by C. S. Won
The laughter died down into coughing fits of giggles, and then the occasional sputtering chuckle, before finally settling into an awkward silence. Many took that as their cue to break from the group, and what was once whole dissolved into meandering parts. A few of the rookies went over to the row of boots lined up against the wall and picked up one at a time, sitting down on a connecting bench and beginning the process of polishing them with brush and rag. Tommy and Stephanie went over to the trucks and began an inspection of the engines, with Tommy explaining which gear or part needed to be in optimal condition. The rest of the crew disappeared into the back of the station, presumably to eat an early lunch.
Gabe stood up and stretched his arms over his head. He threw on his jacket and stepped through the open garage door to the outside world. A dull, grey light shone in his eyes, and the frigid wind bit into his face, tossing his hair back from his brow and sending his jacket fluttering about. He threw his collar up to form a barrier around his neck, a shield against the coiling winds.
He stopped in the middle of the driveway, breath steaming in the air. The station had experienced a huge surge in popularity in the past few days, people calling in or dropping by to inquire about Adam. Sometimes they asked about Jae, but Adam was by far the topic of choice, as dangerous people often were. Usually, there was a gaggle of reporters camped out front, with cameras and microphones pressed into the faces of any firefighter trying to get to work, but no traffic passed through the front of their station today, not even a roving cameraman or an out-of-towner looking for a tourist shot. An uncommon sight. He had gotten so used to their presence that it was almost strange to see the yard so empty. Only the wind kept him company today, chilling him to the bone. He pulled his collar even tighter, as high up as it would allow, baring his teeth at the cold. The forecast called for icy rain, the first of the season, and it wasn’t wrong. The conditions were ideal for that kind of storm, and already, Gabe could see the clouds gathering over the horizon.
A figure emerged in the distance, traveling from the sidewalk and up the long driveway to the station. The stranger was dressed in faded jeans, stained sneakers, and a bomber jacket that looked two sizes too big. He kept his head down, wearing a baseball hat with the bill folded into an exaggerated curve, casting a long shadow down his already obscured face. First visitor of the day, it seemed. Judging by the person’s attire, Gabe didn’t think it was a reporter. The outfit was far too casual. Homeless, maybe? No, he didn’t think so. There was purpose in his walk, like he knew where he was going and what he wanted.
The stranger stopped a few feet away from him, head still bowed, bomber jacket swelling in the wind. Gabe greeted him. “Hello, sir, can I help you with something?”
“It’s me,” the man said. His voice came out hoarse.
“Excuse me?”
The stranger looked up. The shadow from his hat faded away from his face, revealing a cross-stitch of scars. Gabe took a step back. Adam. “What are you doing here?”
“Where’s Jae?” He asked.
“The police are after you.”
“No shit.”
“Are you going to hurt us?”
“I’ll ask again: where is Jae?”
“He’s not here.”
“Don’t lie to me.” The air around them sweltered, hot and heavy.
“I told you, he’s not here.”
Adam brushed past Gabe, walking towards the opened garage. Gabe followed but kept his distance, fearful of what Adam might do. He repeated his assertion that Jae was not on the premises, but his pleas fell on deaf, rotted ears. Adam moved forward with steely and searching eyes.
The winter light gave way as they entered the garage. The cold winds followed in after Gabe, nipping at his back, but died off once they reached the heat from Adam’s body. He stopped near the front of the two trucks, pushed the bill of his hat upwards, and looked around, bright blue eyes moving in that ruined face of his. The rookies stared at him with jaws agape, dropping their polished boots to the ground. Rubber heels clacked against the concrete. Adam pulled his hat off, revealing a bare scalp full of intersecting burn scars. Tommy and Stephanie greeted him with stunned expressions, and then moved away from the trucks, slowly, all caution and fear. They crept toward Adam with silent footsteps, as if they were afraid the slightest bit of noise would startle him.
“Adam?” Stephanie said. “What are you doing here?”
