turned around, finding feeling in her legs again, but the scrawny one was right behind her. He snatched the back of her coat and yanked her toward him.
“Let go of me!” She looked up into his hollow face and felt a stab of fear. He was so ravenous, it was almost animal.
“I said,” he repeated slower and took her by the collar. She tried to pull away as a reflex, but he held her tightly. “Where’s your money?”
The beefy one took Hunter’s other arm and began running his hands down her body, either searching for her cash or just for his own pleasure. Hunter felt a rippling sensation course through her body that had nothing to do with the homeless man’s hands sliding under her coat. She knew it was the fire.
“Please,” she begged, turning her eyes on the beefy man and wriggling furiously. “You don’t want to do that.”
The scrawny one laughed and grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back. Hunter sucked in a breath and her entire jaw shook. “Come on, sweet-cheeks. A pretty girl like you should know better than to walk around this neighborhood by yourself.”
“Maybe she’s lonely,” said the beefy guy and Hunter felt a stab of cold shoot at her hip, knowing it was his fingers on her skin.
The touch sent an electric shock through Hunter and she shoved them away, the force much stronger than a normal girl of her age. They stumbled, but then their faces turned hungrier and t
heir grins widened. They advanced on her, sending her toppling against the alley wall where she tripped on the curb and fell to the concrete. They were on her in seconds, ripping through her clothes, a dirty gloved hand covering her mouth, their bodies weighing down on her so she couldn’t move and all Hunter could do was beg herself not to lose control. She could feel it now; the fire, surging beneath her skin, boiling from her inner core. Not angry, but scared. Terrified.
She was screaming. The men laughed, pinning her down, bruising her skin, their hands burying themselves under her clothes, the stench of alcohol and filthy body-odor so strong that she started choking. Their fingers were like stiff blocks of ice on her skin. But she wasn’t cold. Hunter was burning with so much strength that she felt as though she could burst like a balloon-
And suddenly she exploded. Fire blasted from her hands as if from the mouth of a dragon, brighter than the sun and hotter than hell. She ripped her arms free and shoved the two men away from her with all her might, the power in her body so great she wasn’t sure it was even her body anymore. Her attackers soared across the alleyway and hit the wall with such a force that the ground shook. Smoke steamed from their bodies and from Hunter’s clothes. The beefy man had landed in a pile of trash and was groaning, on the brink of passing out. The other wasn’t moving at all, lying awkwardly on the concrete.
The fire vanished from within her as if doused by water, and after the ten seconds it took her to pull herself together, she stumbled to the pile of trash. The beefy man scampered to his feet, his wide eyes completely horrified. He backed away from her and limped towards the next street.
“Wh-what are you?” he stammered. “Get away from me! Please!”
Hunter wanted to say she was sorry, but she couldn’t find words to speak. Maybe it was because he didn’t deserve an apology. Within moments, the beefy man had sprinted from the alleyway, slipping on the wet concrete.
Hunter turned to the scrawny man sprawled against the alley wall. A lump of terror lodged itself in her throat. Please God no, she begged. Don’t let him be...
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