Rouge

by Isabella Modra

  “They’ll be coming back any minute now,” said Jack. “So we have to hurry. I know a way out the back.”

  “Jack?” She took his hand and squeezed it. “Thanks.”

  Jack blushed redder than her hair. “It’s nothing. You’d do the same for me.”

  Nurses, doctors and patients alike glanced back at the two of them as they snuck down the busy corridors. Hunter kept her head down and Jack kept his hand on the small of her back, guiding her to the stairs. There was no sign of Joshua anywhere.

  Once they made it to the ground floor and skidded through the reception, they headed to the back exit and snuck into the parking lot. Outside, the weather was cool and humid, the sun having just vanished for the night. Jack’s jumper was thin and smelled of junk food.

  Hunter had no money for a taxi, and there was no way she could ask anyone for a ride. People would think she was crazy.

  What the hell am I going to do now?

  “Jack, would I be totally out of line if I asked for cab money?”

  His confused expression hardened. “Where are you gonna go? Home?”

  “No,” she snapped. Does he think I’m an idiot? “I’m going to Eli’s.”

  “Oh.” His gaze dropped to the gum-stained concrete below. “Right, of course. Eli’s.”

  “Jack,” she pressed gently, “is something wrong?”

  “No I just… I always knew there was something special about you. The fire with Miss Smart was proof enough. Then I saw the news and Eli called earlier-”

  Hunter sucked in a breath. “He called you? Is he okay? Was he mad?”

  Jack shrugged again, and this time she saw the sadness in his expression. “He’s fine. A little shaken up, but fine. Look... when you’re ready to talk about it and you’re not running from Joshua or sorting out your boyfriend issues… I’d really love it if you could tell me about your powers. I’m a massive comic book fan, and to know someone with actual real powers is… basically the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me. Only when you’re ready though.”

  Jack’s brown eyes were gleaming with the kind of hope a child has when asking Santa for a Christmas present. Hunter couldn’t resist nodding. “Sure. Later, I’ll explain everything. I owe you, remember?”

  Jack grinned and walked her to the roadside. There, he stood by the path and watched her hail a taxi, waving goodbye. In the passenger seat, Hunter wrapped his jumper tighter over her chest, gave the driver the address to Eli’s house and prayed that he would be as understanding as Jack when she begged him to forgive her.

  thirty- two

  Eli’s magnificent white house looked utterly terrifying when Hunter climbed out of the taxi that night. Perhaps it was the thought of actually going inside to face Eli that scared her rather than the house itself. Nevertheless, a sweat broke out on Hunter’s skin and she took a few deep breaths before climbing the stairs to the great front doors. It was unlocked, so she crept inside.

  Everything was dark and empty. As she closed the door behind her, the only sound that met her ears was her own bare feet padding on the tiles. Then, when she came to the bottom of the staircase, a beautifully haunting melody met her ears.

  Hunter was transfixed. The music was obviously a violin. Eli’s violin. She climbed the carpeted stairs in a trance as the eerie music filled her. The fire inside her was lulled back to the dark place and all her nerves were washed away, as if the music was a wave of cool air to douse the flames. Hunter didn’t realize she was already at his door staring in upon the bedroom until the music stopped and Eli turned around.

  He stood by the window, his violin in one hand and bow in the other. His eyes were weary and red. His flannelette shirt was undone, his blonde curls ruffled. He looked as if he’d just crawled out of bed.

  But the green glow in his eyes hadn’t changed at all. It was still filled with betrayal and pain and awe and love all mixed together in a poisonous emotion that struck her like a slap in the face.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispered. Tears brimmed in her eyes.

  Eli let out a sigh, crossed to the other side of his room and gently placed the violin back on its stand.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said in a hard tone. “You should be in hospital resting.”

  She could feel the anger radiating from his body, even though he didn’t shout or glare or throw things at her. He just looked broken.

  “I had to get out of there. It was like a prison.”