Adam measured her with a cold glare. “Where’s Jae?”
Everyone in the garage exchanged glances except for Adam, who kept his gaze on Stephanie.
“Jae’s not in, son,” Tommy said.
Adam narrowed his eyes, thin white slits in a field of red and black. He turned to look at the rookies and regarded them one by one, drinking in their unfamiliar faces. It was hard to gauge what he was thinking or what he was feeling. His face’s cooked, exposed muscles betrayed no emotion and no expressional act of thought. His ruined skull was a blank slate, a canvas of neutrality.
After a moment Adam turned and focused his attention on Gabe, letting his gaze rest upon him, as if the very sight of him was a relaxant. It took every measure of Gabe’s strength and willpower to not look away from that ghastly visage, to not vomit up his horror right then and there. Was this really the man he once knew? He had seen Adam before when the wounds were still fresh and had not felt revulsion or disgust, but to see Adam standing before him in this manner—one arm in his pocket, the other sleeve vacant and flapping in the cold wind, his face a scrawl of red wounds—was surreal. This was the stuff nightmares were made of, standing tall and proud, eyes brimming with life even as their flesh rotted away. Adam’s very existence was an affront to the natural order of things, and to see him stand there made Gabe’s stomach curdle with unease and dismay. A man in his condition should not be alive.
Adam looked away from Gabe and focused his sights back on Stephanie. He took a few steps toward her, not stopping until he was close enough to kiss. She brought her arms up against her chest defensively, slinking away from him.
“Do you remember the hurtful things you said to me back in the truck many months ago?” Adam asked.
Stephanie shook her head. “What?”
“You had this smug look on your face, like you were proud—happy even—that you insulted me. Did it feel good to try and strip me of my dignity, tearing me down until nothing was left but my exposed soul? Did it make you feel like a big girl knowing that you were able to knock me down a peg or two?”
She looked at the ground, her eyes searching, her lips pressed tight together.
“You started it,” she said, looking up. “You started insulting all of us, unprovoked.”
“That’s your defense? Deflecting blame? Do you ever take responsibility for your own words and actions?” Adam took his hand out of his pocket. It began to glow, to the astonishment of everyone present, his hand awash in a bright hum of orange. “Allow me teach you a lesson, then, in personal responsibility.” He reached forward, and she took a step back in response, her face lit up by the light from Adam’s hand.
“Stand down, son.”
The chief stepped around the corner of a truck, a gun gripped tight in his hands. Adam looked at him, surprised, and moved away from Stephanie, lowering his arm. The chief, holding the gun steady, positioned himself a safe distance away from Adam and the deadly reach of his hand.
“What are you doing, chief?” Adam asked.
“Apprehending you. I’ve already called the police.”
Adam bared his teeth. “Why would you do that?”
The chief looked at him, the muscles in his bearded jaw moving with the slightest of shifts. His gaze was unwavering, stoic hazel eyes focused on Adam with undaunted intensity. A solitary strand of sweat trickled its way down the side of his round face.
“I’m sorry we failed you, son,” the chief said. “And there’s no one here sorrier than me. I should have done more to ensure your safety. I should have done more to make sure y
ou weren’t hurt in that fire. But I was negligent and my mistake cost you dearly, more than I can imagine, and every time I see you it’s a reminder of how much I failed. Every day I wish I could switch places with you, that it could have been me bed ridden and not you. I fucked up, son, and for that I am sorry.”
Adam took a small step toward him.
“But this—what you’re doing now, it’s unacceptable. The man before me is not the man I mentored, trained, and fought for. That’s not you. I refuse to believe you willingly hurt those people.”
“Would you believe me if I said it was only an accident?” Adam took another step forward. “Or would you believe me if I told you I just snapped, and I wanted to hurt those people?”
The chief jabbed the gun at him. “No farther, son. We don’t want to do something that we might regret.”
