Frost grunted and stalked past him into the bunker. Behind her brother’s back, Tandy winked at him and something in his chest lurched at the impish just-between-us gleam in her eyes. He quashed the feeling. No lurching allowed until he had this damn pyromania under control.
“I’d say his bark is worse than his bite,” Tandy whispered as her brother prowled through the space, “but you’d know I was lying.”
“Is he going to give me frostbite if I try to put sensors on him?”
“On him? I thought it was me you wanted to test?”
“Both of you, actually. I’m trying to determine exactly what you do and exactly what that does to him.”
She nodded, the only sign of her nerves revealed when she tugged at the cuffs of her jacket. Even though it was a Saturday, she was wearing a grey business suit, the tailored pants hugging her subtle curves. He’d told her to wear something comfortable. He shouldn’t be surprised that she’d gone with a slightly more casual version of her power suit. All those fancy outfits were sort of her version of a super suit. Her disguise and her armor.
Frost reached the end of the lab and turned around, frowning at Eisenmann standing so close to his sister. “You have an excellent reputation.”
The words sounded more like an accusation than a compliment, but Eric just smiled and said, “Thank you. And likewise. I know you’re busy, so I’ll try not to take up too much of your time.” He waved toward his bedroom, the most secure room in the bunker should anything go wrong. “I’ve set up my equipment in here.”
He got Frost hooked up quickly and efficiently, but when he went to do the same for Tandy, he fumbled with the expensive sensors. He felt calm, perfectly in control, but for some reason the fire churned and flared restlessly in the back of his mind whenever his skin brushed hers. The graceful way she moved her hands made something shift oddly in his gut. Those delicate, fine-boned hands and wrists, such a contrast from his own.
“Relax,” she whispered, setting her fingertips lightly on his bare arm. “This is going to work.”
Then she smiled, and just like the wink it hit him in the chest. Not good. He needed focus. No distractions. No confusions.
Instead of replying to her, he nodded curtly and quickly slapped on the rest of the sensors. He backed up to the computer panel, where he could interpret the data as it came in, and made sure everything was working properly before turning his attention back to his subjects. “We’ll start small. Frost, if you would, please use just a small amount of your freezing power against Tandy. Tandy, see if you can shut it off.”
Frost frowned. “Now?”
Eisenmann nodded. “Now.”
Chapter Ten – Boiling a Frog
Three hours later, all Tandy had to show for her efforts was a pervasive sense of cold that bored all the way down to her bones.
She was vaguely aware of Eisenmann cursing as she once again failed to engage her alleged power. She’d had a break a couple hours ago when Eisenmann decided he wanted to get readings on how Frost could freeze a super’s powers. Frost had frozen Eisenmann on the first try—the fire winking out instantly—but as soon as her brother had released his hold, the fire had rushed back. Apparently Frost’s ability was like hitting pause, when what Eisenmann really needed was stop.
What he really needed was her. And she was failing. Again.
“That’s enough. She’s had enough,” Frost growled, taking Tandy’s hands and chaffing them between his own to try to warm them. Her skin didn’t actually feel cold now that he’d stopped chilling her, but the repeated exposure to cold had left her feeling like the ice had burrowed under her skin to stay.
“Frost, I’m fine,” she protested, somehow managing to keep her teeth from chattering as she spoke.
“No. We’re done,” he said with his typical, I-am-your-brother-and-I-know-best insistence. “We’ve tried for longer than he had any right to expect. Obviously he misinterpreted your blood work. You don’t have a power and there’s nothing wrong with that. There never has been.”
She didn’t know which of them he was trying to convince, but it didn’t matter. “I’m not done yet.”
“Tandy.”
“I don’t know if I have a power or not. I don’t know if I want to have one. All I know is I’m not leaving here until I’m sure and I’m not sure. So you can go, if you want, but I’m not done.”
She pulled her hands from his grip and walked toward Eisenmann. “Any ideas?”
He looked up from his monitors, a wry smile twisting his lips. “A couple, but your brother might murder me if I suggest we try them.”
“Live dangerously. I’m not giving up.”
“This isn’t working,” Frost growled, coming up to loom at her side. “We haven’t had even a flicker of success.”
“That’s because we’ve been boiling a frog.”
Tandy frowned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I have a feeling I’m the frog.”
“You are, in a way.” Eisenmann braced his hands on either side of the computer display. “It’s this old wives’ tale—I’m not even sure if it’s scientifically sound. But essentially what it says is if you throw a frog in boiling water, it will jump right out again. But if you put the same frog in cold water, and then slowly heat the water, it will just sit there until it becomes soup.”
“So we’re making me into frog soup.” She shivered. “Or a frog-sicle in this case.”
“We aren’t engaging your fight or flight reflex,” Eisenmann explained. “Nothing we’ve done has made you feel threatened. And if this ability is one of the more instinctively oriented ones, like I believe it is, then you can’t consciously engage it. You need to be afraid for it to kick in.”
“No,” Frost said forcefully. “No one is threatening Tandy while I’m here.”