  Eli looked up at her and trapped her in his gaze. “You still have ash in your hair.”

  “I…” A sob got stuck in her throat.

  Eli breathed a harsh laugh and looked up at the ceiling. “I’m such an idiot.”

  “Eli-” He stalked past her into the hallway and she followed him downstairs to the laundry. “Eli, please, can you just listen to me for a second?”

  He ignored her, and she hated that he didn’t shout. She wanted him to yell everything that was on his mind because she deserved it. But anger wasn’t one of Eli’s traits.

  “I can explain, can you just-” She stopped abruptly when Eli appeared with a sheet in his hand. Her heart shrinking, Hunter stared at the scorched holes she’d made a week ago.

  “Explain this to me Hunter,” he said. “Ever since that night I’ve been puzzling over how my bed suddenly burst on fire in the exact place your hands were, and never had it occurred to me that-” he shook his head, unable to find words or voice what he was thinking.

  Hunter stepped towards him, eager to touch him, to wrap her arms around him and ensure him that nothing about her had changed, that she was still Hunter, but Eli stepped back. It was as if her whole world shattered. He’d never shied away from her before.

  “Eli,” she uttered, a tear escaping and running down her cheek.

  “Hunter…” he whispered, “what are you?”

  She choked on a sob, feeling as though he’d just stabbed her in the chest. “I’m me!” she urged. “I’m Hunter, I haven’t changed at all!”

  “How can you walk through fire then, huh? Don’t give me that look Hunter, I’m not stupid. How many girls have hair as red as yours? How many go running into burning buildings and come out with an injured girl draped across their shoulder?”

  “Eli-”

  He strode past her and climbed the stairs again. She ran after him, wishing he would stop moving, but Eli seemed determined not to remain still. He whirled in the middle of his room and she halted in the doorway.

  “You rescued Miss Smart from that fire, didn’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “You set this on fire, didn’t you?” He threw the sheet on the ground beside his bed.

  Tell him the truth Hunter. He already knows.

  “Yes.”

  Eli sat down on the edge of his bed and put his head in his hands. “I can’t process this... it’s just too much.”

  “Then take time,” she urged, even though she wished she could explain everything, even though she knew she couldn’t be patient any longer. “Take all the time you want, just know-” she bravely stepped closer to him until they were a foot apart, “-that I did it to keep you safe, to protect you.”

  Eli looked up from the floor into her eyes and shook his head. “Don’t say that Hunter, it’s so cliché. You kept it from me because I’m a liability, a nobody.”

  Hunter backed away suddenly. “Wh-what? Eli you’re not a nobody, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me!”

  “Then why don’t you trust me?!” He leapt suddenly to his feet, anger flooding out of him as if he’d tried all along to keep it inside. Hunter stood frozen in shock, wishing she could erase time and end this before it started. “How could you keep something like this from me? Is it because I don’t have superpowers? Is it because I can’t compare to you?”

  “Eli please, stop saying things you don’t understand-”

  “Oh, right, because I don’t know what it’s like to be different.” He laughed bitterly, his eyes were burning w
ith hurt. “I knew it, I knew this wouldn’t work.” He looked her up and down, almost in disgust. “I’m just a geeky freedom-fighter, and you’re… you’re so beautiful and unique and special. Why would someone like you want to be with someone so normal and insignificant as me?”

  “Eli,” Hunter began, swallowing more tears in order to get this out. “I d-didn’t tell you about what I can do for a whole lot of reasons, m-most of which involved locking me up in an institution or something stupid like what happens in the movies... but most of all, it was because I thought that you would see me differently… as some sort of freak or something.”

  Eli sat down against his wall, staring at the carpet beside him. Hunter sat herself gingerly down on the edge of the bed, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

  They were silent for a long time. Eli looked everywhere but directly at her. Hunter’s foot tapped on the soft carpet, thudding like the fast-paced beating of her heart.

  “Say something,” she said in a quiet, hollow voice.