“I have no regrets.” He took another step, and then another, and then one more, walking up to his chief until the gun was pressed up against his chest. “You’re not going to shoot me, but if you are then you might as well do it now. I’ve made sure you won’t miss.” He positioned himself so that the gun was right up against where his heart should be. “Do it, chief. Kill me; make the pain stop. Shoot me dead. It’s what I want. Nothing would please me more than to be released from this hell. I’ve earned that much.” He clenched his fist. “Come on, what are you waiting for? Shoot me!”
The chief gritted his teeth, face glossy with sweat. The gun shook in his hand, the metal rattling.
Adam sighed. “Truth is, is that I didn’t mean to hurt those people at the hospital, or at the restaurant. I wasn’t aware of what I could do or what I was capable of back then, and so what happened was purely an accident. Their deaths were pure misfortune, nothing more. If I had more control and more knowledge of what I was suddenly able to do, then all of that could have been avoided.”
Adam raised his hand, slowly, wrapping his fingers around the barrel of the gun with gentle delicacy.
“I don’t know how I got these . . .” he pressed his lips together thoughtfully, “powers, or why I got them. And frankly, I don’t give a shit. All I know is that I’m thankful for having them. It’s the one good thing that’s happened to me in my life—well, the second—and now I finally have the means to do whatever I please, without someone chastising me for it.” He glared at his chief. “You never liked me. You were always fond of Jae or Gabe even this worthless bitch Stephanie, but never me. You treated me like the black sheep of your so-called family, like I was something to be ashamed of.”
The gun began to glow. The chief expressed his shock and threw his hands away from the weapon, stumbling back a few steps. Adam still held the gun to his chest, but pulled it away and dropped it on the ground. It clattered noisily, the barrel showing significant signs of warp and distortion. He took a step toward the chief.
“Not once did you ever thank me for a job well done. You thanked everyone else, especially Jae, but not once did you take the time to show me a little gratitude. I was never worthy enough for your praise.”
The chief held one hand in the other, his palms already starting to balloon and swell. “That’s a lie, son, and you know it. I’ve thanked you for each and every job we did together. I made no exceptions. You’re creating history that was never there.”
Adam gave his chief a sad sort of look. “It doesn’t matter anymore. If you won’t respect me, then I’ll make you respect me.”
His hand began to glow again, and with the devil’s speed lunged forward and gripped the chief by the neck. A gasp swept the room. Stephanie screamed. The chief gave a choked yelp, eyes going wide with pain. Adam rammed him violently back against a table, spilling an assortment of tools on the floor. The chief slapped at Adam’s mottled red arm, but there was no coherency to his defense. It was just panicked flailing, hands and fists flying wildly in terror. Adam refused to budge.
He released his grip and took a step back. The chief fell to his knees, wheezing in hoarse, rasping gasps, saliva dripping from his lips, hands rubbing against his throat. He looked up at Adam, eyes cracked red with webs of blood.
“I’ll—”
He exploded in a belch of fire, great flames erupting from his body. He teetered forward in a screaming heap, thrashing about on the cold concrete. No one made a move to help. They were too terrified to do anything, handcuffed by fear. The chief’s screams began to peter out into choked whimpers, his struggles growing weaker and weaker, until he eventually grew still. The smell of cooked flesh wafted through the air. A pack of rolling footsteps thundered through the garage, and the rest of the crew who were settled near the back of the station came running into view, voices demanding to know what the commotion was about. They all skidded to a stop when they saw the burning body, gasps of disbelief rising from the newly gathered. Adam greeted his former compatriots without so much as a glance or a nod, peering instead at the work he had done, at the man he had just murdered. A few murmured Adam’s name in furtive whispers when they realized who was standing before them, but the rest could only stare, faces lit bright by the formless mass of fire teeming before them.