“And she knows that, on a deep, instinctual level. She knows you would never, ever hurt her. So she’s doing nothing to defend herself against you.” He pushed away the console, beginning to pace again, restless energy pulsing out of him. “Tandy has never felt threatened in her life and in some ways that’s amazing. You should be proud that you all kept her so safe—but by keeping her so safe, you also cut her off from realizing her own strength, from recognizing that she has the ability to defend herself.”
“So what do you suggest we do?” Tandy asked, putting a hand on Frost’s arm to shush him when he would have growled.
“We need to trick your body into feeling like you’re in danger.” Eisenmann flicked a quick glance at Frost’s stormy face and pressed on, still pacing. “If we use my fire—”
“Absolutely not.”
“You would still be here to freeze me if anything went wrong. You could get her out of here, seal the door behind you, and even if I flame out you’d be safe on the other side of the blast doors.”
Tandy watched the two of them argue about the safety issues—Eisenmann who didn’t trust himself and Frost who didn’t trust her. “I think Frost should wait outside,” she announced loudly, shocking them both to silence. “If I know he’s here, I’ll expect him to save me. I won’t ever believe I’m in enough danger to activate this thing. If I have it.”
“And if you don’t have it, then I’m on the other side of that goddamn door while you’re burning to a crisp.”
“Eric won’t let me burn.”
“Tandy,” Eisenamann said low, “you can’t know that. I don’t know that.”
“One of us saved me the last two times you went all flamey around me. Whether it was you or me, whoever did it will do it again. And we’ll have the sensors to tell us which it was.”
“There is no way in hell I’m leaving this room,” Frost snarled.
“I agree,” Eisenmann said quickly. “Frost stays or we’re done here.”
“Fine.” She hadn’t really thought they would agree to making Frost leave the room anyway. But at least now they weren’t arguing about whether the experiment was too dangerous to do at all. “But he stands
over there and he does not interfere.” She pointed to the far corner. “If you wreck this by being an overprotective punk, I will make you pay, big brother, and you know I know how.”
Frost eyed the corner and turned back to Eisenmann. “What if you set me on fire?”
“What?” Tandy yelped.
“If I was threatened, rather than Tandy, could that activate her power?”
“Don’t answer that,” Tandy demanded, but Eisenmann was already speaking.
“I’m not sure. It might. Or it’s possible that her defense mechanism is strictly self-defense and you would burn up like a roman candle.”
“We know it works when I’m threatened. We’re sticking to what works. End of discussion,” she snapped. “Stop trying to be the only hero in the room, Frost.”
Eisenmann and Frost studied one another for a long minute, sharing one of those frustratingly enigmatic man-stares where some sort of message seemed to be passed. Were they agreeing to try it her way? Or were they silently conspiring against her?
“Eric?”
His gaze jerked away from her brother and landed hard on her. God, the way he looked at her in that moment. It was like the whole universe—galaxies and big bangs—rolled up into a single silent promise. He would never let anything bad happen to her.
Tandy’s insteps melted.
Eisenmann’s eyes snapped back to Frost. “Come on. Let’s get the sensors switched.”
Tandy was giddy for about fifteen seconds before the truth hit her that she’d just volunteered to be attacked by fire. Suddenly melty insteps were the farthest thing from her mind. She fidgeted nervously as the boys yanked sensors off Frost and affixed them to Eric.
She wasn’t scared per se. With Frost in the room, the odds that a single hair on her head would get singed were slim to none. And after the way Eisenmann had just looked at her, she knew he would burn himself to ash before he allowed her to be scalded.
No, the nerves were something else.
Moment of truth. That’s where they were. The moment when she would find out for sure if she really had a super power or not.
She wasn’t sure what she wanted that truth to be. A couple days ago she would have sworn up and down and sideways that she never wanted a super power. But today, with Eisenmann believing in her and counting on her, with Frost doubting and trying to protect her from another disappointment… today was different. Today she almost wanted Eric to be right.
“Tandy? Are you ready?”
As I’ll ever be. “Yeah. Let’s do this.”
* * * * *
Eisenmann had only tried to intentionally manipulate the fire once before. It had taken him twice as long to lock it down, once he invited it out of its box, and the pile of ash where his mattress used to be had convinced him not to try again. And yet here he was. Standing inches away from Tandy Nightwing, with her brother looming angrily in the corner, getting ready to invite the fire out to play.
This might be a very bad idea.
If it had been him who’d brought the fire under control the last two times, what would happen if he couldn’t this time? Not that he thought it had been him. The signs all pointed to Tandy. But what if she wasn’t able to do it again? What if Frost wasn’t able to stop him in time?
The fire fed on his doubts, crackling and writhing through the recesses of his brain. He wouldn’t need to call it now. It would just be a question of letting up for a second on his constant battle to keep control, but that went against his every instinct.
Tandy’s clear-as-glass green eyes were so damn trusting. He didn’t deserve that trust. She was so beautiful and so damn fragile. And he was supposed to threaten her, make her fear for her life. Sometimes science sucked.
“Eric?”
She was the only one who called him Eric. He’d been just Eisenmann or Dr. Eisenmann at Trident for so long that he’d almost forgotten he could be anything else. A man as well as a researcher. A person separate from his professional accomplishments. Tandy saw the whole. It was alarming how much that had come to mean to him in such a short time. Almost as alarming as the way her tentative smile hit him right in the chest.