  Eli sighed. “Of course I see you differently Hunter. You can make fire shoot out of your hands, you can walk through flames without getting burnt and God knows what else. You’re now this... this amazing person with impossible powers that I can’t compare to anymore. I’m just a normal guy. Why would you want to be with someone like me?”

  “Eli.” She stood and knelt down in front of him. A shaky hand reached up to rest against his cheek. The touch was electric. “Why wouldn’t I want to be with someone like you? Do you honestly think that I have spent so long getting to know you, falling in love with you, because you have superpowers? Eli if that’s what I wanted, I’d still be waiting for Superman. I want you. No one else.” Eli’s eyes were sparkling behind his glasses, glimmering with innocence again. He wasn’t angry anymore. “You make me feel normal Eli. When I’m around you, I forget my weaknesses. I forget the terrible things in my past or what I fear is coming. When I’m with you I have control over this… this burning desire within me that always threatens to explode. When I’m with you, there’s hope for me.”

  Eli brushed a red curl out of her eyes and smiled. His fingers left a line of tingling sensations as he ran them down her chin and behind her ear and neck, exploring her as though she were a brand new person.

  “It’s going to take me a while to get used to this,” he whispered, and Hunter opened her eyes that were closed at his gentle touch.

  “I understand.”

  “But I still can’t be without you. My feelings haven’t changed.”

  Hunter’s entire body filled with warmth. He’s forgiven me. She reached up and placed her hand behind his neck, drawing his lips to hers. It was more than enough time to back out, but Eli didn’t resist. He put his hands around her waist and forced her onto his lap where she sat comfortably and kissed him. That kiss sparked fresh memories of the intimate feelings they shared with each other. It was the beginning of a new level in their relationship. Finally, all secrets were out and Hunter didn’t feel the need to hide anything from him anymore.

  She couldn’t believe how lucky she was to have someone so forgiving and so loving. After everything that had happened - Miss Smart’s death, Joshua’s promise to keep her prisoner for the remainder of her life and then the pain of feeling like she’d lost Eli - it was as though a huge burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Relief could not even describe the feeling of knowing that Eli had forgiven her, that they were past all the drama she’d feared for so long. In just a night, they were whole again. It was everything she’d dreamed of.

  “Well I don’t know about you,” said Eli. “But I think I need a drink.”

  “That sounds like the best idea I’ve ever heard.”

  The empty house welcomed she and Eli. As the two of them ran downstairs, Hunter tried to relax and forget their fight. She tried to forget Joshua’s betrayal and even the fact that the world was starting to discover her secret. She let go of everything to enjoy a peaceful night with the man she loved, for as long as it would last.

  When he wrapped his arms around her waist and spun her in circles around the kitchen, she laughed with him until her throbbing head and stinging shoulder couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Eli!” she screamed. “Ouch, put me down!”

  “Oh sorry!” He gently lowered her, running his hands down her face and gently over the bandage on her shoulder. “You look sexy in the hospital gown,” he grinned. “And… wait, whose jumper is this?”

  “It’s… its Jack’s. I bumped into him at the hospital.” It would be far too hard to get into the Joshua-coma-Jack-rescue saga, especially when the complications had just started to unravel.

  “Well… I know just what you need to kick that concussion of yours in the butt: drinks!” he declared and sprinted to the fridge.

  Still giggling, Hunter sat herself down on the bench.

  “What do you feel like?” he asked, rummaging in the icebox.

  “Whatever you’re having.”

  Eli brought out a cocktail mix and reached into a high cupboard for a bottle of vodka. Then, he turned to her and grinned cheekily.

  “Naughty, naughty,” Hunter chuckled.

  “Melissa taught me how to make cocktails.” Eli took two martini glasses out from beneath the bench and placed them beside their ingredients.

  “Of course she did.”

  “Some of them are really great. And I know I’m not twenty-one yet,” he winked at her, “but I do know a thing or two about my liquor.”