Gabe fell to his knees. The chief was dead. The event had occurred with such terrifying speed that he wondered if what had just happened was even real. Could it have been a dream? The heat settling on his skin and the bitter smell emanating from the chief’s burning body told him it was not. He looked at Adam and his glowing hand, the fire reflecting off his eyes. Jae was right; Adam was gifted with powers, but this was beyond anything Gabe could have ever imagined. A man able to create fire out of thin air was supposed to be the domain of science-fiction. There was no possible way Adam could possess such an ability. It defied all logic. It should have been impossible, and yet, there he stood, as if he had jumped straight out of a comic book.
What the hell did that lightning storm do to him?
None of that mattered though. Adam had murdered his chief, the same man who had always treated him fairly and with respect, no matter what Adam said. Yet, he’d deemed it necessary to murder him. Why? Because he felt the chief didn’t pay enough attention to him? How could he not see that the chief wanted nothing but the best for him? How could Adam take his patience and kindness as an act of hostility, like it was an affront to his very existence?
A surge of anger rose up in Gabe’s chest. The chief was loved and respected by all, and now he was gone, taken violently from this world by a man who encompassed all the worst traits a person could possess. The call of vengeance spoke loudly to him, and its song grew more alluring as he stared at Adam looking at his chief’s burning body with indifference and coldness. He saw the gun several feet away, chrome gleaming in the winter light, no longer steaming from the heat. It would only take one shot, just one shot to end this filth once and for all. Gabe didn’t think about the repercussions of his actions; he could only see what needed to be done: correct the mistake Jae had made when he saved Adam so many months ago.
Gabe made his move but stopped when he saw one of the rookies flash by him with a fire extinguisher. He stopped next to the chief and hosed him down, bulbous plumes of smoke rising from the scorched body. When he was finished, the chief emerged as a shapeless, smoldering shell, every inch cooked through in the darkest black.
Silence swept the room. No one batted an eye or twitched a finger. It seemed everyone had forgotten to even breathe. Stephanie made the first move to disrupt the pause, breaking into a sprint toward the chief’s body. Falling to her knees next to him, she held a hand over her mouth as tears welled up in her eyes. She placed a hand on the corpse, tentative, unsure, and then yanked it back, like it was something she realized she shouldn’t do. Adam approached her, his shadow draping over her. Stephanie, cheeks wet with fresh tears, said nothing as she looked up at him, hopelessness scrawled on her face.
The fire extinguisher flew across the room and ricocheted off Adam’s chest in a resounding clang. He stumbled backwards, crying out in pain, and Gabe saw the rookie running
toward Adam and gathering him up in his arms. Screaming his fury, he lifted Adam off the ground and then flattened him back into it with a loud, cracking thud, landing with him in a mounted position.
“I’ll fucking kill you, monster!” The rookie yelled.
They tumbled and grappled with each other, snarling in each other’s faces, arms and legs entwined in complex knots. The rookie dug his fists into Adam’s sternum, repeating the motion with untiring vigor, and then slowly worked his way up to his face, administering the same punishment there. Adam howled in pain, blood splattering from his lips, and tried to maneuver himself into a more favorable position, but the rookie had the advantage with the mount, giving him more leverage, more power, and more options.
“Green horn!” Gabe yelled at the rookie. “Get off of him! That’s enough!” He didn’t say that because he felt sorry for Adam, but because he knew all Adam had to do was touch him to bring this to a decisive end, and that moment could come any second.
“He killed the chief! I’m not going to finish until I kill this bastard,” the rookie said, flailing away at his target underneath.
“I said get the fuck away—”
Adam’s hand shot up and wrapped itself around the rookie’s throat. The rookie pulled back, making a wet gagging noise, lips stretched back in surprise. He clawed at Adam’s glowing hand, trying to wrench it loose. He managed to dig grooves into the scarred flesh, but Adam was deceptively strong, and held the grip in place, fingers pulling the skin of the rookie’s neck into taut, little creases. Adam allowed himself a smile, lips cracked and bleeding, but rife with the pleasure of victory.