He wanted to protect her, but it went a step beyond that. He wanted her. In a way he couldn’t let himself want anyone. She was delicate and graceful, but her small frame could support a fierce and fearless spirit. Gorgeous and intimidating… and damn if her mouth wasn’t eroticism itself.
Suddenly Eisenmann didn’t need to release the fire. It rode hard to the front of his mind, taking over on a tide of lust. Flames burst into the air, out of control. Shit. Come on, Tandy. Stop me. He fought down the flames, trying to keep them from consuming him, from consuming her, from melting the sensors. He was winning, the flames were calming, then she slapped her hands on his chest and they suddenly shot up again, twice as high. Her eyes were wide, frightened, and even as he hated that look in her eyes, the fire fed on it.
“Eric, stop.” She shoved—but it wasn’t a physical shove, he realized. She was shoving at the flames. Shoving the fire back into its box. The inferno winked out, retreating under that psychic pulse, leaving only the lingering scent of ozone in the air, like the memory of lightning.
Her eyes were wide. “Was that me?”
Frost’s jaw hung open.
Eisenmann wanted to say yes. It had felt like her, but he held his tongue, rushing around to the monitors. Some of them were destroyed, melted in spite of the heat shield he’d propped in front of them, but a few were still working. And those few were spewing data. Hot damn. “Yes. That was you.”
“Holy shit,” Frost muttered.
“Wow.” Tandy’s eyes were huge and for a second he thought she might faint from the shock. But he should have known better. Tandy wasn’t a fainter. Her face split into a blindingly bright smile. “Let’s do it again.”
Chapter Eleven – Where There’s Smoke
He was so damn close. And he was losing his mind.
Between the pent up excitement of knowing the cure was close and the agitation over the fact that he hadn’t heard from Diana in over a week now, the fire was consuming more and more of his brain, making it impossible for him to stay focused long enough to make that last leap to the solution.
Five days since the tests with Tandy and Frost had provided him with the exact data he needed. Five days of analyzing and experimenting, collaborating and researching. Five days and he was still within reach and miles away at the same time.
Frustration spiked and Eisenmann cursed as his fifth keyboard today lit on fire beneath his fingertips. “Damn it.” He’d abandoned laptops three days ago, using wireless keyboards with the screens and harddrives tucked behind heat shields. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was a little less wasteful.
He chucked the melted hunk of keyboard into the trash bin with its siblings as a ringing penetrated the silence of the lab. Since he hadn’t been aware the bunker had a phone, it took him a solid two minutes to track down the sound, during which time the ringing stopped briefly and started up again seconds later. When he tracked down the phone, it was an ancient, wall-mounted receiver, tucked inside a blast-shielded box on the wall next to the door. He almost didn’t answer it—after all, who would be calling a phone he didn’t even know existed? But curiosity—and the need to make the damn ringing stop—had him lifting it from the cradle.
“Hello?”
“Eric! I knew Trident had to have a phone down there.”
“Tandy? How did you get this number?”
“I called the front desk and asked to be connected to the south bunker. How’s the research going? You haven’t been answering my emails.”
“I’m having trouble focusing long enough to open my email without setting the computer on fire.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that. Do you want me to come by and zap your fire into remission so you can think?”
He wanted to say yes, and not only so he’d be able to think straight. He wanted to see her. Would she
help him be clear-headed or just be another kind of distraction? “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, is there anything I can do to help? All the resources of Nightwing Industries are at your disposal.”
“I appreciate it. I’ll let you know if there’s anything you can do.”
There was a long pause, and Eisenmann had a feeling whatever she said next was the real reason she’d called.
“You aren’t experimenting on yourself are you? Down there all by yourself where no one would even know if anything happened to you?”
“If I burned out down here, there are systems in place to notify my superiors at Trident.”
“That isn’t what I meant, Eric.”
“I’m not experimenting on myself,” he assured her. But only because he hadn’t gotten to that point yet. He’d seen exactly what Tandy did. She’d even managed to do it against Frost by the end of their session—emitting a psychic pulse that adjusted the frequency of his brainwaves to temporarily disable his power. Eisenmann just hadn’t been able to figure out how to replicate it yet. That flash of inspiration was evading him.
“Promise me you won’t try anything dangerous on your own,” Tandy demanded. “You don’t know how you’re going to react. If it makes you worse, you’ll need me there to rein you in.”
Out of the question. He wouldn’t risk her. There was a chance whatever he tried would somehow cancel out her ability to defend herself from him. “I don’t think that’s wise.”
“If not me, then Darla. She’s volunteered. She’s worried about you, you know. If you let her, she’d be down there like a shot to help out. Or Lucien or Justice. They care about you, Eric. We all want to help.”
And he cared about them. Which was why he wouldn’t be inviting anyone to join him in his hell. “I’ll be careful, Tandy.” It was the most he could promise her.
“You don’t have to do everything alone, you stubborn ass.”
Super Hot (a Superlovin' novella) Page 7