  Hunter watched with fascination as Eli whipped up an impressive drink and handed it to her. It was a pale green and slushy and smelt very strongly of alcohol. Eli lifted his glass and clinked theirs together.

  “To a new beginning,” he said.

  Hunter tapped her glass against his, her heart leaping. “A new beginning it is.”

  They sipped and winced together, and the look on each other’s face made them chuckle, cough and start doubling over in laughter.

  And the laughter grew until they were in hysterics on the kitchen floor with their martini glasses, staring at the kitchen cupboards on the opposite side, their throats sore from the ice in the cocktail and the burning liquor.

  “You know what this needs?”

  Eli looked at her with an expression of curiosity. “What?”

  Without thinking about it or mulling over how strange it was to openly use her powers around him, Hunter concentrated on their glasses, channeled the heat to the very tips of her fingers and released it.

  Two bursts of flames shot from her fingers and suddenly their drinks were alight. Eli gaped, his eyes widening behind the reflection of fire in his glasses. Hunter feared she might’ve scared him, so she laid a hand on his wrist and grinned.

  “Now you’re a secret agent.”

  His eyes met hers. “My fantasy. You remembered.”

  “Of course I remember. I have trouble forgetting every moment with you.”

  He looked puzzled. “Hmm.”

  “What’s ‘hmm’?” she asked anxiously. Have I said too much?

  “Well… I’m just wondering how in hell I’m going to get my hands on the Dilorian, I mean that’s gotta be impossible.”

  Hunter giggled, looking down at her melting cocktail. Eli leaned over and kissed her cheek softly. She twisted and met his lips, kissing him with a gentle, teasing touch. She wanted more, and by the urgency of his hand as it rested behind her neck and drew her closer, she felt certain he wanted more too. But how soon was too soon? Was Eli still mad at her, or was she completely forgiven? Did he fear her and what she could do, or did he mean what he said earlier, that it didn’t matter?

  “Eli…” she whispered, staring at his chest so close to her and hoping that he was thinking the same thing. “You and me… we’re… I mean w…”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t know.” She sighed and twisted her body to face him full on, searching inside her for the courage to say what was on her heart. She had never expected it to b
e so easy, even if she hadn’t had long to worry about it. She deserved weeks of not talking to him, possibly even a break up, but he hadn’t argued or shouted. He had chosen to make things right. “I guess I just want to know what I did to deserve your forgiveness so quickly.”

  Eli blinked in bewilderment. “Don’t you want-”

  “No! I mean, yes-” she assured him. “It’s not that I don’t want to be with you again, it’s more than what I wanted, it’s just that... usually time goes by before couples are about to forgive each other, for wounds to heal. When I woke up in the hospital and I knew you’d figured out what I could do... I wanted to see you straight away. Joshua said you stayed with me, just like you promised. I came here not knowing what to expect, except maybe a really long argument and then for you to kick me out... but you weren’t mad at all.”

  “I was,” he said and turned away. “When I left the hospital to come home and change, I listened to music I don’t even like and had all the TVs and radios playing in the house, trying to fill my head with noise so that I would drown out the one voice inside my mind that kept mocking me, telling me I wasn’t right to trust someone like you.”

  Hunter felt unexpected tears well in her eyes, but Eli took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

  “But I was wrong. Despite the fact that you did keep something important from me, which kind of made me feel like an idiot for not seeing it before, I couldn’t keep my thoughts away from you. Everything reminded me of you. The smoking add came on the radio - you know, the Quitline one? - and I thought of you. And the really old King Kong from the 1930s was playing on the TV.”

  Hunter’s puzzled expression made him smile.

  “I thought of the night we met. I’ll never forget what you said to me after I told you I was passionate about animal rights.”

  Hunter bit her lip. “I don’t remember.”

  “You said to never give up on what you believe in. And I believe in us, Hunter. I’ve never been so sure of how I feel about anything in my entire life.” His strange green eyes swarmed with passion and warmth. “I’m in love with you.”